Osho – Man lives in bondage, and the bondage is not imposed by others, it is self-created. It is created because we are afraid of the insecure. In the name of security we create a bondage around ourselves. Yes, it gives a feeling of cosiness, warmth, safety, but it is all false because sooner or later death will take it all away.
Because of this we never explore, we never go beyond the boundaries of the familiar. The familiar is very small and we go on moving in the familiar, in circles. Our life knows no growth, because growth can only happen if we move not in circles but in a line. If we are linear then there is growth. If we go around in circles we go on repeating the same thing again and again.
Freedom is possible because we have made our own prison. We can get out of it any moment that we decide to. It is only a question of decision, of courage, of guts.
Freedom is the ultimate value in life. Nothing is more important than that, because out of it comes everything else that is valuable. Love arises as a fragrance, joy arises, meaning arises; for the first time life becomes significant, tremendously significant. And one is constantly moving beyond the known, going into the unknown. Life becomes a thrill, an adventure. But we have made life just a dragging affair. It seems safe, it appears secure, but there is no security, no safety anywhere. They are impossible.
Life in its intrinsicalness is insecure. Only death is secure. You cannot take anything away from a dead man — or can you? even death cannot do any harm to him, he is already dead. In his grave he is so absolutely secure. Because we are so obsessed with security we have made our houses our graves. We don’t live in them, we only die in them slowly slowly; it is a gradual kind of suicide.
Sannyas means freedom, freedom from all self-created securities, safeties. In the beginning one feels afraid, scared, that is natural, but once you become attuned to the insecure and you know the joy of insecurity then you never look back to those old toys that you used to think were keeping you life secure. And they were not securities, they were simply prisons, chains around your being.
One need not be a Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan, Catholic or communist — these are all self-created prisons. One need not live in an ideology. One should be free from all ideologies, all dogmas, creeds, scriptures. Only then is life an exploration, because when you don’t have any conclusion you can explore. We are brought up in such a way that we are reduced to slaves. And the slavery is so subtle that very rarely do we become aware of it. We go on living life as a slave thinking that this is all that there is to live. This is not all, this is nothing. This is not even the beginning.
Life begins only when you become free from all kinds of bondages: the bondage of nation, the bondage of race, the bondage of church — ideological, social, political, religious. When you become free from all these imprisonments, when you simply drop all that you have been told is important, when you simply drop all that you have been told to believe in; when you neither believe nor disbelieve a great freedom arises in your being. That freedom is sannyas; and that freedom then takes you higher and higher towards the ultimate.
Only a free person can know what truth is, and only a free person can know what god is, what love is. Freedom is very essential because it is the foundation of all that is beautiful and great.
Source: Osho Book “If You Choose To Be With Me, You Must Risk Finding Yourself”