THE OLD HABITS DIE HARD.
Just becoming a sannyasin on the outside is not going to change your inner patterns of living, thinking, being. The outer sannyas is only a gesture — a beginning, not the end. You will have to do much.
The outer sannyas is only a gesture that you are ready to change. Now much work is ahead of you. Old habits are not just on the surface. It is not only a question of changing your clothes — they help, certainly they help, but that is not enough. You will have to change your very gestalt of consciousness.
Otherwise, people go on living in the old ways. Behind new labels, behind new names, they continue to be the old persons.
So don’t feel satisfied with just becoming a sannyasin. You have entered — now much has to be done. Inch by inch, your past has to be taken away from you. And inch by inch, you have to destroy old wrong patterns of being.
I have heard:
There were three partners altogether in the firm. They were in the business of garment manufacture, and it seemed that nothing they did could come out right. It was a disaster. If they would cut plaid, it would be solids that season. They would cut wools, and it would be cottons. They would make midi dresses, it would be separates. They could steal a Paris original, and if they cut it, it would be the disaster of the year.
You can imagine then how much more discouraging it was that just one floor above them was “The Company That Couldn’t Go Wrong”. Right upstairs was a company that, if they cut something, no matter how crazy the thing was, it would be automatically a hit! They couldn’t do anything wrong! No matter what they cut, it was a success.
No wonder then, that one of the partners of the failing firm, Harry — may God rest his soul — went out of his mind and decided to commit suicide from the roof. Of course, it was ironic that he had to fall past his competitors one floor above, and as he went by their window he happened to look inside.
That was how come, as he plunged down to the ground, the other two partners could hear his haunting voice, crying: “Nathan! Sam! Cut velvets!”
Now, he is dying… But the old mind, even at the moment of death, persists. The mind does not leave you so easily. How can it leave you so easily? — you have been cultivating it for so long; your whole life has been a cultivation of it.
Slowly slowly, you have to become aware of your old patterns and you have to stop cooperating with them. It lives on your cooperation, this much is certain. And this is the only hope: if you don’t cooperate with the mind it dies of its own accord. You nourish it. Don’t nourish it any more — that is one thing.
And the second thing: if you don’t nourish it any more and you don’t create a NEW gestalt of being, you will be in difficulty. You will be left with so much energy that it will become restless in you, it will drive you crazy. So two things have to be remembered: don’t cooperate with the old pattern, and start creating a new gestalt in your being so that your energy goes on being absorbed in that new gestalt.
Many people try to change the old, without understanding the mechanism of energy. Somebody wants to change a certain habit, and he fights with it — but he does not know that that habit contains a lot of energy in it. If that energy is released he will feel restless.
Have you not tried it? You have been smoking for long, and you want to stop it, because the Surgeon General says that cigarettes are harmful for your health. And I know the Surgeon General himself smokes, but that is another matter. They are harmful to your health, so you stop smoking. But there was a great energy involved in smoking, a great restlessness was being released through smoking. Have you not observed it? Whenever you feel restless you start smoking — your restlessness has an outlet through smoking. Whenever you are tense, nervous, you start smoking — your nervousness, your tension, is released through smoking. If you stop smoking, where will you put your nervousness? Where will your restlessness go? It will boil within you.
That’s what is felt as an urge. You start feeling a great urge to smoke. You will have to put this energy to some more creative work: start painting, sculpt, play guitar, sing a song, or dance, or meditate — do something! Whenever you want to change a habit, create a more beautiful gestalt — more creative, more enhancing to life, more divine. And you will never be in trouble.
If you simply want to stop smoking you are bound for trouble. You will have to do something else — you may start chewing gum, which is as foolish as smoking. Or you may start chewing PAN, which is even more foolish. But you will have to do something or other, you will have to substitute it with something, unless you find a creative outlet for the energy.
So watch what you want to change. I don’t know exactly what you want to change…
You say: I AM NOW A SANNYASIN, BUT WHY DO I GO ON THINKING IN THE SAME OLD WAYS?
Because you have not yet created new and better ways to think. Create new and better ways to think. Life gives immense opportunities.
It is said that Adolf Hitler in the beginning wanted to become an artist, he wanted to become a painter. But he was refused admission into the art academy and so the great calamity happened in the world. If he had been accepted by the art academy he would have become a painter. But he could not create — and he had the energy, and the energy was boiling; it was like a volcano in him. It burst forth into destructiveness.
If you are following some wrong, unhealthy, neurotic, destructive habits, the only reason is, you have not been able to find some creative outlets for your energy. And then the familiar persists — then the familiar becomes automatic, autonomous. When a person starts smoking, it becomes autonomous. He simply takes the cigarette out, starts smoking it, not at all aware what he is doing. It simply happens robot-like; it is robopathology. If he becomes aware of what he is doing, he may not smoke. If he becomes aware of why he is smoking, what is the root cause behind it, he may be able to change it.
Psychoanalysts say that people smoke, more or less, because they could not drink from their mother’s breast long enough. Smoking is a substitute — the mothers did not allow the children to be fed at the breast, and the child wanted to be fed on the breast. It was taken away from the child; now a substitute has to be found. A cigarette is really a very very similar phenomenon — it looks like the nipple when you take it, and the hot smoke going in looks almost like hot milk. It relaxes you.
Have you not watched? A child is crying, is restless: the mother gives the breast to the child and he falls asleep. It is soothing. Cigarettes are soothing.
Watch, go deep into your patterns. Something can be done then — something can be of immense help and the pattern can be changed. My own experience here is that whenever somebody asks me “How to drop smoking?” I tell him, every night before going to sleep, to suck at a false tit, a pacifier. And in the daytime also, when the urge arises, drink milk out of a bottle — just as if you are sucking at your mother’s breast. And it works miraculously. Within a few days, the desire to smoke disappears.
You will have to look into your patterns. Why do you think in a certain way? Why has a certain habit taken possession of you? You cannot simply drop it, because it has roots in you — and roots go deep and they persist.
I have heard:
A man was starting out in the business of prostitution. He found three women to work for him. The first was a beautician, the second was a telephone operator, and these two were very pretty. The third was a public school teacher who was rather plain. He had his doubts about her.
After some time, he noticed that most of the business came from the teacher, and it really puzzled him. So he eavesdropped.
First he heard the beautician tell her customer to please be careful because he was messing up her hair and make-up. Certainly that could put a man off.
Then he heard the telephone operator tell her customer, “Sorry sir, your three minutes are up.” Her attitude was even worse.
Then he listened in on the school teacher, and heard, “No, no, no! You’ll have to do it over and over until you get it right!”
Habits die hard. You may have become a sannyasin — don’t think this is the end. This is the beginning of the work; much has to be done now. Don’t rest contented with it.
Sannyas is just the beginning — it gets you into the trouble of transformation. Now you will have to go deep into your mind grooves. You will have to look deep, you will have to see why something is there — why? You will have to find out the cause of it.
And sometimes it happens, just knowing the cause, ninety percent of problems disappear. And with the ten percent that remain, your energy will need alternative outlets.