Test - About Sannyas

What is sannyas?
(Ideas, direction, tweaking, quotes and images welcome!)

Simply put, sannyas is the movement that came into being around Osho. It is his people and their cultural and spiritual milieu.

It first arose, very informally, in the early 60s, when he was teaching philosophy in Jabalpur University, and was attracting seekers who recognised qualities in him that went beyond teaching and information. In 1964, he held his first meditation camp, an attempt to help people experience directly what he was talking about, rather than fill their heads with words.

By 1970, he had moved to Mumbai, and had gathered a loose organization of friends around him to promote, record and publish his discourses and other events, and in September of that year, he held his first initiations into what he called "neo-sannyas". Sannyas had long existed in India as a more or less respected spectrum of spiritual traditions, but he took care to distinguish his iconoclastic version from the mainstream ones, which he saw as hopelessly anachronistic and counterproductive.

Osho guided his neo-sannyas closely until he left his body in 1990. Over the years, and even when Osho was in his body, the "neo-" prefix fell into disuse, seen as an unnecessary circumlocution, so it has mostly been just "sannyas", and his people "sannyasins".

So what are the characteristics of Osho's sannyas and his sannyasins? Ha ha! This will depend on who you talk to or which of Osho's many inconsistent definitions you hear, for Osho created a space for an unparalleled diversity of seekers, from people successful in every field of human endeavor to every kind of dropout and failure. There will be space in the discussion page for all kinds of input about this. Here we will try to keep it simple and factual.

Outward characteristics

Outward characteristics of Osho's sannyasins evolved over the years. Starting with his first initiations in Sep 1970, they consisted of wearing orange clothes and a mala, or necklace with a pendant bearing his picture. The "purpose(s)" of these outward symbols were multiple and are explored here. These symbols persisted until 1985, during which time, the colours got more red-maroonish. Then we were told to drop all that and melt into the crowd. Our high-profile visibility came to an abrupt end.

Then in 1989, four months before he left his body, again he instructed us -- for different reasons -- to resume wearing maroon robes around the commune during the day and white robes for the evening meetings. Maroon robes were not to be worn away from the commune, as the orange clothes had been earlier. Malas were optional.

Practices

In the Pune One heyday of the rapid growth of Osho's sannyas, he prescribed or suggested many practices but these were individually tailored. There was no one specific practice to be observed by all save the wearing of the above-mentioned outer symbols. In more general terms, we are to meditate daily, but the form of the meditation is a matter of personal preference. New arrivals are urged to take part in Osho's active meditations, particularly Dynamic, to clear out psychic rubbish, but after that everything is optional.

Attitudes and lifestyles

In general, we are to remain in the secular/material world, also known as the marketplace, not disappear into the silence of the mountains, forest or a monastery. We are to question all notions about who we are, and have been given myriad tools to do that. We are to live life to the fullest, celebrate, and be creative, open and non-serious. Repressions of all kinds are to be deplored, and natural energies explored ... music, dance, sex, Zorba the Buddha

Values

Because we are unique individuals with individual temperaments, tendencies and needs, the ultimate determinant of our approach to life and the spiritual journey is held to be our own inner light. Thus, many "universal" values may work out to be more or less important in our journeys. These values include many of the usual "spiritual" values but not life-negative ones such as renunciation and guilt, plus a few that Osho has added, such as non-seriousness.

These values apply in varying proportion and priority. They are different for everybody! In no particular order, they include freedom, love, awareness, openness, silence, truth, bliss, non-seriousness, emptiness, acceptance, gratitude, surrender, rebellion, creativity ...

Osho's "Ten Commandments"

Once Osho was asked by a devotee for his “Ten Commandments”. He replied, “You have asked for my Ten Commandments. It is very difficult, because, I am against any sort of commandment. Yet, just for the fun of it, I write as follows:

These were his first "ten commandments", translated from the original Hindi (image right, click to enlarge). He revisited this theme on at least two other occasions, approaching it in very different ways, which can be read at Das Jeevan-Sutra (दस जीवन-सूत्र).

Metaphysics

Beyond frequent references to the unity of all existence at the ground of being, Osho does not teach metaphysics. He has negated any pronouncement about the "ultimate truth" of anything with other pronouncements about the ultimate truth of its opposite. God, No-God, whatever. The point is to not get caught up in beliefs of any kind that are not our experience.

