“The second condition is that I will even sleep in your room. And the third condition is that even in the middle of the night, if I want to ask a question or one of my friends wants to ask a question, I will bring the friend in and you will have to answer. You cannot say, ‘I am tired. The whole day’s journey on foot and then the whole day hundreds of people coming to meet me…and their questions. At least in the middle of the night, don’t disturb me.’ You cannot say that.”

Buddha said, “You are my elder brother and I cannot deny you. So I promise, all these three things will always be fulfilled.”

Then Ananda took initiation.

The last day, after forty-two years, Buddha said, “Those three conditions have been the barrier. Many came after you and became enlightened, and you had the first opportunity. But when a dewdrop starts making conditions on the ocean it is creating barriers. Although you have been thinking that you had made those conditions when you were not a sannyasin, the consciousness and its current are the same. You may not be aware, but I have been aware that deep down in you, you still carry that ego that says, ‘I am the elder brother; I have a particularly special place.’ Nobody else has made any conditions.”

Initiations cannot be conditional. You are a sannyasin; you should have thought before that you are going on the path of yes. And this path of yes will end up in freedom. If you think you also need the no, then the whole world is free – everybody has the no, the yes, everybody has his mind.

The effort on the path of sannyas is to drop your mind, and your mind can be dropped only if your no is dropped.

Let me say it in other words: “no” is mind and “yes” is your soul.

You can choose and still there is no problem. But remaining a sannyasin you cannot continue to have the no. Freedom will come, but it will come from the door of yes – and that will be real freedom.

But many sannyasins go on writing me strange questions that surprise me. Just the other day in the newspapers, one sannyasin has given an interview. In the interview he was asked, “When Osho was in the jails of America, were you disturbed?”

He said, “One day Osho is going to leave the body. He cannot be eternally in the body, so we have to accept it. It was a good opportunity to accept his absence.”

On the surface the answer looks perfectly right. It is true: I am not going to be in the body forever. But are you going to live in the body forever? The sannyasin has completely forgotten that. There is every possibility you may pop off before me. You are becoming accustomed to my absence, and sannyas is becoming accustomed to my presence. Underlying it, the invisible writing is that you are saying, “No. I am enough unto myself.”

But I would like to remind you that even if I leave the body, I am not going to leave you. I will haunt you in your dreams, I will harass you as much as I can. And remember, when I am in the body the harassment is not so much. When I am without the body, I will simply touch you and you will freak out!