The fifth question:

IS TO BE A SANNYASIN A MOMENT OR A PROCESS? IS A GURU REALLY NEEDED TO BE a SANNYASIN? IF A GURU LIVES IN SOMEBODY'S HEART ALL THE TIME, THEN WHAT IS THE NECESSITY OF WEARING ORANGE AND THE MALA ALL THE TIME? WAS EKLAVYA NOT A REAL DISCIPLE?

The question is from Kartik. The question is from some Indian mind, some Indian. Many things have to be understood.

First you ask, "IS TO BE A SANNYASIN A MOMENT OR A PROCESS?"

It is both, because it is a beginning of a great pilgrimage -- so it is an event, a moment, and also a process. By becoming a sannyasin you have not arrived, you have only started arriving. It is a great moment because it is a quantum leap from your ordinary mundane world, from the search for power, prestige. You have moved to seek and search for truth. From moving outwards, into the world, you have taken a decision to move inwards. From the external your being is turning towards the internal. It is a great moment, because interiority is born in it! It is a great change in your pattern of life, in your style of life: you will never be the same again. It is a drastic change, it is a discontinuity -- the past is dropped and you start creating yourself anew -- but it is also a process because this is just a beginning. You have started moving inwards, but you will have to go on moving.

Lao Tzu says, "The journey of ten thousand miles starts in the first step." The first step is a great moment. Just thing: the larva becomes the caterpillar... a great moment, because the larva was static, and the caterpillar moves, crawls. The caterpillar is not yet a butterfly. It knows nothing of flying, it knows nothing of flowers, it is not yet a winged thing, but the journey has started. The journey of ten thousand miles -- the first step has been taken. it has started crawling. If crawling is possible, then one day flying will also be possible.

The larva cannot become the butterfly, only the caterpillar can become the butterfly. The worldly man cannot arrive in his being, only a sannyasin can arrive. The sannyasin is between the larva and the butterfly, the link.

So a sannyasin is both the beginning of a journey and a process; it is a moment and a process.

You ask, "IS A GURU REALLY NEEDED TO BE A SANNYASIN?"

You need me even to ask this question! You can't answer it yourself. How are you going to answer greater questions? -- because this is a very silly and stupid question, not of any worth. If I am answering it, it is just to respect you, to respect a camel.

If you cannot answer a silly, ordinary question like this yourself, how are you going to become a sannyasin on your own?

The caterpillar will need a butterfly. Seeing the butterfly flying around, enjoying flowers and the honey and enjoying the sunshine will be needed, is a must. That will create a desire, a longing, a thirst in the caterpillar. It will create a dream, a dream which can become a reality. Unless the caterpillar starts dreaming, there is no possibility. How will you start dreaming about unknown things? You have not known them! You can dream only about that which you have known. You can think about a thing which you have experienced in the past: how will you think about God, about truth, about NIRVANA, about SAMADHI? These are empty words for you, utterly empty of any meaning, meaningless jargon. You will have to come in contact with a person in whom SAMADHI IS alive, throbbing, beating, breathing. You will have to come in close contact with a person in whom truth is born, in whom you can have a glimpse of God; that's all that is needed. You will have to come in contact with someone where the disease called God can become infectious. You will have to move with a drunkard. Seeing his joy, seeing his blissfulness and his silence and his calm and his cool, you may become thirsty, thirsty for something you have never tasted before.

That's what a Master is all about. If you can do it on your own, it is so kind of you. Do it. Read American books, 'do it' books -- do it yourself. But you will create more mess than you are in already. Out of your confusion, whatsoever you will do, more confusion will come.

You are already a crowd, falling apart. You cannot put yourself together. And I am not saying that it does not happen sometimes; it happens sometimes: there have been people who have put themselves together. But those people are exceptional, and they don't come here to ask questions like this.

Once a young man came to me and asked, "What do you say, Osho, about marriage? Should I get married or not? I am a seeker, a searcher for truth." I told him, "You please get married." But he said, "But this is very unexpected! Why didn't you get married? I have come to you because I knew you would say, 'No, don't get married.' Why didn't you get married?" I said, "Because I never went to ask anybody, that has not been my way. I have never asked any question of anybody."