To underline the importance of not believing something just because someone, even he, says it is so, he has made the point, again and again, that truth cannot be divided up into consistent chunks. If it is divided, if it is consistent, it is not truth. An example of this is found below in the Sangha fragmentation section. It would not be too strong a statement to say that inconsistency is his most consistent metaphysical message.

Social matters

By definition, anything said about social matters cannot pretend to be a universal truth. And not many sannyasins will agree with everything written below here. Still, Osho comments on every matter under the sun, so his ideas on such things can be considered here, inasmuch as these ideas a) are somewhat consistent and b) concern ways in which social matters interfere with people's abilities to examine their lives freely and intelligently.

Women and male chauvinism

In an ideal world, women should not need "special" consideration. Women and men are very different in their functioning, behaviour and so on but when it comes to the unity of all existence, their differences can be said to be peripheral.

However, because of this different functioning, women have been deemed less worthy by the leaders of most social groups, ie cultural and religious ones, simply because greater male physical strength has enabled men to become those leaders. And the systems set up by these men have created enormous imbalances in our psyches and greatly disturbed what could be a natural flow toward exploring our inner beings, etc etc.

So Osho addresses this, not only in his talks but in the systems in his communes. All of which has had a deep effect on his people, and the characteristics they came to be known by. Osho started by putting women in charge of everything, from his secretary down through every department. And the criteria which qualified them for these higher positions were many and variable, but expertise in the particulars of any department was not a factor.

This theme could be discussed ad infinitum, so in order not to swamp this general page, any further discussion will take place here.

Other possibilities of social themes to be covered here:

Vegetarianism

Tantra

Communal living

Democracy and Meritocracy

Socialism and Capitalism

Sannyas post-1990

1990 here refers to the year of Osho's leaving his body. Reams could be written about the directions sannyasins have chosen since that time, and justified with Osho's words. For our purposes here, it will be sufficient to examine three themes:

1. While Osho was in his body, one of the most persistent themes was the need for a living master. Following long-dead masters whose words had been possibly altered by conniving manipulative power freaks was not the best way to spend your life.

And even with the best of intentions, without an actual living master around to keep the disciple from misinterpreting, what chances does the poor seeker have? So, following this fairly consistent advice, many sannyasins have gone to be with other masters.

2. And this need not imply a lack of love on the part of the disciple. Osho emphasizes many times, especially in his last year of non-stop Zen talks, how seekers would go from one Zen master to another -- even getting sent by the master! -- to fulfill the next stage of their journey.

3. The first two things are powerful enough themes in Osho's discourses that some people may wonder how anyone can stay with Osho after his departure from this plane. Well, just to keep things complicated (and dynamic) he has said plenty to counterbalance this message. A couple of quotes to illustrate the complex interplay of Osho's dialectics can be found in the discussion page.

These points of course only relate to those who had already taken sannyas, and do not address the needs of those who came to Osho after he left his body. For the latter, what can we say? Two factors will offset the "dead master" effect to some extent, even for those who had not connected with Osho prior to 1990. First, Osho has not so long ago gone that his words have been hopelessly tampered with. His ideas and methods are still accessible. And second, plenty of people who did connect directly with Osho in their hearts ARE still available, and to connect with these people is to get a taste of Osho. Much more could be said about this and may eventually, at More on new sannyasins post-1990.

Sangha fragmentation

Osho's comments many times and in many different ways, on the fragmentation of Buddha's sangha into variously 32 or 36 schools after Buddha left his body. Mostly his comments relate to the impossibility of reconciling Buddha's inconsistencies. For example:

When Gautam Buddha died, thirty-six schools were born immediately. That means Buddha was contradicting himself in thirty-six ways. While he was alive, these scholars and logicians and professors kept quiet, because it was impossible to argue with him. But they were waiting for their time. When he died, then they arose with great clamour and with great argument. And they insisted on one thing, that truth should be consistent.

Truth is NEVER consistent -- cannot be.

Then there was only one possibility: they should choose consistent statements and make a philosophy out of them. Thirty-six philosophies were born out of Buddha's statements, and all have missed him. Because if he was anything, he was all those thirty-six philosophies TOGETHER.

~ from Take It Easy, Vol 2, ch 10

So what has Osho's sangha done? How have his sannyasin "fellow-travelers" fared in this regard? Stay tuned!