Extracts from Terence Stamp's Initiation Conversation with Osho, Nov.16th, 1976

OSHO: Mm, what about you? Is there something you would like to say to me?
TERENCE STAMP (film actor): If you can help me in any way...
OSHO: In every way!
TERENCE (thinking he had been misheard): Any way.
OSHO: In every way I am going to help, mm? The first thing first: become a sannyasin (Terence nods slowly). That connects you with me - and before the work can start a deep connection is needed, a deep involvement with me is needed because the help is not going to be an outer help. I need a passage into the heart. And by becoming a sannyasin you become available, you become vulnerable. Then it becomes very easy, you don't create obstacles. Otherwise ordinarily the human mind goes on creating obstacles in a thousand and one ways... unconsciously of course. A man is his own undoing. So if you really want help, the first need is to get involved with my family - immediately many things start happening. The first thing - you become relaxed with me. Otherwise whenever a new person comes here, he's afraid of sannyas - desirous and afraid too. There is a part which wants to move into this new space that I am making available here, and there is a part, naturally from the past, which is suspicious of everything - everything new at least; that part holds back. So if you are here and not a sannyasin, to become a sannyasin or not to become a sannyasin remains a constant worry on the head - a very subtle tension. Once you have become a sannyasin that tension is gone. You can relax, and only when you are in a relaxed state can I penetrate you. By becoming relaxed you become feminine; then penetration is possible. By surrendering you are no more a male energy that's why surrender is so difficult. The male energy is aggressive... it wants to conquer. Hence the West has given birth to science - science is an aggressive attack, almost a rape on truth. In the East we have never thought in terms of conquering, we have thought in terms of surrendering. We surrender to nature, to God, or whatsoever one calls it, and then nature starts revealing its mystery. So this sannyas is nothing but a first step towards the ultimate surrender which will be coming by and by. I am just a door. By surrendering to me you enter into the temple. And I can help in every way, but I can help only if you allow me to help.

There is a very famous story about a sufi mystic, Bayazid. When he went to his master he was a young man, desirous of knowing. He went to his master and he asked the master, `Would you teach me, sir?' The master looked at him and said, `Would you allow me to teach you?' And that very saying became a transformation. I am ready to help but will you allow me to help you?... because nothing can be done without your cooperation. I never interfere in anybody's life unless the life has become part of my life - that's what the meaning of sannyas is. Then you are no more Terence: you don't belong to your past - you belong to me. You can simply come out of your past as a snake comes out of the old skin - and it is tremendously beautiful to come out of the past. For a man like you who has lived a public life, who has become famous in a way, who is well-known, it is a must to get out of it.

This is one of the greatest human dilemmas - that when a person is not known, not famous, he hankers to become famous because walking on the road as a nonentity hurts. Nobody looks at you, nobody even says `hello', nobody pays any attention. Whether you exist or not does not matter. If you die, there will not even be a ripple, you will simply disappear as if you had never existed - it hurts. One starts in every way to (try and) make one's mark, to leave one's signature, so that even when death comes one can live in people's memories. And one wants that people should pay attention... people should know who you are! So there is a great urge to become famous. Somebody becomes a politician, somebody becomes an actor, somebody becomes an author, a painter, a poet... somebody becomes a saint.

The day you are famous - and it takes long effort; tired, exhausted you arrive, you become famous - suddenly you recognise that now it is almost impossible to walk on the road, to be, because no privacy is available. Wherever you go people know who you are. Everybody is staring at you. One becomes a public show. So when one becomes famous, one finds that one has lost one's privacy, one's own space. Then one wants to be anonymous, you want to go somewhere where nobody knows you. So first we create fame, when it is there... and by the time it is there much has been lost. much energy has been wasted, one has suffered much: many headaches and many ulcers, and everything has happened. And then by the time one becomes famous, it is futile. First one hankers for riches - when they are there, one simply sees the futility of it all.