You are tricky. You want to have the answer, you want guidance, and yet you don't want to commit yourself. You want all guidance cheaply.

I have never asked a single question of anybody. That's why when I was in the university my professors were very angry with me -- because I was always answering them, not questioning. Very angry, naturally! If you answer a professor he becomes angry. I was turned out from many colleges, expelled, and the only crime that I had committed was that I was answering. Even if I was asking, the question was such that it was really an answer, not a question. The professors were angry. They wanted questions so that they could answer, because answers they knew.

If you are searching for truth, if you have moved into the search, you will need a Master. And remember, I repeat again: it is not that it cannot happen alone. It has happened to me alone, so how can I say that it cannot happen alone? Lao Tzu says, "You need not go out of your house, you need not even open your windows and doors, and all can be found there sitting inside your room." And he is right, but it happens very rarely.

You are being cunning: you want the guidance, and you don't want to bow down to a Master.

You ask me, "IF A GURU LIVES IN SOMEBODY'S HEART ALL THE TIME,, THEN WHAT IS THE NECESSITY OF WEARING ORANGE AND THE MALA ALL THE TIME?"

Then there is no necessity. Then there is no necessity even to ask this question! If a guru lives for twenty-four hours in your heart, you have become a Buddha Even to remember your guru for twenty-four seconds continuously is impossible. What are you talking about? -- twenty-four hours?

Try to remember me for twenty-four seconds. Just keep a wristwatch in front of you and try to remember me for twenty-four seconds, and twenty-four thousand times you will miss. A second will pass and you will start thinking of your girlfriend, or what movie to go to today. And then you will have to pull back. Again you will remember, "What am I doing? -- five seconds have passed. And for one second you may be able just to remember, so-so, lukewarm, and again it is lost. Just try for twenty-four seconds. If you can remember me continuously for twenty-four seconds, without a single distraction, you need not have any orange, any mala I declare you a sannyasin.

And you are saying 'for twenty-four hours' "If a guru LIVES IN SOMEBODY'S HEART ALL THE TIME, THEN WHAT IS THE NECESSITY OF WEARING ORANGE AND THE MALA ALL THE TIME?"

But if the guru that lives in your heart says "Wear orange", what will you do then? Will you listen to the guru or not? What do you think about the people who are wearing orange here? Are they very willingly wearing orange? But the guru says so! What to do? And they have fallen in love with the guru Now the guru is mad and he says, "Wear orange!" The guru is eccentric. First you fall in love with the guru, and then the guru starts playing tricks on you. He says, "Wear orange, wear a mala, and look like a fool! And go into the world and let people laugh!"

But if the guru lives for twenty-four hours in your heart, you will be ready to commit suicide if he says to!

And then you ask, "WAS EKLAVYA NOT A REAL DISCIPLE?"

I will have to tell you the story first; only then will you be able to understand it.

You know of the Bhagavad-Gita, of Krishna the Master and his disciple Arjuna. When Arjuna was learning with Drona.... In his student days, he was with a master archer, Drona. He was the greatest master archer in those days. Arjuna belonged to a royal family, so all the children from the royal family were learning with Drona, and Arjuna was the best disciple.

Drona was a brahmin. Eklavya came; Eklavya was an untouchable, and Eklavya wanted to become a disciple also. Drona refused. A brahmin? How can he accept an untouchable, a sudra? That has been one of the greatest pathologies of the Hindu mind. The Hindu mind has been ill and unhealthy because of that. Notwithstanding so many great things that they have done, that one thing has undone all their great things. They have condemned human beings so utterly that never before, anywhere in the world, have human beings been condemned so badly. And that is done by so-called religious people who claim that they are the greatest religious people of the world. And they have been doing something which is so ugly -- millions of people have been debarred from being human beings. Eklavya belonged to those downtrodden, oppressed people. But he had a beautiful body, and Drona could see -- because he was a great teacher -- he could see that he could become one of the most famous archers in the world. He could see directly: the way he walked, the way he talked, his one-pointed mind, his concentrated being -- Drona could see that this young man could become the best archer of that age. "But then what will happen to my disciple, Arjuna? And he's going to be the king"... now, the vested interest. He refused. He refused for two reasons: one. "You are a sudra and I am a brahmin; I cannot accept you. Even the shadow of a sudra is unacceptable." Brahmins have been taking baths if the shadow of a sudra would fall on them. The shadow! He need not have touched anyone. And these are spiritual people! And the shadow is non-existential. If you are sitting and a sudra passes by and his shadow touches you, you have to take a a bath. You have been polluted by his being.

