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Be true to yourself- This is the only way -
"Be true to yourself, and don't look at what others are saying. This is the only way to reach to the Divine, because it is the only way to be natural." -Osho, "When the Shoe Fits, #2"
"To be authentic means: to remain true to your own being.[....] "Remember, be true to your inner voice. It may lead you in danger; then go in danger, but remain true to the inner voice.[....] "To be authentic means to be true to oneself.[....] "Be true whatsoever the cost.[....] "An authentic man cannot lie; whatsoever he says will be true.[....] -Osho, "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 5, #7"
The authentic man meansone who has come out of his personality.
Question 3: Osho, What is the meaning of an authentic man? what is his nature, and his way of life?
The authentic man means one who has come out of his personality. You have two words: personality and individuality. Personality is the false identity given by the society to you. And individuality is what nature has given to you. Individuality is existential. Personality is social.
Ordinarily, everybody is living as a personality; hence, his life is not authentic. It is false, it is deceptive, it is a hypocrisy. He is not only cheating others, he is cheating himself. He is deceiving others and he is deceiving himself too.
The word 'personality' comes from Greek drama. Greek drama has a speciality: in ancient Greek drama all the actors have masks. You cannot find out who the actor is, you see only a mask, but the voice that comes through the mask is of the actor.
It was called persona in Greek: sona means sound, sound coming through a mask. You cannot find out who the real face is.
Slowly, slowly, we have forgotten the origin of the meaning of the word 'personality'.
But watch yourself, and you will be surprised: everything that you are is borrowed. All your thoughts are borrowed. Even about feelings you are not certain.
People write letters to me and they say, "I think I have fallen in love." Great..."I think that I have fallen in love." They cannot trust their feeling, they are thinking.
The personality is surrounding you from everywhere, and your individuality becomes almost a hidden thing. You never allow it to live - because the society does not want you to live in freedom according to your nature; the society wants you to live in the way that the society finds useful.
The personality is very useful: it is never rebellious, it is always a slave. It has no guts to say no. It knows only to say "yes sir." Even in moments when your innermost being is saying no, your personality goes on saying, "Yes sir." You are living a split life.
Society supports your personality; hence, the personality has become very powerful.
There is nobody to support your individuality; hence, individuality - which is your nature, which is your real power, which is your authentic being - remains in darkness, repressed.
You are asking me: What is an authentic man?
An authentic man is a man of rebellious spirit. He rebels against his own personality, whatever the cost. He is not ready to compromise as far as his freedom is concerned; he would rather die than to be enslaved.
My whole teaching is to bring the authentic being to the surface, from the hidden corners of darkness where you have pushed it.
You are enemies of yourselves; you have crippled your own being. And then you go on complaining that life is miserable - it is your doing! You have compromised, for small comforts from the society.
And for small comforts from the society, you have sold your soul. Now you have comforts but no soul - good furniture, good house, good salary... but for whom? You are non-existent. This is the misery, this is the hell that every man is passing through.
And there are people who are exploiting the situation. The politicians become your leaders because they say they will bring a utopia into the world - soon there will be no poverty, there will be no suffering, no exploitation, no inequality. All their slogans give you a consolation, and a feeling, "Follow this man." Although for thousands of years these same people, the same kind, have been giving you the same idea of utopia, the utopia never comes.
Perhaps you may not be aware that the very word 'utopia,' in its roots, means that which never comes.
The politicians are giving you great utopian ideas; the religions are giving you great ideas of heaven, paradise, moksha. But if you have an authentic life, you don't need the priest. You are so fulfilled, you are so blissful that no paradise can become in any way an improvement on it. You are living this day in the most beautiful way possible... loving, in friendship. No utopia is going to make your life richer.
You have to see the strategy: keep people false, so they remain miserable. Miserable people need priests, politicians, psychoanalysts, all kinds of charlatans, because they are in such misery they are ready to fall in anybody's trap, whoever gives them hope.
Hope is almost like opium: you forget your misery, you start dreaming beautiful dreams.
I don't know what the situation is now, but in my childhood I have seen laborers working on the farms or making the roads, and they were so poor that their women also had to work... with small children, a six-month old child. Now what can the woman do with the child? How can she manage to work and keep the child? I was surprised to see that whenever there was any road being made, there were children lying in the grass by the side of the road - enjoying, so blissful.
I inquired, "What is the matter?" - because these children are such nasty people. The whole day they will sleep, and the whole night they will cry; strange ideas they have. But here are the mother and the father working on the road and they are just by the side, under a tree in the shade... so blissful. I asked, and I found out what they did: they gave a little opium to the child so that the whole day - whether they were hungry, whether they were lying in the heat, it didn't matter - the opium would keep them unconscious of their reality.
Hope is the opium of the people.
And they go on giving hope.
Hope is the greatest business in the world. For thousands of years priests have been exploiting, giving hope: "In the next life..." And nobody has asked them, "Why not in this life? And this life must have been 'the next life' in the previous life. We have been miserable in the past life, and we waited for this life - we are miserable. And you are again saying 'next life' - or in paradise."
Not a single eyewitness, no proof, no evidence exists of any paradise.
But the miserable person is ready to believe in anything; the belief has to be a consolation.
Why are people, the masses, against me? The psychological reason is that I am trying to destroy their hope - and if their hope is destroyed, their reality is misery. And I want them to realize that they are miserable so that I can point out to them why they are miserable:
They are miserable because they are not authentic.
Drop the personality. Live naturally, live intensely. Do not allow anybody else to dominate you; you have allowed too many people to dominate you. [....]
My whole family is wanting me to become this, to become that. I know that if I become all these things, one thing is certain: I will become insane. And nobody is asking me - 'What do you want to become?' Nobody seems to be interested in me; they have their own ambitions, and I am simply an excuse to fulfill their ambitions."
Everybody is in a place where he should not be. The poets are making shoes, the shoemakers have become prime ministers. Everything seems to be topsy-turvy, and everybody is miserable.
The authentic person has to rebel. He has to say to the whole world, "I am going to be myself, whatever the cost. If I want to be a musician.... Perhaps everybody cannot be Yehudi Menuhin or Ravi Shankar. Most probably, I will be a musician on the street begging, but still I will be happy that I am fulfilling my own desire, that I am not being dominated by somebody else."
