Here, the sannyasins have to drop everything – and dropping everything you have saved yourself; otherwise you are going to be drowned in all the mud that you have accumulated. Your parents, your teachers, your priests, your culture, religion, society – they are all pouring mud on you. And it is a very sticky mud, you become glued to it.

The decision to become a sannyasin is a very great, momentous decision, because from that point you will have to leave everything that you thought was yours, and you will have to move into a new dimension where nothing belongs to you. On the contrary, you belong to the whole.

Do you see the difference? When you say, “This belongs to me,” this is the language of the ego. And when you say, “I belong to the universe,” this is the language of egolessness. Then you are in a total let-go. If you belong to the universe, then it is the universe who is going to take care of you.

I am saying it from my own experience. For thirty-two years I have been the poorest richest man in the world. And I don’t have anything that belongs to me, nothing belongs to me, but the phenomenon of belonging to the universe has created harmony out of a great contradiction. As far as belongings are concerned, I am the poorest man you can find. Even a beggar has something which belongs to him.

I used to go to the university to teach. An old beggar was always there. The railway station was just in between my house and the university; the old beggar was always begging at the railway station, and he knew when I would be passing. He would come to the road and stand there. One day I was surprised – a young man was standing there, a young beggar. I said, “What happened to the old man?”

He said, “I got married to his daughter, and he has given me his place as the dowry. This is the best place in our profession! The railway station – so many new people coming and going – the university, so many people coming and going…there is nothing comparable to it.”

So I said, “What happened to him?”

He said, “Now he has moved to another spot.” The city had two stations, so he had moved to another station. And he was a very strong fellow; he must have thrown out the beggar who was thinking that that station belonged to him.

Nothing belongs to anybody, but even beggars are richer than me. Because I am not there, how can anything belong to me? And the moment I disappeared, my consciousness became part of the whole. I lost everything and I gained everything; hence I say, I am the poorest and the richest man. In these thirty-two years I have lived like a king, and I have not earned a single cent. The universe takes care. The universe is benevolent.

You are this universe’s children. Just become a child, and your eyes will be able to see the point. And from that moment, growth goes on happening; you go on and on. And there are no borders to existence. There are no borders to your growth either.