"You disappear in sannyas. And the moment you disappear, immediately, instantly, God appears. When you are not, God is.

"So sannyas is not a way to decorate your being. Sannyas is utterly destructive. I annihilate you. In the old Eastern scriptures it is said, 'The master is a death.' The master is the greatest death – but only through death, new life becomes possible. The greater the death, the greater the resurrection. Let me be your cross. Die in me so that you can be reborn.

"You ask what will happen if you take sannyas. This question arises out of fear, out of greed. You would like to be certain, promised, what will happen. If I promise you anything that very promise will become the barrier; then sannyas will not happen – because to whom am I promising? To you: to your greed, to your ambition, to your desire – to all that nonsense I am promising – and that whole nonsense has to go. Not even a bit can be allowed to remain. If even a bit remains, that's enough. Ego is like cancer: you have to utterly annihilate it. Even if a small part remains somewhere, it will grow againand cancer grows fast.

"Kamal has sent me a beautiful anecdote; I would like you to meditate over it.

"Once Mulla Nasruddin came home, as usual very drunk. His wife was in a rage, more so because he had just promised the other day that he was trying to leave his habit by and by. And the wife said, 'Now, what about your leaving the habit?' Mulla said he had tried his best to break the habit, but when he cut h from the word habit still a bit remained. When he cut a still bit remained, and when he cut b still it remained.

"Ego is like that. You go on cutting: a bit remains, bit remains, it remains – but it remains. And this desire to be certain what is going to happen, is an effort of the ego to survive even sannyas. No, I cannot promise you. You are to go totally – then something is going to happen. But you cannot even conceive it, what it is."