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we live in illusions and we create beautiful illusions around ourselves.
To be a sannyasin means dropping the life of being in illusions and entering into reality, whatsoever it is. In the beginning it is painful because we have become accustomed to illusions. In the beginning when they are taken away, it is the same as taking away a toy from a child, his teddy bear. He cannot sleep without the teddy bear, he cannot move without the teddy bear. The teddy bear is his very soul; he believes in the teddy bear. And people never grow up, they remain childish. Their teddy bears change but they remain childish. Then they become attached to money, to fame, to name, to prestige, to power, respectability. Now they are their teddy bears!
If they are not famous they cannot sleep. If they are not famous they feel so hollow, they don't know what to do with themselves. They have to be continuously on exhibition. Everybody should know them and everybody should know who they are. They themselves don't know who they are, and because they don't know they substitute it with others' knowledge about themselves.
Going beyond all name and all fame is going beyond all teddy bears. It is becoming mature. It is being ready to enter into inner emptiness. Certainly it is empty, but the door has to be empty, otherwise you cannot enter through it. It is not a wall, it is a door. The door has to be empty -- the wall is not empty. And each being is a door to God, hence the emptiness.
Sannyas means starting to enjoy this anonymous nobodiness, being happy with one's emptiness, rejoicing in it. And then soon the emptiness is no more emptiness. It becomes fulfillment;it starts overflowing with bliss.
Anandmurti. Anand means bliss; murti means an image -- an image of bliss.
The sannyasin has to be a symbol of bliss. He has to be a continuity of joy, an undercurrent of rejoicing. Even in his sadness there is a joy, because he is capable of enjoying his sadness too. He accepts it as part of life, he is not resistant to it. He allows it, he befriends it. And that is the alchemical way of transforming the very nature of sadness; the very nature of sadness becomes
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