Those who are dominating may have good intentions. Nobody is doubting their intentions. And perhaps if you had followed their intentions you would have been the richest man in the country, and now you are just a beggar with your guitar on the street. But I say to you that to follow your own nature and to be a beggar with a guitar in the street is more fulfilling, more blissful than to be the richest man in the country, if it is not your desire. [....]
The authentic man is one who lives his life according to his own innermost core, who lives his individuality. It needs guts, it needs courage, because you are moving into an unknown area.
While your parents and your well-wishers are experienced people - they know what will be right for you, they know what is going to produce more money, more respectability - you don't know anything.
But the authentic man lives the unknown, allows the unknown, moves on the unknown path, risks everything. He may not find gold mines, but he finds a tremendous satisfaction. His life is a life of blessings; his death is a death of fulfillment.
-Osho, “The Osho Upanishad, #40, Q3”
Be true whatsoever the cost.1) Never listen to anybody 2) Don't use masks 3) Always remain in the present
Truthfulness means authenticity, to be true, not to be false -- not to use masks: whatsoever is your real face, show it... and at whatsoever the cost.
Remember, that doesn't mean that you have to unmask others. If they are happy with their lies it is for them to decide. Don't go and unmask anybody, because this is how people think. They think they have to be truthful, authentic; they mean they have to go and make everybody nude -- "Because why are you hiding your body? These clothes are not needed." No. Please remember, be truthful to yourself. You are not needed to reform anybody else in the world. If you can grow yourself, that's enough. Don't be a reformer, and don't try to teach others, and don't try to change others. If you change, that's enough message.
To be authentic means: to remain true to your own being. How to remain true? Three things have to be remembered. One, never listen to anybody, what they say for you to be: always listen to your inner voice, what you would like to be. Otherwise your whole life will be wasted. Your mother wants you to be an engineer, your father wants you to be a doctor, and you want to be a poet. What to do? Of course the mother is right because it is more economical, more financially helpful, to be an engineer. The father is also right, to be a doctor; it is a good commodity in the market. it has a market value. "A poet? Have you gone mad? Are you crazy?"
Poets are people who are cursed. Nobody wants them. There is no need for them; the world can exist without poetry. There will be no trouble because poetry is not there. The world cannot exist without engineers; the world needs engineers. If you are needed you are valuable; if you are not needed you don't carry any value. But if you want to be a poet, be a poet. You may be a beggar. Good. You may not get very rich out of it -- don't worry about it, because you may become a great engineer and you may earn much money, but you will never have any fulfillment. You will always hanker, your inner being will hanker, to be a poet,
I have heard that one great scientist, a great surgeon who was awarded a Nobel prize, was asked, "When the Nobel prize was awarded to you, you didn't look very happy. What is the matter?" He said, "I always wanted to be a dancer. I never wanted to be a surgeon in the first place, and now not only have I become a surgeon, I have become a very successful surgeon; and this is a burden. And I wanted to be just a dancer -- and I remain a lousy dancer. That is my pain, anguish. Whenever I see somebody dancing, I feel so miserable, in such a hell. What will I do with this Nobel prize? It can't become a dance to me; it can't give me a dance."
Remember, be true to your inner voice. It may lead you in danger; then go in danger, but remain true to the inner voice. Then there is a possibility that one day you will come to a state where you can dance with inner fulfillment. Always look, the first thing is your being; and don't allow others to manipulate and control you. And they are many: everybody is ready to control you, everybody is ready to change you, everybody is ready to give you a direction you have not asked for. Everybody is giving you a guide for your life. The guide exists within you; you carry the blueprint.
To be authentic means to be true to oneself. It is a very, very dangerous phenomenon; rare people can do that. But whenever people do it, they achieve. They achieve such beauty, such grace, such contentment, that you cannot imagine. If everybody looks so frustrated, the reason is that nobody has listened to his own voice.
You wanted to marry a girl, but the girl was a Mohammedan and you are a Hindu brahmin. Your parents wouldn't allow. The society wouldn't accept; it was dangerous. The girl was poor and you are rich. So you married a rich woman, Hindu, brahmin by caste, accepted by everybody -- but not by your heart. So now you live an ugly life. Now you go to the prostitute, but even prostitutes won't help you. You have prostituted your whole life. You wasted your whole life.
Always listen to the inner voice, and don't listen to anything else. Thousand and one are the temptations around you because many people are there peddling their things. It is a supermarket, the world, and everybody is interested in selling his thing to you; everybody is a salesman. If you listen to too many salesmen you will become mad. Don't listen to anybody, just close your eyes and listen to the inner voice. That is what meditation is all about: to listen to the inner voice. This is the first thing.
Then the second thing -- if you have done the first thing only then the second becomes possible: never wear a mask. If you are angry, be angry. It is risky, but don't smile, because that is to be untrue. But you have been taught that when you are angry, smile; then your smile becomes false, a mask. Hmm?... just an exercise of the lips, nothing else. The heart full of anger, poison, and the lips smiling -- you become a false phenomenon.
Then the other thing also happens: when you want to smile you cannot smile. Your whole mechanism is topsy-turvy because when you wanted to be angry you weren't, when you wanted to hate you didn't. Now you want to love; suddenly you find that the mechanism doesn't function. Now you want to smile; you have to force it. Really your heart is full of smile and you want to laugh loudly, but you cannot laugh, something chokes in the heart, something chokes in the throat. The smile doesn't come, or even if it comes it is a very pale and dead smile. It doesn't make you happy. You don't bubble up with it. It is not a radiance around you.
When you want to be angry, be angry. Nothing is wrong in being angry. If you want to laugh, laugh. Nothing's wrong in laughing loudly. By and by you will see that your whole system is functioning. When it functions, really, it has a hum around it, just as a car, when everything is going good, hums. The driver who loves the car knows that now everything is functioning well, there is an organic unity -- the mechanism is functioning well. You can see: whenever a person's mechanism is functioning well, you can hear the hum around him. He walks, but his step has a dance in it. He talks, but his words carry a subtle poetry in them. He looks at you, and he really looks; it is not just lukewarm, it is really warm. When he touches you he really touches you; you can feel his energy moving into your body, a current of life being transferred... because his mechanism is functioning well.
Don't wear masks; otherwise you will create dysfunctions in your mechanism -- blocks. There are many blocks in your body. A person who has been suppressing anger, his jaw becomes blocked. All the anger comes up to the jaw and then stops there. His hands become ugly. They don't have the graceful movement of a dancer, no, because the anger comes into the fingers -- and blocked. Remember, anger has two sources to be released from. One is teeth, another is fingers: because all animals, when they are angry -- they will bite you with the teeth or they will start tearing you with the hands. So the nails and the teeth are the two points from where the anger is released.
