Osho – Taking sannyas means that you will be entering an identity crisis. For a few days you will not know who you are any more, because you are not the old one – that is finished; you have moved out of it, that belongs to you no more. It will go on receding, fading, disappearing; soon it will be just a memory. And the new has not yet come, the new has not taken form yet.
It can take form only when the old has utterly disappeared, because it has to be made in the same place. The old building has to be demolished, then the new building has to be built in the same place. It cannot be built before the old is destroyed. So you will be going into an identity crisis, and that is hard.
One wants to know who one is, but before one can really know who one is, one has to unlearn all that has been taught: ’This is you – a Christian, a Hindu, a Mohammedan, an Indian, a Chinese, a German, black, white.’
All that conditioning has to be wiped off. Sannyas is a deconditioning. It leaves you utterly pure, empty, and that needs courage – to be empty. One would like to be pure, but purity comes only as a by-product of emptiness. When one is utterly empty, there is a purity not of this world.
So much has to be done, and if you keep it in mind it can be done fast. So don’t relax by taking sannyas. Millions of people around the world have been doing that. Somebody becomes a Christian, is baptised and thinks that all is done.
Now whatsoever has to be done has to be done by Jesus Christ. He is the saviour and now they are ready – he should save them. There is no saviour. Nobody can save you except yourself.