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Sonia. Deva means divine; and both meanings of sonia are beautiful. Sophia means wisdom, and wisdom is nothing but the art of transforming the base metal into gold, the lower into the higher, the earthly into the heavenly, the mud into the lotus.
Gold is an ancient alchemical symbol, it is a metaphor. It represents the most precious: it represents God. It represents your innermost being, the highest, beyond which there is no going.
Sannyas is an alchemical process. It is a science of transforming your being. We have all that is needed, all the energy that is needed to be transformed, but new arrangements have to be made. Things are topsy-turvy, things are not in their right places. The society has not allowed things to grow in a natural way. The society disrupts every child; the society is really a conspiracy against the child. It does not allow the child's spontaneity and nature to grow on its own; it interferes, and every interference creates a perversion.
My work here is to undo what the society has done, to put things right, exactly as they should be naturally. If there had been no society and no conditioning, there would have been no need for any sannyas or any religion. It is because of the society; the society creates the illness and then the medicine is needed. In a really natural world there will be no religion because everybody will be simply natural. There will be no need for any medication, there will be no need for any change. The roses don't need religion because nobody is tinkering with them, nobody is interfering with them; man has been tinkered with down the ages.
But one thing is very important to remember: even if for centuries man has been forced to live unnaturally, if he understands it, in a single moment the transformation is possible, because the nature always remains somewhere there. You can hide it, you can cover it, but you cannot destroy it; and if you allow it, it starts functioning any moment, immediately. Hence enlightenment is a sudden phenomenon. In any moment of understanding one can become a Buddha. It does not take time, it is not a gradual process.
The Shadow of the Bamboo
Chapter #3
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