[A sannyasin had sent Osho some photos of his stone sculptures; stone arrangements.]
Osho – I looked at your stone sculpture – beautiful! In the new commune you will have to do a few things. When the new commune is ready you have to plan a small place for your statues. Just make as many Buddhas as possible!
Life should be a sweet song but man has made it very bitter, very ugly. It has lost all the qualities of music, rhythm, harmony. It has become an ugly struggle to survive, and survival to no purpose at all, just an ugly struggle which leads nowhere, a cut-throat competition, absolutely unnecessary. Life is meant to be a celebration, not a competition. We need not be enemies here.
If we are enemies to each other, that’s what competition means, then if life becomes a hell it is not a surprise, it should not be a surprise. We make it a hell because we make it a conflict; we reduce it to violent struggle. It is multi-dimensional: one nation against other nations, one religion against other religions, one caste against other castes, man against woman, rich against poor, one ideology against another ideology.
It is multi-dimensional, it is very complicated, hence it has lost the rhythm, it has lost the quality of song and dance. Man is missing something terribly; something has gone really wrong; man has moved astray. Even birds are far more in tune with god than man. Even animals, trees and rocks, are more in harmony with existence than man. And bliss is a by-product, a by-product of being in harmony with existence.
My sannyas is an effort to bring a song to your life, to transform it from the ugly plane of conflict to the beautiful plane of celebration. And that is real revolution: when you are no more an enemy, when you befriend the whole, when you are in love with the whole as it is, when you are not in any need to impose yourself upon it, when you can accept and bless it as it is, and when you can feel grateful for all that god has given, for all that existence provides…. Then slowly slowly a new kind of fragrance arises in you. That fragrance is sannyas. it’s taste is tremendously sweet; it is the taste of nectar.
The old religions were against life. They created more conflict, they made people very serious. My sannyas is playful, and life can be a song only when it is full of play, really playful, when it has no seriousness – sincere, of course, but not serious – when there is a sense of humour, when one is capable of laughing, weeping, dancing, when one is capable of enjoying the small moments and small joys that life brings every day, and in thousands of ways it brings them.
When one is not hankering for great things, extraordinary things, incredible things, when one is not desiring and hankering for exceptional, egoistic highs, but on the contrary one is satisfied with the ordinariness of every thing, then the very ordinariness becomes luminous. Then all ordinariness disappears, then nothing is ordinary. When you are satisfied with the ordinary, then nothing is ordinary, everything becomes extraordinary. Then every small thing contains the great and every small event is historical; it has a tremendous import. And your life goes on becoming richer and richer in songs.
And if man has lived rightly, his death becomes the crescendo, the ultimate song. Then death too is beautiful! And unless death is beautiful a man has not lived rightly. Death is the test, the criterion.
Sugat. It is a name of Buddha. It means well-gone, one who has gone so well this time that he will not be coming back again. Hence it was a name of Buddha. He has lived and learned the lesson of existence; now there will be no need for him to come back to the same school, he will not be born again in the body. The day he became enlightened, the first thing he declared – he looked at the sky and said – ’Gods, now you will not need to make another body for me. Thank you for all those houses that you had built for me in the past, but now I will not need any Other structure.
Now the journey is finished. I have come to the end!’ That is the meaning of Sugat: one who will not be coming back again… and this is possible for everyone. It all depends on how deep we go within ourselves. It depends: if we penetrate the core of our being then we will not be coming back, because life is nothing but a training, a training to know oneself, and unless you know yourself you will be thrown back again and again into the womb.
The lesson bas to be learned; there is no way of avoiding it. And to be initiated into sannyas means to be initiated into the discipline which takes you to the beyond. Sannyas will make you sugat – one who has gone so perfectly that he will not be coming back!
Source: from Osho Book “The Sacred Yes”