I have a suspicion that wherever anger is suppressed too much, people have teeth trouble. Their teeth go wrong because too much energy is there and never released. And anybody who suppresses anger will eat more; angry people will always eat more because the teeth need some exercise. Angry people will smoke more. Angry people will talk more; they can become obsessive talkers because, somehow, the jaw needs exercise so that the energy is released a little bit. And angry people's hands will become knotted, ugly. If the energy was released they could have become beautiful hands.
If you suppress anything, in the body there is some part, corresponding part, to the emotion. If you don't want to cry, your eyes will lose the luster because tears are needed; they are a very alive phenomenon. When once in a while you weep and cry, really you go into it -- you become it -- and tears start flowing down your eyes; your eyes are cleansed, your eyes again become fresh, young, and virgin. That's why women have more beautiful eyes, because they can still cry. Man has lost his eyes because they have a wrong notion that men should not cry. If somebody, a small boy cries, even the parents, others, say, "What are you doing? Are you being a sissy?" What nonsense, because God has given you -- man, woman -- the same tear glands. If man was not to weep, there would have been no tear glands. Simple mathematics. Why do the tear glands exist in man in the same proportion as they exist in woman? Eyes need weeping and crying, and it is really beautiful if you can cry and weep wholeheartedly.
Remember, if you cannot cry and weep wholeheartedly, you cannot laugh also, because that is the other polarity. People who can laugh can also cry; people who cannot cry cannot laugh. And you may have observed sometimes in children: if they laugh loudly and long they start crying -- because both things are joined. In the villages I have heard mothers saying to their children, "Don't laugh too much; otherwise you will start crying." Really true, because the phenomena are not different -- just the same energy moves to the opposite poles.
Second thing: don't use masks -- be true whatsoever the cost.
And the third thing about authenticity: always remain in the present -- because all falseness enters either from the past or from the future. That which has passed has passed -- don't bother about it. And don't carry it as a burden; otherwise it will not allow you to be authentic to the present. And all that has not come has not come yet -- don't unnecessarily be bothered about the future; otherwise that will come into the present and destroy it. Be true to the present, and then you will be authentic. To be here-now is to be authentic. No past, no future: this moment all, this moment the whole eternity.
These three things, and you attain what Patanjali calls truthfulness. Then whatsoever you say will be true. Ordinarily you think you have to be alert to say the truth. I'm not saying that. I am saying: you create authenticity -- whatsoever you say will he true. An authentic man cannot lie; whatsoever he says will be true.
In yoga we have a tradition -- it may not even be possible for you to believe it; I believe it because I have known it, I experienced it: if a real, authentic man lies, the lie will become true, because an authentic man cannot lie. That's why in the old scriptures it is said, "If you are practicing authenticity, be alert not to say anything against anybody -- because it can become true." We have many stories of great seers who said something in anger, but they were so authentic....
You must have heard the name of Durvasa -- a great seer, authentic man. but if he says something, even he cannot cancel it. If he curses you, the curse is going to come true. If he says, "You will die tomorrow!" you will die tomorrow, because from that source of authenticity the lie is not possible. The whole existence follows an authentic man. And even then he cannot cancel it.
It is beautiful. That's why people go to great seers for their blessing: if they bless, it is going to come true. That is the meaning, nothing else. They go and they ask blessings. If the seer gives the blessings then they are not worried; it is going to happen now, because how can an authentic man say a lie? Even if it is a lie, it is going to be true. So I don't say, "Tell the truth." I say, "Be authentic and whatsoever you say is going to be true."
The third is asteya, achaurya -- nonstealing, honesty. The mind is a great thief. In many ways it goes on stealing. You may not be stealing things from people, but you can steal thoughts. I say something to you; you go out and you pretend that that is your thought. You have stolen it, you are a thief -- you may not be aware what you are doing.
Says Patanjali, "Be in a state of nonstealing." Knowledge, things -- nothing should be stolen. You should be original and should always be aware that "these things don't belong to me." Remain empty, it is better, but don't fill your house with stolen things, because if you go on stealing you will lose all originality. Then you will never be able to find your own space: you will be filled with others' opinions, thoughts, things. And, finally, they don't prove of any value. Only that which comes out of you is valuable. In fact only that which comes out of you can you possess, nothing else. You can steal but you cannot possess.
A thief is never at ease, cannot be -- he is always afraid of being caught. And even if nobody catches him he knows that this is not his. This remains a constant burden in his being.
Patanjali says, "Don't be a thief -- in any way, in any dimension," so that your originality can flower. Don't burden yourself with stolen things and thoughts, philosophies, religions. Allow your inner space to flower.
Fourth is brahmacharya. This word is really very difficult to translate. It has been translated as "sexual continence," celibacy. That's not right, because brahmacharya is a wide word, very vast. Sexual celibacy is a very narrow thing; it is one part of it, but not the who]e of it. The word brahmacharya means "living like a god." The very word means living like a god, living a life divine. Of course, in a life divine, sex disappears.
Brahmacharya is not against sex. If it is against sex then sex can never disappear. Brahmacharya is a transmutation of the energy: it is not being against sex, rather it is changing the whole energy from the sex center to the higher centers. When it reaches to the seventh center of man, the sahasrar, then brahmacharya happens. If it remains in the first center, muladhar, then sex; when it reaches to the seventh center, then samadhi. The same energy moves. It is not being against it; rather, it is an art how to use it.
A man who is indulging in sex is a suicidal man. He is destroying his own energy. He is like a man who goes to the market, gives his diamonds, and purchases pebbles -- and comes home happy that he has done a great bargain. In sex you attain such a little, a tiny moment of happiness, and you lose so much energy. The same energy can give you tremendous blissfulness, but then it has to move on a higher level.
Sex has to be transformed -- don't be against it. If you are against it you cannot transform it, because when you are inimical towards something you cannot understand it. Great sympathy is needed for understanding. If you are inimical, how can you give sympathy? When you are inimical to something, you cannot even observe: you want to withdraw from your enemy, to escape from the enemy. Be in friendship with your sex, because it is your energy, with tremendous possibilities hidden in it. It is God, raw. Sex is samadhi, raw. It can be transmuted, it can be changed, it can be transfigured. The whole yoga is the path to transfer, to change, the baser metal into the higher metal. The whole art is how to change iron into gold. Yoga is alchemy, alchemy of your inner being.
