Second question:

Question 2

OSHO, IS IT TIME THAT I SHOULD BECOME A SANNYASIN?

IT IS ALREADY LATE! Naresh, you have already waited too long. I have known you for years, you have known me for years. For what are you waiting? The meeting should happen now. Still you are asking:

IS IT TIME THAT I SHOULD BECOME A SANNYASIN?

Are you dead? If you have any life in you, then this is the time. NOW is the time! Remember Kabir -- just the other day Kabir was saying: Now, wake up -- wake up in the now, wake up here! Don't postpone.

Branigan was driving down the road. By the way the car weaved in and out of traffic, you could tell that Branigan was pickled to the gills.

"Where do you think you are going?" asked the motorcycle cop who finally stopped him.

"I am coming home -- hic -- from a New Year's Eve party!"

"Are you kidding?" asked the cop. "New Year's was three weeks ago!"

"I know," said Branigan. "That's why I figured I better be getting home now."

Is it not time, Naresh, to be getting home now? You have waited already too long, too many lives. Sannyas is nothing but a passionate jump into the enquiry for the truth, a passionate search from where we come and to where we are going and who we are. That's what sannyas is all about.

But you seem to be almost in a kind of sleep, and that's how everybody else is. The worldly dreams still seem to be important to you, hence the question. The world still seems to intoxicate you; money, power, prestige, are still haunting you. And you cannot be a sannyasin unless you are utterly frustrated with the world. And remember, I am not teaching escapism from the world: I teach transcendence, not escape. Be in the world, but don't be of it.

A sannyasin is a person who lives in the world but lives meditatively, and meditation creates a distance. Then you can go on doing all kinds of things but you don't become intoxicated, you don't become identified with them. To live in awareness, without any intoxication with money, power, prestige, is the way of the sannyasin.

Hallihan and Flannigan were having a few at a new tavern in town. After an hour of heavy imbibing, Hallihan asked the bartender for the washroom.

"Go to the door, left of the elevator," said the barkeeper, "then walk down two steps and there you are."

Hallihan forgot to turn left. He opened the elevator door, took ONE step and fell down the shaft.

Ten minutes later, Flannigan followed Hallihan and saw him lying at the bottom of the shaft.

"Look out for the SECOND step," shouted up Hallihan. "It's a son of a bitch!"

And you have taken many second steps, many many times. You have fallen many many times. Are you not yet frustrated, Naresh? Are you not yet finished with the world? Are you still carrying some hope deep down in your heart? Are you still expecting that the world is going to deliver something to you? It has never happened -- to no one has it happened. And it is not going to happen to you.

The world only promises, it never delivers the goods. That's its illusoriness; that's why in the East we call it maya. 'Maya' does not mean that it is not there -- it is very much there, but it only promises. It never gives anything.

I have heard a story:

A man worshipped for many many years -- he must have tortured God as much as possible. Morning, afternoon, evening, he was praying and praying and crying and weeping. And, finally, God has to appear, and he said, "What do you want? Be finished! Just take it and forgive me and forget all about me.

And the man said, "I want something, a power, so that whatsoever I need is immediately fulfilled."

So God gave him a box, a golden box -- exactly like the magic box that I give to you -- and told him, "Whenever you are in need you can ask. Whatsoever you ask, the box will immediately give it to you."

The man forgot all about God, he even forgot to thank him. God waited a little... but the man was no more interested in him. He was looking at the box and he started asking, "Give me ten thousand rupees!" Suddenly ten thousand rupees appeared, and he was very happy.

And it continued: whatsoever he wanted used to come out of the box. Then one day, one SADHU -- one wandering monk -- stayed with the man. The sadhu, the wandering monk, also had a box -- bigger than the man's -- exactly the same shape. The man became interested. He said, "What is this?"

The sadhu said, "This is a magic box. You ask anything. it gives you double."

"Double!" The man asked, "If I ask ten thousand rupees, He said, "It gives twenty thousand."

He fell at the feet of the monk and said, "You are a monk, you have renounced the world -- can't you exchange? I have a small box: it gives only whatsoever you ask."

So they changed the boxes. It was late at night, so the man thought, "In the morning I will try out this new box." And in the morning he tried; he asked for ten thousand rupees... and the box said, "Why not twenty thousand?" And the man said, "Okay, twenty thousand." And the box said, "Why not forty thousand?" And the man said, "Okay, forty thousand." And the box said, "Why not eighty thousand?"

Then he became afraid, because nothing was coming out! He rushed to see the monk, but he had left; he had disappeared in the night.

In the East, we have called the world 'maya', illusory -- it is like that box of the monk. You ask anything and it says, "Okay, you can have double." But it never delivers any goods; it only promises. The world is almost like the politicians -- they promise but they never fulfill

Naresh, are you not yet finished? Have you not seen it happening many times? Each time you are living an illusion, hoping, dreaming, sooner or later disillusion comes in, frustration comes in. But rather than seeing the reality of this world, you immediately jump on another illusion -- you immediately start dreaming again.

Sannyas is seeing the reality of the world, that it never fulfills, that it cannot fulfill, that it is beyond its capacity to fulfill... one turns in. One has been a beggar begging from this door and that door; when one turns in, begging disappears -- one becomes an emperor. Then all is yours.

And you need not even ask for it -- it is simply yours. This whole existence is yours, its whole beauty, its whole splendour, its starry nights, its sunsets and sunrises, its flowers and birds -- all is yours. Not in the sense that you possess it, but in the sense that you can enjoy it.

A sannyasin learns how to enjoy, and the worldly mall learns only how to possess. Remember these two things; they are basic. The worldly man only thinks of how to possess more -- he never enjoys because he is concerned with pos-sessing more and more and more. The sannyasin enjoys, whatsoever he has he enjoys -- and he enjoys the whole existence -- which need not be possessed.