TERENCE (quietly): It's true.
OSHO: Sannyas is just a leap of understanding, that now fame does not mean anything, richness does not mean anything; that you would like to like a natural, simple spontaneous life. I am not saying to escape from the world, I'm not saying drop out of your work, but once this ambition disappears, you can remain in whatsoever you are doing, but the quality will change.
TERENCE: Yes.
OSHO: And that's what I can see - you need a space to be alone, you need a space, a private space, a private sky where you are left alone and you can be silently growing, doing something or not doing something, just enjoying being. You are tired of doing. Sannyas will be a great help: it will make a discontinuity. On the surface it is very difficult to say what sannyas is. It is an experience And there are two ways to become a sannyasin: one is you think about it, you decide about it. The other and the better is that you simply go into it in deep trust without thinking about it, without making a decision about it. When you make a decision, sannyas is not so valuable because it is the past making decision. Then the break is not so abrupt. Mm? you will think - who is this thinking? Your past will think and calculate and watch and talk to people and meet people and see whether something happens or not. This whole thing will go on and then there is a conclusion, a decision you take or you don't take. But this decision comes out of the past, and the past remains continuous; then the quantum leap is missed. If you simply take a jump, not knowing where you are going, not making any effort to know where you are going - if you simply go into this darkness, into this vast darkness of existence, without any map, without any plan then it has a tremendous beauty. You will have a thrill, an adventure. So it is for you to decide! Would you like to decide or would you simply like to go into it?
(Terence gazes at Osho for a moment, then wordlessly lowers his head and moves closer to Osho's chair.)
OSHO: Close your eyes and feel me surrounding you from everywhere as if you are just in my womb, relaxed, contented and whatsoever form your body starts taking, let it take.

(Terence sits quite still while Osho writes his sannyas name and then places the mala over his head. Osho places his thumb on Terence's forehead, on his third eye, while his right hand holds the locket of the mala. After a moment or two Osho allows the locket to fall and places his hand on Terence's head, gazing at him and then closing his eyes, for several minutes...)

OSHO: This will be your name... so consciously, deliberately make a break with the old name. For your business purposes you can continue the old, but as far as you are concerned the old name becomes fictitious, the old name becomes pseudo, and this new name becomes your reality - Swami Deva Veeten. Deva means divine - the word comes from the same root as divine. Divine comes from a sanskrit root, deva - they both mean light. From dev comes day and divine both - it means light. And Veeten means beyond; the light beyond or the God beyond. And the reality is beyond you. The reality is beyond the body, beyond the mind. That's what one is ordinarily identified with - either the body or the mind - but reality is beyond both. Reality is in the witnessing of both........

Even when Gurdjieff was alive many people around him became ill, many people went mad, and the reason was that it was thought to be such a great work! The very word `work' makes it very serious. What I am doing here is play - it is not work. When I am gone, my work is to be known as play, never as work. So take it non-seriously. Seriousness is a disease and through seriousness no one has ever gone beyond. Seriousness is so heavy that it makes you rooted in the gravitation. One needs to be very playful, then one can go beyond gravitation - one can fly! A great unburdening is needed, so just be playful about it. When I say, 'when walking, watch,' I mean be playful. If sometimes you forget, nothing is wrong in it. Watch that too - you have forgotten, good! Then again you remember, good! Both are good. In fact there is a rhythm. You cannot constantly watch; it is just like breathing in, breathing out.

VEETEN (suddenly animated as if something has clicked inside) : Aahh!

OSHO: And that has been one of the missing points in Gurdjieff' system.

VEETEN: Yes! Yes!

OSHO: People are trying to be continuously watching. It is foolish!

VEETEN (thoughtfully, one hand under his chin, the other across his waist) :
Right... right!

VEETEN: Yes... yes!

OSHO: You just have to relax and enjoy and participate (here in the Ashram). So let celebration be the only rule! And I would like you to do a few groups here. A few groups will be very helpful.
VEETEN: Okay. Whatever you say.
OSHO: And have you done any groups? VEETEN: No. I put my name down for Rolfing.
OSHO: Rolfing is good, mm? Do that, and book for Encounter 4th to 10th. Your dates are not yet certain, when you will be leaving?
VEETEN: No. Maybe 5th, but I'm trying to stay for the eleventh (Osho's birthday).
OSHO: Be here! Eleventh is not to be missed (laughter).
VEETEN : Okay!
OSHO: And now I can order you - you are my sannyasin! (laughter) Mm?
VEETEN (grinning cheerfully): Okay!
OSHO: So book for Encounter, 4th to 10th, and these days you are here just mix with people and dance and enjoy... And forget everything.

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