Brahmacharya means: trying to understand sex energy, trying to understand how it moves in your being, trying to understand why it gives you pleasure, trying to understand from where pleasure really comes -- whether it comes from sexual congress, sex release, or it comes from somewhere else. If you are an observer, soon you will realize and discover it is coming from somewhere else. When you are in a sexual intercourse a deep shock happens to the whole body. It is a shock, because so much energy is released; the whole body trembles in a shock. In that shock thoughts stop. It is just like an electric shock.
-Osho, "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 5, #7"
Don't become the mask. Use it if it is good,and keep the rules, but don't become the mask
Question 2 Osho, We can practice right behavior, and behavior according to duty, but then we will be wearing false faces, as we are inwardly, as you say, a madhouse. so should we act as we feel, or act as we ought?
The first thing to be understood: you have to be authentic to yourself -- sincere, honest. But that doesn't mean that you have to hurt others through your honesty and sincerity, that doesn't mean that you have to disturb others, that doesn't mean that you have to disturb the rules of the game. All relationships are just rules of the game, and many times you will have to act and wear masks, false faces. The only thing to remember is: don't become the mask. Use it if it is good, and keep the rules, but don't become the mask, don't get identified. Act it, don't get identified with it.
This is a great problem, particularly in the West for the new generation. They have heard too much; they have already been seduced by this idea: be sincere and be honest. This is good, but you don't know how cunning and destructive the mind is. Your mind can find excuses. You can say a truth, not because you love truth so much but just to hurt somebody; you can use it as a weapon. And if you are using it as a weapon it is not truth, it is worse than a lie.
Sometimes you can help somebody through a lie, and sometimes relationship becomes more easy through a lie. Then use it -- but don't get identified with it. What I am saying is: Be a good player, learn the rules of the game; don't be too adamant about anything. [....]
The one thing to remember is: life is a great complexity. You are not alone here, there are many others related to you. Be sincere unto yourself, never be false there. Know well what you want, and for yourself remain that. But there are others also; don't unnecessarily hurt them. And if you need to wear masks, wear them and enjoy them, but remember, they are not your original face, and be capable of taking them off any moment. Remain the master, don't become the slave; otherwise you can be violent through your sincerity, unnecessarily you can be violent.
I have seen persons who are cruel, violent, aggressive, sadistic -- but sincere, very true, authentic. But they are using their authenticity just for their sadism. They want to make others suffer, and their trick is such that you cannot escape them. They are true, so you cannot say, "You are bad." They are good people, they are never bad, so no one can say to them, "You are bad." They are always good, and they do the bad through their good.
Don't do that, and don't take life too seriously. Nothing is wrong in masks also, faces also. Just as in the drama on the stage they use faces and enjoy and the audience also enjoys, why not enjoy them in real life also? It is not more than a drama. But I am not saying for you to be dishonest. Be sincere with yourself, don't get identified. But life is great; there are many around you related in many invisible nets. Don't hurt anybody. [....]
Others are there, consider them, and don't try to be violent through so-called good things. So when it is said, "right conduct," it means right relationship with others. You need not be false. When you can be true without hurting anybody, be true. But if you feel that your truth is going to hurt many and is unnecessary, it can be avoided, then avoid it, because it is not only going to hurt others, it will create patterns of cause, and those causes will return as effects on you, they will become your karmas. Then you will get entangled, and the more entangled you are the more you will have to behave in wrong ways.
Just stop. Just see the situation. If you can be true without hurting anybody, be true. To me, love is greater than truth. Be loving. And if you feel that your truth will be hurtful and violent, it is better to lie than to be true. Wait for the right moment when you can be true, and help the other person to come to such a state where your truth will not hurt him. Don't be in a hurry.
And life is a big drama; don't take it too seriously -- because seriousness is also a disease of the mind, seriousness is part of the ego. Be playful, don't be too serious. So sometimes you will have to use masks, because there are children around you and they like masks, they like false faces, and they enjoy. Help them to grow so they can face the real face, they can encounter it. But before they can encounter it, don't create any trouble. Right conduct is just consideration for others.
And look: there is a great difference. You may misunderstand what I am saying. When you lie, you lie for yourself. And I am saying: if you need, and if you feel the need to lie, only lie for the consideration of others. Never lie for yourself, don't use any mask for yourself. But if you feel it is going to help others, it will be good for them, use the mask. And inside remain alert that this is just a game you are acting, this is not real.
Sometimes you may need to be angry to your child, to your son, to your daughter. There are situations when anger helps. If you say something to your child coldly, it is not loving. If you say to your child, "Don't do this," in a cold manner, it is not loving, it is not going to help. When you say, "Don't do this!" to your child in anger, deep anger, it reaches the child, and he feels that you love him, that's why you are angry.
A father who has never been angry with his son has never been loving; anger means that you consider him, you can even be angry. You love him, you feel for him. Sometimes even when you are not feeling angry but you see the need, show the anger, have the face of anger -- but remain the master. And if you are the master, then the faces are beautiful, you can use them. But don't become the face; if you become the face you have become the slave. The whole thing is not to get identified. Remain aloof, distant, and capable at any time to put it on and off -- the face is just a device. It will be difficult and complex. It is easy to be untrue, it is easy to be true. The most difficult thing is to be the master of yourself to such an extent that if you want to be untrue you can be untrue, and if you want to be true you can be true.
Gurdjieff's disciples have written many books about him, and every disciple describes him in a different way. This is very mysterious, it has never happened with any other person in that way. Sometimes it happened that a person went to see Gurdjieff, then left, and then his friend went to see him. They would report to each other and would both give a different picture.
Gurdjieff was a master of changing faces. It is said that he had become so capable that a person sitting by his right side would feel one thing, and a person sitting by his left side would feel differently. He may have been very loving with his left eye, and that half-face was showing love, and with the other side he may have been angry. And both persons would report to each other outside: "What type of man is this? He was so loving." The other would say, "You are in some illusion... because he was so angry."
That is possible and such a mastery is beautiful. It is said that no one reported Gurdjieff's real face, because he never showed anybody his real face. He was always acting, but helping in a way; in many ways he was helping. He would show you the face that was needed by you for your consideration; he would never show you the face that was not needed by you.
