Sannyas

In Mahatma Gandhi's ashram -- and he was a great saint, mahatma means great saint -- you could not smoke. I know smoking is silly, but what is wrong in being silly? And if one enjoys it, once in a while to be silly is perfectly human. It should be acceptable. You can tell the person, "It will harm your health, your life will be reduced by five years." But if you don't want to live that long, it is perfectly good -- because what are you going to do with five years more? You will smoke more!
And it is not a healthy habit; but people who don't smoke, they fall sick -- and I have seen people who have been smoking continuously, chain-smokers, never falling sick. So all this is just guesswork. All that the smoker is doing is enjoying taking the smoke in and throwing it out. The smoke is warm, just like the mother's milk, and the cigarette is exactly the mother's nipple; he is again enjoying being a child.
A cigarette is just a way of enjoying one's childhood again; that's why a cigarette is so relaxing. When you are worried, tense, you start looking for a cigarette. It helps; it is human. It will look really odd to go to your mother now, and say, " I am so tense and worried...." I think cigarettes are a good substitute. Don't disturb these people; otherwise they will disturb women. Your mother may be dead -- then you have to go to your wife, and she may be just mad at the idea that you have come with. She will think you are going nuts.
Cigarettes are such a simple substitute; don't disturb people. When I see you smoking I feel sorry for you, not because you are smoking but because you have to smoke. I think about your worries, not about your smoking; that is nothing to be bothered about. I think about your anguish, your tension. I think that there must be something eating at your heart; otherwise why should you burn yourself with smoking? I never judge your smoking, that you are doing some wrong act. I see deeper. I see why you are smoking.
But no saint bothers about why you are smoking. For them smoking is a sin. In Mahatma Gandhi's ashram if somebody was found to be smoking he was immediately turned out in disgrace; he had fallen. And the poor fellow was simply trying to relax. In fact his smoking was an indication that the ashram was not relaxing, that it was not a place where people could relax. Instead, it was a place where people became more tense. In fact, all the ashrams make you more tense.
It is a strange dilemma: they make you more tense, more worried. This world is not enough for them; they bring in hell and heaven and all kinds of consequences that you will have to suffer. Rather than helping you to get out of your tense mind, they make your mind more tense -- and then you cannot smoke, then you cannot drink even tea or coffee; these are all prohibited because they are all relaxing.
A relaxed person may not need to smoke unless playfully, once in a while, sitting with friends, when everybody is smoking and he does not want to play the saint. I used to go to parties when I was in the university. It was a problem because the host was worried that everybody would be drinking and I might feel left out. Knowing it from many other previous experiences, I had to go to the host and say, "Don't be worried about me. You just give me Coca Cola as if I am also drinking with everybody."
But he would say, "They will think you are also drinking alcohol."
I said, "Let them think that, it is no problem. What is the problem? It simply shows I am also human. I want to participate with them, I don't want to be holier-than-thou. To me that attitude is ugly, that attitude is simply egoistic.
"I cannot drink alcohol, because I don't know what I will do after drinking. There is no problem -- as far as I am concerned there is no problem, I can drink, because I don't think that even though alcohol is called spirits, it can be spiritual, or it can enter into my spirit. It will just go through my kidneys and sooner or later pass out of the body. So there is not much of a problem. I am thinking of you, because I may do something, and that may create trouble for you! So just give me Coca Cola."
Drinking Coca Cola with people -- they almost all glared at me! They all said, "You are also drinking? We were worried that you would be here not drinking, and we would look like sinners."
I said, "No, I am a drunkard. You go on, you cannot compete with me" -- because I could go on drinking Coca Cola as much as I wanted. But I felt happy that they were not feeling guilty. I felt that I had done something appropriate; I had been human.
Your saints are not human. Gandhi was very particular about cleanliness. He followed the same idea: cleanliness is next to God. Now for me it is a trouble -- there is no God, so only cleanliness remains. Not even next to God, just the first -- there is no next. But I don't come to look into your room, and into your bathroom. That seems to me evil. But Gandhi used to do that.
He would go into your room to see that everything is as it should be. He would have a look in your bathroom to see whether it was clean or not. But this is interfering in your privacy. I can talk about cleanliness, I can praise cleanliness. I can tell you the beauty of it; but then at least I should trust you, your intelligence, your privacy, and ultimately your responsibility to yourself. I am not responsible for you.
But this is not the way of the saints up to now. They have been after their disciples almost like detectives, making the disciple feel as guilty as possible. There is some arithmetic behind it.
The more guilty they make people feel, the bigger saints they are thought to be. Their height goes on becoming higher and higher as you go on sinking lower and lower. Their whole saintliness depends on your guiltiness. And to make you feel guilty is very simple: start condemning everything that is human, that is natural.
On my path the master is only a light. You can see in that light and go wherever you want to go. The master is not somebody who is continuously following you, forcing you. He is simply a presence. In his presence you become aware of your ultimate potential. You become aware of what you can be, and what you are not. You become aware of your hypocrisy.
Sannyas is nothing but dropping your hypocrisy.
 by
k.jagadeesh
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