This will be your name, so forget the old, forget it completely, as if it never belonged to you. A discontinuity is needed with the past so that one can start from ABC; fresh, with a clean sheet. That is the meaning of the new name – so that you can forget the old, and then with the old, the whole past disappears.

This will be your name: Ma Deva Veerag. Deva means divine and veerag means non-attachment, renunciation, non-possessiveness.

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Aniketa means homeless and anand means bliss – and bliss is always homeless, it is a vagabond. Happiness has a home, unhappiness also has a home, but bliss has none. It is like a white cloud with no roots anywhere.

The moment you get roots, bliss disappears and then you start clinging to the earth. Home means security, safety, comfort, convenience. And finally, if all these things are reduced to one thing, home means death. The more you are alive, the more you are homeless.

That is the basic meaning of sannyas: it means to live life in danger, to live life in insecurity, to live life not knowing what is coming next. It means to always remain available and always be able to be surprised. If you can be surprised, you are alive. That is why a child is more alive than an old man. The old man cannot be surprised. He has lost the capacity to wonder, and because of that he has lost life also.

Wonder and wander come from the same root. A fixed mind becomes incapable of wondering, because it has become incapable of wandering. So be a wanderer, like a cloud, and each moment brings infinite surprises. That’s what bliss is all about. You are never dead; you are alive each moment, and something new is always happening.

If you have the capacity to receive it, something is always happening. Something tremendously beautiful, something unbelievably beautiful is always happening, but because the mind goes on gathering dust, collecting thoughts, knowledge, by and by it becomes numb, paralyzed by knowledge. Knowledge is a paralysis. Once the mind is paralyzed, nothing can surprise you – you are already dead. People die long before they die.

Aniketa means to remain homeless. It doesn’t mean not to live in a home. It simply means never become attached to anything. Even if you live in a palace, never become attached. If a moment comes to move, you move – without looking back. Nothing holds. You use everything, you enjoy everything, but you remain the master. Nothing makes you a slave, nothing becomes a slavery. There is no dependence, and then there is no misery.