To me, and to the Upanishads also, right conduct means just the right rules of behavior with others. You are not going to be here forever. You cannot change the whole world, you cannot change everybody; you can at the most change yourself. So it is better to change yourself inwardly, and don't try to be in a continuous fight with everybody. Avoid fight -- and faces can be helpful. Avoid unnecessary struggle, because that dissipates energy. Preserve your energy to be used for the inner work. And that work is so significant and it needs all your energy that you can give to it, so don't waste it in unnecessary things.
For the outside world remain an actor, and don't think that you are deceiving anybody. If they like deception, that's what they need, that's what should be given to them. If children like toys to play with, you are not deceiving them. Don't give them a real gun; let them play with the toy gun, because they like the toy. And don't think that the toy gun is false; don't think, "I must be true, I must give a real gun to the child. If he needs a gun, then I must give the true thing. How can I give the toy? This is a deception."
But the child needs the toy, there is no deception; he doesn't need the real gun. So just look at the other, at what he needs, and give him that which he needs. Don't give out of your own consideration, give out of consideration for him. Look at him, study and observe him, and behave in such a way that will be helpful to him and will not be unnecessary trouble for you. This is all that is meant by right conduct.
-Osho, "Vedanta: Seven Steps to Samadhi, #7, Q2"
Don't say a single word that is not coming spontaneously.
The real trouble is with people who go on talking and don't know what they are talking about and why. They go on talking because they cannot stop.
But if you become a little aware of the whole nonsense and the trouble that goes on and on in the mind, once you become aware that there is nothing to say, that everything seems to be trivia, then you hesitate.
In the beginning it feels as though you are losing the capacity to communicate - it is not so. In fact people talk not to communicate, but to avoid communication. Soon you will be able to really communicate, mm? Just wait and don't force anything.
Things are going very well. Don't be worried about the silence. One does because the whole society exists on talking, on language, and people who are very articulate in talking become very powerful in society - leaders, scholars, politicians, writers. One soon becomes afraid that one is losing one's grip on language, but don't be worried. Silence is the grip on God, and once you know what silence is, you have something to talk about.
Once you have gone deeper into silence then your words carry meaning for the first time. Then they are not just empty words, they are full of something of the beyond. They have a poetry to them, a dance... they carry your inner grace with them.
But just wait and don't force, because that will be very very destructive. If you don't feel like talking, don't - don't say a single word that is not coming spontaneously. Don't be worried if people think you are going crazy. Accept it. If they think you have become dumb, accept it and enjoy your dumbness!
Laugh more and talk less!
-Osho, “Above All Don't Wobble, #13”
Be authentically yourself. You cannot imitate.
Remember also that religion is not an imitation. You cannot imitate a religious person. If you imitate, it will be a pseudo-religion -- false, insincere. How can you imitate me? And if you imitate, how can you be true to yourself ? You will become untrue to yourself. You are not here to be like me. You are here to be just like yourself. You are not here to be like me; you are here to be just like yourself, like you.
I have heard about a Jewish mystic, Josiah. He was dying and somebody asked, 'Josiah, pray to Moses, and ask him to help you.' Josiah said, 'Forget about Moses. Because when I am dead, God will not ask me why I am not like Moses. He will ask why I am not like Josiah. He will not ask me, "Why are you not like Moses?" That is not my responsibility, to be like Moses. If God wanted me like Moses, He would have made me a Moses. He will ask me, "Josiah, why are you not like Josiah?" And that is my trouble: my whole life I have been trying to be like somebody else. But at least now, at the last moment, leave me alone! Let me be myself, because that is the face I should show to God. And that is the only face that He will be waiting for.'
Be authentically yourself. You cannot imitate. Religion makes everybody unique. No Master who is really a Master will insist that you imitate him. He will help you to be yourself, he will not help you to be like him.
And all culture is imitation. The whole society is imitative. That's why the whole society is more like a drama than like a reality. Hindus call it maya -- a game, a play, but not real. Parents are teaching their children to be like themselves. Every body is pushing and pulling everybody else to be like himself -- a whole chaos all around.
I was staying with a family, and I was sitting on the lawn. The small child of the house came, and I asked, 'What are you thinking to become in your life?' He said, 'Difficult to say, be, cause my father wants me to be a doctor. My mother wants me to be an engineer; my uncle, he wants me to become an advocate, because he is an advocate. And I am confused. I don't know what I am going to become.' I asked him, 'What do you want to become?' He said, 'But nobody has asked me that!' I told him, 'You think about it. Tomorrow you tell me.' The next day he came and he said, 'I would like to become a dancer, but my mother won't allow, my father won't allow.' He told me, 'Help me. They will listen to you.'
Every child is being pushed and pulled to become something else. That's why there is so much ugliness all around. Nobody is himself. If you become the greatest engineer in the world, even that will not be a fulfillment if it was not your own urge. And I tell you, you may become the worst dancer in the world; that doesn't make any difference. If it was your own urge, you will be happy and fulfilled.
I have heard about a great scientist who won a Nobel Prize. He was one of the greatest surgeons the world has ever known. And on the day when he received the Nobel Prize, somebody said, 'You must be happy' -- because he was not looking happy at all. His face was sad. Somebody asked, 'You must be happy. Why are you looking so sad? This is the greatest prize, the greatest reward the world can give to you, the greatest honor. Why are you not happy? And you are one of the greatest surgeons in the world.' He said, 'That is not the point. When the Nobel Prize was given to me, I was thinking of my childhood. I had never wanted to become a surgeon. It has been forced on me. My whole life has been a wastage. What will I do with this Nobel Prize? I would have liked to become a dancer. Even the lousiest, that would have done; I would have been fulfilled. That was my urge.'
Remember this: why do you feel so discontented? Why do you feel so discontented; why do you feel always so dissatisfied for no particular reason at all? Even if everything is going well, something is missing. What is missing? -- you have never listened to your own being. Somebody else has manoeuvred, manipulated you, somebody else has dominated you, somebody else has forced you into a life-pattern which was never yours, which you never wanted. I tell you, even if it happens that you become a beggar, don't be worried if that is your urge. Find the urge and follow k, because God will not ask, 'Why are you not a Mahavir? Why are you not a Mohammed, or why are you not a Zarathustra?' He will ask Josiah, 'Why are you not a Josiah?'
You have to be yourself, and the whole society is a great imitation, a false show. That's why there is so much discontent on every face. I look into your eyes and I see discontent, unfulfillment.
Not even a small breeze comes to you which gives you happiness, ecstasy -- it is not possible. And ecstasy is possible. It is a simple phenomenon: be natural and loose and follow your own inclination.
