A Revolution From The Outside To The Inside

He has tremendous treasures but they have completely gone into his unconscious, he is no more conscious of them. From the very childhood we are made to be extroverts; our eyes are trained to look outside. Slowly slowly we forget how to look in.

Sannyas is the beginning of looking inwards; I am not against the outside, but just to live on the outside is to live a very mundane life, is to live a very prosaic life. Unless one starts diving deep into one’s own being, the poetry does not arise, the song does not happen, life remains danceless; the juices do not flow.

And once you start looking in, it is not going against the world. In fact your eyes become so rich with the inner flavour that when you look outside, the outside is also transformed because your vision is transformed. Then the world is no more just the world; it is no more just matter. It becomes divine, it is God. But first God has to be known within, then only can he be known without.

Let sannyas be a great revolution – a revolution from the outside to the inside, a change of awareness, a change of focus. And that’s my work here: to help you to relearn the art that every child is born with; but the society somehow manages to mess up every child and his consciousness.

Osho, The Shadow of the Bamboo, Ch 14 (excerpt)