The fourth question:

Question 4

WHY DO YOU GIVE SANNYAS TO ANYBODY, EVEN TO THOSE WHO DON'T UNDERSTAND THE MEANING?

The question is from Klaus Freitag.

There are a few things in life which can only be known from the inside. If you decide that you will fall in love only when you have understood the meaning of love, never before it, then;you will never fall in love. There is no way to know about love. There is no way to know love unless you fall in it. You can go to the libraries and you can find thousands of books written on love and you can go through them and you can write a PH.D. thesis about love, but you will still not know anything about love.

Love is a taste on the tongue; you have to experience it.

That's why I go on giving sannyas to anybody and everybody, because that is the only way to have an experience of it. It is not a philosophy that I can tell you about, it is an actual experience. You will need participation in it.

There are many people, and when they come for the first time the question is very natural -- because you have been brought up that way: to first think about it. That's why you are missing millions of things, because you demand, "First I will experience!" And because the intrinsic nature of those things is such that you can only experience by experiencing, there is no way to give a sample to you, you go on missing.

People come to me and they say, "First it has to be proved that God is, only then will we go on the search." They will never go on any search, and they will never find God. Obviously, how can they find? They demand, "First God has to be proved!" Now it is not possible to prove God as an argument; God is not a syllogism.

You will have to go in search... of something you don't know at all... of something you cannot be certain of at all. In fact, that is the thrill of the search, that is the joy -- that you are moving into something which may be, may not be, that you are gambling. But in that very gamble, you grow. And in that growth, God comes closer. And if you go on searching and risking, one day suddenly you find that God is, ONLY God is.

Sannyas is a love affair. It is not something that has to be proved first, then you take it.

You ask, "WHY DO YOU GIVE SANNYAS TO ANYBODY.... "

Because to me, nobody is 'anybody'. To me, everybody is a potential Buddha. When I give you sannyas, I give it out of my respect for you, I give it out of my love for you. When I give sannyas, I am simply saying to you that I respect you, that you also should start respecting yourself.

Giving sannyas to you is simply an indication that your potential is great -- a potential of which you are unaware. Don't think only that you are that which you are. You are more than that, and you will always remain more than that. That 'more' is inexhaustible.

That was the meaning of the story we were reading the other day: that treasure is inexhaustible. That treasure is you!

Sannyas is a symbolic key. When I see the treasure in you, I am in a hurry to give the key to you. I don't bother about whether you understand the meaning or not. How can you understand? To expect that would not be right. You have never tasted, how can you understand it? How are you going to understand it? -- there is no way. It can be known only from the inside: you have to enter into it to know it.

I go on giving sannyas to each and everybody because each and everybody is divine. Each and everybody is there to become a god. That is everybody's destiny. You can delay it, but you cannot destroy it. Giving you sannyas means I am trying to hasten it. Giving you sannyas simply means I am persuading you not to postpone it any more. Giving you sannyas is nothing but helping you not to delay it any more. It can happen right now! Don't wait for tomorrow; tomorrow never comes. And tomorrow is a trick of the mind: through the tomorrows it goes on postponing.

Whenever I see a person coming to me, even if I see a SLIGHT possibility of opening, I am ready to give sannyas to him. It is out of great respect -- because I see the Buddha inside. The Buddha has already waited too long, and you have not looked at it.

When I ask you to become a sannyasin I am saying: now the time has come, you take the plunge. Try this new way of life. You have lived in the old way, nothing has happened out of it. Or whatsoever has happened has proved only superficial and futile. Try this way too.

I go on selling sannyas because I see once the key is in your hand, it will not 6e there long; sooner or later you will try it. While I am here it is more possible that you may try it. When I am gone, you will think about the beauty of the key -- the diamonds on it, the gold of it, the value of it. You will create a philosophy about the key and the door will be forgotten.

I am the door!

By becoming a sannyasin you are simply showing a love towards me -- that you are ready to go with me into the unknown, that you will not resist me, that you will not fight with me. If you are not a sannyasin you will remain an outsider; that is your decision. From the outside whatsoever you will know will not be the truth. These are not the things which can be known from the outside, these are the things you have to become a participant in to know. You have to fall en rapport with me; that's what sannyas is.

"WHY DO YOU GIVE SANNYAS TO ANYBODY, EVEN THOSE WHO DON'T UNDERSTAND THE MEANING?"

I have never given sannyas to anybody who understands the meaning, because that is impossible. Where to find a man who understands the meaning? And if he understands the meaning, what is the point of giving him sannyas? He knows it already. If Buddha comes to me I will not give him sannyas. Or if Jesus comes to me, I will not give him sannyas: he understands the meaning, the journey is fulfilled. Because you don't understand -- that's why I give sannyas! Now don't make it a condition.

My feeling is that Klaus Frietag must be thinking about sannyas and is afraid to take the jump without understanding it. Don't be so hung-up in the head; there are things of the heart too. And the heart has it's own reasons that the head is not aware of. Allow the heart. It is a heart phenomenon, it is not a conclusion of the head -- that you think pro and con and you argue this way and that and then finally you come to a point when the mind says, "Yes, it is worth taking." It is a heart phenomenon: you don't think pro and con, you simply look into my eyes, you sit by my side, you feel me, and you say, "Okay, it is worth risking." And you go into it. That is the right way to go into it.

I have given sannyas to those people also who have taken sannyas through a conclusion of their heads. They become sannyasins and yet they don't become. They miss, and they go on missing, because the very first step has been taken in a wrong direction. Anything that you decide with the head will not help you to go beyond the head. Let there be some decision in your life which is not of the head! Only that will be helpful.

Fall in love. Let sannyas happen through love.