I'm here to help you to be yourself. When you become a disciple, when I initiate you, I am not initiating you to be imitators. I am just trying to help you to find your own being, your own authentic being -- because you are so confused, you have so many faces that you have forgotten which is the original one. You don't know what your real urge is. The society has confused you completely, misguided you. Now you are not certain of who you are. When I initiate you, the only thing that I want to do is to help you come to your own home. Once you are centered in your own being, my work is finished. Then you can start. In fact, a Master has to undo what the society has done. A Master has to undo what the culture has done. He has to make you a clean sheet again.
That's the meaning of a Master giving you a rebirth: again you become a child, your past cleaned, your slate washed. How can you come to the first point where you had entered into this world, forty, fifty years ago? And the society got hold of you, trapped you, led you astray. For fifty years you have wandered and now suddenly you have come to me. I have to do only one thing: to wash clean whatsoever has been done to you, to bring you back to your childhood, to the initial stage from where you started the journey, and to help you to start the journey again.
-Osho, "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 4, #4, Q2"
Be yourself, authentically yourself.
Your body contains the soul, matter contains mind. The world contains God. Dust contains divineness. You have to discover it, and the first step towards discovery is to accept yourself, rejoice in being yourself. You are not to be a Jesus, no, you are not to be a Buddha. You are not to be me or anybody else. You have to be just yourself. God does not want carbon copies; he loves your uniqueness. And you can offer yourself to God only as a unique phenomenon. You can be accepted as an offering but only as a unique phenomenon. An imitation Jesus, Krishna, Christ, Buddha, Mohammed -- these won't do. Imitators are bound to be rejected.
Be yourself, authentically yourself. Respect yourself. If God has given you life he respects you. And do you have higher standards than God himself? Love yourself. God loves you. And then start watching all kinds of energies in you -- you are a vast universe!
And slowly slowly, as you become more conscious, you will be able to put things right, into right places. You are topsy-turvy, that is true, but nothing is wrong with you. You are not a sinner -- just a little rearrangement and you will become a beautiful phenomenon.
-Osho, "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 10, #8, Q2"
Once you are authentic and the door is openRemember this – that beauty of truth, authenticity. Become more authentic and you will have a flowering. And the more authentic you become, by and by you will feel many things are falling away – of their own accord. You never made any effort to do it; they are falling of their own accord. And once you know the knack of it, then you become more and more loose, more and more natural, authentic. And, says Tilopa:
… ONE CAN BREAK THE YOKE – THUS GAINING LIBERATION.
The liberation is not very far away, it is just hidden behind you. Once you are authentic and the door is open – but you are such a liar, you are such a pretender, you are such a hypocrite, you are so deeply false; that’s why you feel that the liberation is very very far away. It is not! For an authentic being, liberation is just natural. It is as natural as anything.
As water flows towards the ocean, as vapor rises towards the sky, as the sun is hot and the moon is cool, so for an authentic being is liberation. It is nothing to be bragged about. It is nothing that you have to tell people that you have gained something.
When Lin Chi was asked, ”What has happened to you? People say that you have become enlightened,” he shrugged his shoulders and said, ”Happened? Nothing. I cut wood in the forest, and carry water to the ashram – carry water from the well, cut wood because the winter is approaching.”
He shrugged his shoulders – a very meaningful gesture.
He is saying, ”Nothing has happened. What nonsense you are asking! It is natural: carrying water from the well, cutting wood in the forest. Life is absolutely natural.” Says Lin Chi, ”When I feel sleepy, I go to sleep; and when I feel hungry, I eat. Life has become absolutely natural.”
Liberation is your being perfectly natural. Liberation is not something to be bragged about, that you have attained something very great. It is nothing great, it is nothing extraordinary. It is just being natural, just being yourself.
So what to do? Drop pretensions, drop hypocrisies, drop all that you have cultivated around your natural being – become natural. In the beginning it will be a very very arduous thing, but only in the beginning. Once you get attuned to it, others will also start feeling something has happened to you, because an authentic being is such a force, such a magnetism.
They will start feeling something has happened: ”This man no more moves as part of us, he has become totally different.” And you will not be at a loss, because only artificial things will drop. And once the emptiness is created by throwing away artificial things, pretensions, masks, then the natural being starts flowing. It needs space. Be empty, loose and natural. Let that be the most fundamental principle in your life.
- Osho, "Tantra: The Supreme Understanding, #1"
Don’t listen to the scriptures, listen to your own heart.
Osho, Often i have the feeling that i am not doing something i ought to be doing, or doing something i should not be doing; that something has to change and fast -- a schooldays' worry that i am not going to make the grade, that i might be expelled.
Krishna Prabhu, this is how we all have been brought up. Our whole education -- in the family, in the society, in the school, in the college, in the university -- creates tension in us. And the fundamental tension is that you are not doing that which you ought to do.
Then it persists your whole life; it follows you like a nightmare, it goes on haunting you.
It will never leave you at rest, it will never allow you to relax. If you relax, it will say, "What are you doing? You are not supposed to relax; you should be doing something." If you are doing something it will say, "What are you doing? You need some rest, it is a must, otherwise you will drive yourself crazy -- you are already on the verge."
If you do something good, it will say, "You are a fool. Doing good is not going to pay, people will cheat you." If you do something bad it will say, "What are you doing? You are preparing the way to go to hell, you will have to suffer for it." It will never leave you at rest; whatsoever you do, it will be there condemning you.
This condemner has been implanted in you. This is the greatest calamity that has happened to humanity. And unless we get rid of this condemner inside us we cannot be truly human, we cannot be truly joyous and we cannot participate in the celebration that existence is.
And now nobody can drop it except you. And this is not only your problem, Krishna Prabhu, this is the problem of almost every human being. Whatsoever country you are born in, whatsoever religion you belong to, it doesn't matter -- Catholic, communist, Hindu, Mohammedan, Jaina, Buddhist, it does not matter to what kind of ideology you belong, the essential is the same. The essential is to create a split in you, so one part always condemns the other part. If you follow the first part then the second part starts condemning you. You are in an inner conflict, a civil war.
This civil war has to be dropped, otherwise you will miss the whole beauty, the benediction of life. You will never be able to laugh to your heart's content, you will never be able to love, you will never be able to be total in anything. And it is only out of totality that one blooms, that the spring comes, and your life starts having color and music and poetry.
It is only out of totality that suddenly you feel the presence of God all around you. But the irony is that the split has been created by your so-called saints, priests and churches.
