Bankei And Young Lord

Sannyas Means Surrender

Sannyas means surrender; surrender creates receptivity. Surrender means you become vulnerable, open, you don’t defend. Surrender means now you put your arms away, now you drop your armor. Now even if the Master wants to kill you, you will be happy to be killed by the Master.

The master is available, the disciple is receptive, and between this availability and this receptivity some miracle transpires; something happens for which no word exists. And because it is not a relationship, it never grows old – it is always fresh, it is always young. Each time you come to the master, the experience is not a repetition.

That’s the meaning of the word ‘disciple’. It comes from the same root as ‘discipline’. A disciple is one who is ready to learn, who is ready to discipline himself into receptivity, into alertness, into awareness, into patience.

You have to be a valley, only then the river can flow, just like the water flows towards the valley. You have to be a valley — a deep humbleness, a receptivity, a womb — so that you can receive.

Sit silently, be silently — and wait. And one day suddenly, when you are really settled in your passivity, when you are really centered in your receptivity, when you are just a door, an opening, god comes to you, nirvana happens to you.

A really wise man is feminine, receptive, passive. That’s why Buddha looks so feminine. That quality of passiveness, that quality of receptivity… He is just a receptacle. He reflects life: he allows life to reflect in him, to be reflected through him. He sings the song that existence wants to sing through him. He has no ideas of his own; he does not hinder.

Masters are always there – sometimes more, sometimes less. That depends on the receptivity of a certain age, on the receptivity of a certain consciousness, on the receptivity of the time. But it has never happened that they are not there. More or less, right, but they are always there. It cannot happen in the very nature of things that out of millions of people not even a single person will not be realised.

The feminine principle is receptive and the masculine principle is creative, and both can only go together. Separate, they both suffer. Then the woman has nothing to receive and feels empty. And if there is nobody to receive, the man’s creativity is lost because there is nobody to appreciate, inspire. The woman receives, inspires and helps the man to flow in his creativity. Man’s creativity helps the woman to flow into her receptivity. This receptivity of the woman is not only biological, it is spiritual too. Behind all great poets you will find the inspiration of a woman. The women have not themselves been great poets – they need not be – but no great poetry is ever born without a woman. She functions as a lighthouse. Men have been great poets, but without a woman the poetry simply dies and withers away. Receptivity and creativity are two wings of the bird. This flight towards the unknown can be completed only with both wings. With one wing the bird is not going to go anywhere. And remember, creativity is not more valuable than receptivity – they are equal, they are utterly equal. No wing, right or left, is greater than the other; cannot be. They are equal. They are not similar but they are equal.