And these sudras are not sinners. They are simply poor people, exploited people, the proletariat.

"First, you are a sudra so I cannot accept," said Drona. In saying that, he also said that he was not a spiritual man at all. He may have been a great master archer, but he was not a spiritual Master, he was not a guru. In denying Eklavya, he proved that he was not a guru, because a guru cannot deny anybody. Even if a sinner comes, the guru cannot deny. That is what he exists for.

Sometimes people come to me and they say, "We are not worthy. We are sinners. We have done this wrong and that. Osho, will you accept us?" And I say, "For whom do I exist here?" If the doctor says to the patient, "I cannot accept you because you have so many illnesses," then what is the point of that doctor? Why is he there if he accepts only healthy men?

Drona was not a guru, not a spiritual Master. He must have been a very ugly politician. It was on the surface that he said, "I cannot accept because you are a sudra", but deep down this was the reasoning: that if this Eklavya were accepted and he became a great archer, what would happen to his favorite disciple? "And the favorite disciple is going to become the king, not Eklavya. With the favorite disciple my whole future is involved. If Arjuna becomes the king then I will be the master of the king, and naturally powerful, even more powerful than the king. The king will touch my feet, and my order will be THE order." He wanted Arjuna to remain the greatest archer; Eklavya was denied.

Eklavya went into the forest, but his love for archery was such that he created a statue of Drona and started practicing before the statue. Soon rumors started coming to Drona's school that Eklavya was attaining... alone, without any guidance from Drona. But his totality was such that even the statue was enough.

And one day the news came that Arjuna was no longer a competent archer before Eklavya. Drona went to see Eklavya, and he committed one thing which can never be forgiven. He went there and he asked Eklavya to show him, and he saw, and it was absolutely certain that Arjuna was no longer a comparison to Eklavya. Eklavya had far transcended Arjuna and all his disciples; in fact, had far transcended Drona himself. Now he said, "You have learned through me by making my statue. You will have to give me some present, DAKSHINA." When a disciple has learned all from the Master, just in gratitude he gives some gift to the Master, any symbolic gift. Eklavya started crying and weeping. He said, "But I have nothing! You can ask anything!" And Drona asked for his thumb, his right-hand thumb. He cut off his thumb immediately and gave it to Drona. He asked the right-hand thumb because without it he would never be an archer again.

Now this fellow, Drona, is an ugly spot on Hindu consciousness. He was not a spiritual Master at all. He was a very, very low politician, a diplomat. He may have been a good archer but that doesn't make anybody spiritual. First he had denied Eklavya, and now he went... what CHUTZPAH! now he went and asked that something be given to him as a gift: "I am your Master." He had denied his being a disciple, and now he went and said that "I am your Master."

Eklavya is really rare. Such a great soul; Drona is not even worthy enough to touch his feet. He didn't say anything. He could have said,"You have denied me", but he didn't say that. That idea never arose in his mind. He had trusted him as the Master even if he had been denied. He had loved him and he was ready to give anything. He gave his right-hand thumb, became a cripple forever and was no longer heard of. Since that moment nothing is known about Eklavya, about what happened. He must have gone to the forest, must have lived in his tribe, sweeping streets. He must have forgotten all about archery -- a great archer destroyed.

Now this is the story.

Kartik has asked, "WAS EKLAVYA NOT A REAL DISCIPLE?"

Eklavya was a real disciple, Drona was not a real guru.

But you should not ask this question, because you simply want to avoid the mala and orange. And Eklavya, even if denied by the Master, although rejected by the Master, went into the forest and created an image of the Master. You should not bring Eklavya's name into it. You are just the opposite!

What is the mala? -- an image.