In fact the priest has been the greatest enemy of God on the earth.
We have to get rid of all the priests; they are the root cause of human pathology. They have made everybody ill at ease, they have caused an epidemic of neurosis. And the neurosis has become so prevalent that we take it for granted. We think that this is all life is about, we think this is what life is -- a suffering, a long, long, delayed suffering; a painful, agonizing existence; an autobiography of much ado about nothing.
And if we look at our so-called life, it seems so, because there is never a single flower, never a single song in the heart, never a ray of divine delight.
It is not surprising that intelligent people all over the world are asking what the meaning of life is. "Why should we go on living? Why are we so cowardly as to go on living?
Why can't we gather a little courage and put a stop to all this nonsense? Why can't we commit suicide?"
Never before in the world were there so many people thinking that life is so utterly meaningless. Why has this happened in this age? It has nothing to do with this age. For centuries, for at least five thousand years, the priests have been doing the harm. Now it has reached to the ultimate peak.
It is not our work, we are victims. We are the victims of history. If man becomes a little more conscious, the first thing to be done is to burn all the history books. Forget the past, it was nightmarish. Start anew from abc, as if Adam is born again. Start as if we are again in the garden of Eden, innocent, uncontaminated, unpolluted by mean priests.
The priests have been very mean, because they discovered something tremendously significant for themselves: divide a man, split a man, make him basically schizophrenic and you always remain in power. A divided man is a weak man. An undivided man, an individual, has strength -- strength to accept any adventure, any challenge.
A man was looking for a good church to attend and found a small one in which the congregation was reading with the minister. They were saying, "We have left undone those things we ought to have done and we have done those things which we ought not to have done."
The man dropped into a seat and sighed with relief as he said to himself, "Thank goodness, I've found my crowd at last."
Go to any church and you will find your crowd, you will find replicas of your being.
Maybe the language is a little bit different, the ritual a little bit different, but the fundamentals are the same. The fundamental is: man has to be reduced to a civil war.
The first day when you recognize this, what the priests have done to you, is a day of great insight. And the first day when you drop all this nonsense is the day of the beginning of liberation.
Do what your nature wants to do, do what your intrinsic qualities hanker to do. Don't listen to the scriptures, listen to your own heart; that is the only scripture I prescribe. Yes, listen very attentively, very consciously, and you will never be wrong. And listening to your own heart you will never be divided. Listening to your own heart you will start moving in the right direction, without ever thinking of what is right and what is wrong.
So the whole art for the new humanity will consist in the secret of listening to the heart consciously, alertly, attentively. And follow it through any means, and go wherever it takes you. Yes, sometimes it will take you into dangers -- but then remember, those dangers are needed to make you ripe. And sometimes it will take you astray -- but remember again, those goings astray are part of growth. Many times you will fall. Rise up again, because this is how one gathers strength -- by falling and rising again. This is how one becomes integrated.
But don't follow rules imposed from the outside. No imposed rule can ever be right, because rules are invented by people who want to rule you. Yes, sometimes there have been great enlightened people in the world too -- a Buddha, a Jesus, a Krishna, a Mohammed. They have not given rules to the world, they have given their love. But sooner or later the disciples gather together and start making codes of conduct. Once the master is gone, once the light is gone and they are in deep darkness, they start groping for certain rules to follow, because now the light in which they could have seen is no more there. Now they will have to depend on rules.
What Jesus did was his own heart's whispering, and what Christians go on doing is not their own hearts' whispering. They are imitators -- and the moment you imitate, you insult your humanity, you insult your God.
Never be an imitator, be always original. Don't become a carbon copy. But that's what is happening all over the world -- carbon copies and carbon copies.
Life is really a dance if you are an original -- and you are meant to be an original. And no two men are alike, so my way of life can never become your way of life.
Imbibe the spirit, imbibe the silence of the master, learn his grace. Drink as much out of his being as possible, but don't imitate him. Imbibing his spirit, drinking his love, receiving his compassion, you will be able to listen to your own heart's whisperings. And they are whisperings. The heart speaks in a very still, small voice; it does not shout.
Listen to the master's silence so one day you can listen to your own innermost core. And then this problem will never arise: "I am doing something that I should not do, and I am not doing something that I should do." This problem arises only because you are being dominated by outer rules; you are imitators.
What is right for a buddha is not right for you. Just look how different Krishna is from Buddha. If Krishna had followed Buddha we would have missed one of the most beautiful men of this earth. Or if Buddha had followed Krishna he would have been just a poor specimen. Just think of Buddha playing on the flute; he would have disturbed many people's sleep, he was not a flute player. Just think of Buddha dancing; it looks so ridiculous, just absurd.
But the same is the case with Krishna. Sitting underneath a tree with no flute, with no crown of peacock feathers, with no beautiful clothes, just sitting like a beggar under a tree with closed eyes, nobody dancing around him, nothing of the dance, nothing of the song, and Krishna looks so poor, so impoverished.
A Buddha is a Buddha, a Krishna is a Krishna, and you are you. And you are not in any way less than anybody else. Respect yourself, respect your own inner voice and follow it.
And remember, I am not guaranteeing you that it will always lead you to the right. Many times it will take you to the wrong, because to come to the right door one has to knock first on many wrong doors. That's how it is. If you suddenly stumble upon the right door, you will not be able to recognize that it is right.
There are many people who come here directly, they have never been to anybody else. It is almost impossible to have any contact with them. They cannot understand what is happening here, they have no background, they have no context for it. They have not learned what is wrong, so how can they understand what is right?
But when people come here, and they have lived with many many so-called masters and lived with many many seekers and been part of many schools, when they come here something immediately is lit in their hearts. They have seen so much that now they can recognize what is true.
So remember, in the ultimate reckoning no effort is ever wasted, all efforts contribute to the ultimate climax of your growth. So don't be hesitant, don't be worried too much about going wrong. That is one of the problems; people have been taught never to do anything wrong, and then they become so hesitant, so fearful, so frightened of doing wrong, that they become stuck. They cannot move, something wrong may happen. So they become like rocks, they lose all movement.
I teach you: Commit as many mistakes as possible, remembering only one thing: don't commit the same mistake again. And you will be growing. It is part of your freedom to go astray, it is part of your dignity to go even against God. And it is sometimes beautiful to go even against God. This is how you will start having a spine; otherwise there are millions of people, spineless.
