Question – What do you, you foresee as the future of your Sannyas Movement? Do you see it as prospering, even when you’re not here?
Osho – Sannyas movement is not mine. It is not yours. It was here when I was not here. It will be here when I will not be here. Sannyas movement simply means the movement of the seekers of truth. They have always been here.
Of course, they have been always tortured by the ignorant masses: killed, murdered, crucified, or worshipped.
Remember: it is the same whether you crucify or you worship. Both are the ways how to get rid of those people. One is crucifixion, another is worship. Worship is more cultured. We say you are an incarnation of God, we will worship you. But we will not do what you say. How can we do?
We are ordinary human beings. You were extraordinary — either you were a prophet sent by God, or a messenger, or the only begotten son of God, or you were a reincarnation of God — you could do miracles. We have created all kinds of miracles, only for one reason. To create a distance between us and the people who have been seeking the truth and the people who have ultimately found the truth. We were not ready to go with them. There were only two ways: either to kill them, destroy them, so we can forget them and forgive them.
They were a disturbing element, a nuisance. We were asleep and having such beautiful dreams and a Gautam Buddha comes and starts shaking you and tells, “Wake up!” Naturally you get angry. There have always been a line of seekers of truth… I call it sannyas. It is eternal. It is sanatan. It has nothing to do with me.
Millions of people have contributed to it. I have also contributed my own share. It will go on becoming more and more richer. When I am gone there will be more and more people coming and making it richer. The old sannyas was serious. I have contributed to it a sense of humor. The old sannyas was sad. I have contributed to it singing, dancing, laughing… I have made it more human.
The old sannyas was somehow life-negative. I have made it life- affirmative. But it is the same sannyas. It is the same search. I have made it more rich. I have made it more grounded in the world because my whole teaching is `be in the world, but don’t be of the world.’
There is no need to renounce the world. Only cowards renounce it. Live in the world, experience it. It is a school. You cannot grow in the Himalayas. You can only grow in the world. Each step is an examination. Each step you are passing through a test. Life is an opportunity.
I will be gone. That does not mean that the sannyas movement will be gone. It does not belong to anybody. Just as science does not belong to Albert Einstein. Why the search for truth should belong to somebody? To Gautam Buddha? To J Krishnamurti? Or to me? Or to you?
Just as science goes on growing and every scientific genius goes on contributing to it and the Ganges goes on becoming bigger and wider — oceanic; in the same way the inner world needs a science. The objective world has a science. The inner world needs a science and I call sannyas the science of the inner world. It has been growing but because it goes against humanities attachments, ignorance, superstitions, so-called religions, churches, priests, popes, shankaracharyas… these are the enemies of the inner search because the inner search needs no organization.
Sannyas movement is not an organization: that is why I call it `movement’. It is individual. People join. I had started alone and then people started coming and joining me and slowly, slowly the caravan became bigger and bigger. But it is not an organization. I am nobody’s leader. Nobody has to follow me. I am grateful that you have allowed me to share my bliss, my love, my ecstasy. I am grateful to you. Nobody is my follower, nobody is lower. There is no hierarchy. It is not a religion. It is pure religiousness. The very essence. Not a flower, but only a fragrance. You cannot catch hold of it.
You can have the experience of it, you can be surrounded by the perfume, but you cannot catch hold of it. Religions are like dead flowers you can find in Bibles, in Gitas… When they were put in the Bible they were living, they were fragrant, but now it is only a corpse. All holy books are corpses, dead flowers and nothing else.
Truth, the living truth, has to be discovered by each individual by himself. Nobody can give it to you. Yes, somebody who has achieved it can transpire a thirst in you, a tremendous desire for it. I cannot give you the truth, but I can give you the desire for it.
I cannot give you the truth, but I can show you the moon… please don’t get attached to my finger which is indicating the moon. This finger will disappear. The moon will remain and the search will continue. As long as there is a single human being on the earth the flowers of sannyas will go on blossoming.
Source – Osho Book “The Last Testament, Vol6”