Because I say such things, many people are angered. Just the other day a journalist came here. He had come to cover what is happening here in this ashram, and he wanted to have both stories -- the people who are for it, and the people who are against it. So he went around the town. He talked to police officers, he went to see the mayor of Poona. And what the mayor said was really beautiful, I loved it.
He said, "This man is so dangerous that he should be expelled from Poona -- not only from Poona but from India, not only from India but from the world!"
I loved it. And I started thinking about it. Where will they expel me from the world?
That's a really fantastic idea! If they can manage it, I am willing to go.
Why is there so much anger? The anger has a reason in it, it has a rationale behind it. The rationale is that I am trying to give you a totally new vision of religious life -- and if the new vision succeeds, then all the old visions will have to die.
Krishna Prabhu, forget all about what you have been told, "This is right and this is wrong." Life is not so fixed. The thing that is right today may be wrong tomorrow, the thing that is wrong this moment may be right the next moment. Life cannot be pigeonholed; you cannot label it so easily, "This is right and this is wrong." Life is not a chemist's shop where every bottle is labeled and you know what is what. Life is a mystery; one moment something fits and then it is right. Another moment, so much water has gone down the Ganges that it no longer fits and it is wrong.
What is my definition of right? That which is harmonious with existence is right, and that which is disharmonious with existence is wrong. You will have to be very alert each moment, because it has to be decided each moment afresh. You cannot depend on readymade answers for what is right and what is wrong. Only stupid people depend on readymade answers, because then they need not be intelligent. There is no need; you already know what is right and what is wrong, you can cram the list, the list is not very big.
The Jews have ten commandments, so simple, you know what is right and what is wrong.
But life goes on changing continuously. If Moses comes back, I don't think he will give you the same ten commandments -- he cannot. After three thousand years, how can he give you the same commandments? He will have to invent something new.
But my own understanding is this, that whenever commandments are given they create difficulties for people, because by the time they are given they are already out of date.
Life moves so fast; it is a dynamism, it is not static. It is not a stagnant pool, it is a Ganges, it goes on flowing. It is never the same for two consecutive moments. So one thing may be right this moment, and may not be right the next.
Then what to do? The only possible thing is to make people so aware that they themselves can decide how to respond to a changing life. [....]
Life is like that. You cannot prepare for it, you cannot be ready for it. That's its beauty, that's its wonder, that it always takes you unawares, it always comes as a surprise. If you have eyes you will see that each moment is a surprise and no readymade answer is ever applicable.
And all the old religions have supplied you with readymade answers. Manu has given his commandments, Moses has given his commandments, and so on and so forth.
I don't give you any commandment. In fact the very word commandment is ugly. To command somebody is to reduce him to a slave. I don't give you any orders, you are not to be obedient to me or to anybody else. I simply teach you an intrinsic law of life. Be obedient to your own self, be a light unto yourself and follow the light and this problem will never arise. Then whatsoever you do is the thing to do, and whatsoever you don't do is the thing that has not to be done.
And remember, don't go on looking back again and again, because life goes on changing.
Tomorrow you may start thinking what you did yesterday was wrong. It was not wrong yesterday, it may look wrong tomorrow. There is no need to look back; life goes ahead.
But there are many drivers who go on looking in the rear-view mirror. They drive onwards but they look backwards; their life is going to be a catastrophe.
Look ahead. The road that you have passed, you have passed. It is finished, don't carry it any more. Don't be unnecessarily burdened by the past. Go on closing the chapters that you have read; there is no need to go back again and again. And never judge anything of the past through the new perspective that is arriving, because the new is new, incomparably new. The old was right in its own context, and the new is right in its own context, and they are incomparable.
What I am trying to explain to you is: drop guilt! -- because to be guilty is to live in hell.
Not being guilty, you will have the freshness of dewdrops in the early morning sun, you will have the freshness of lotus petals in the lake, you will have the freshness of the stars in the night. Once guilt disappears you will have a totally different kind of life, luminous and radiant. You will have a dance to your feet and your heart will be singing a thousand and one songs.
To live in such rejoicing is to be a sannyasin, to live in such joy is to live a divine life. To live burdened with guilt is simply to be exploited by the priests.
Get out of your prisons -- Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan, Jaina, Buddhist, communist.
Get out of all your prisons, get out of all your ideologies, because ideologies supply you readymade answers. If you ask the communist a question he will have to look in Das Kapital. In the same way, if you ask the Hindu he turns the pages of the Gita.
When are you going to use your own consciousness? When? How long are you going to remain tethered to the dead past? The Gita was born five thousand years back; life has changed so much. If you want to read the Gita, read it as beautiful literature -- but just like that, no more than that. It is beautiful literature, it is beautiful poetry, but it has no dictums to be followed and no commandments to be followed. Enjoy it as a gift from the past, as the gift of a great poet, Vyasa. But don't make it a discipline for your life; it is utterly irrelevant.
And everything becomes irrelevant, because life never remains confined. It goes on and on; it crosses all borders, all boundaries, it is an infinite process. The Gita comes to a full stop somewhere, the Koran comes to a full stop somewhere, but life never comes to a full stop, remember it. Remind yourself of it.
And the only way to be in contact with life, the only way not to lag behind life, is to have a heart which is not guilty, a heart which is innocent. Forget all about what you have been told -- what has to be done and what has not to be done -- nobody else can decide it for you.
Avoid those pretenders who decide for you; take the reins in your own hands. You have to decide. In fact, in that very decisiveness, your soul is born. When others decide for you, your soul remains asleep and dull. When you start deciding on your own, a sharpness arises. To decide means to take risks, to decide means you may be doing wrong -- who knows, that is the risk. Who knows what is going to happen? That is the risk, there is no guarantee.
With the old, there is a guarantee. Millions and millions of people have followed it, how can so many people be wrong? That is the guarantee. If so many people say it is right, it must be right.
In fact the logic of life is just the opposite. If so many people are following a certain thing, be certain it is wrong, because so many people are not so enlightened and cannot be so enlightened. The majority consists of fools, utter fools. Beware of the majority. If so many people are following something, that is enough proof that it is wrong.
Truth happens to individuals, not to crowds. Have you ever heard of a crowd becoming enlightened? Truth happens to individuals -- a Tilopa, an Atisha, a Nanak, a Kabir, a Farid.
Truth happens to individuals.
Be an individual if you really want truth to happen to you.
Take all the risks that are needed to be an individual, and accept the challenges so that they can sharpen you, can give you brilliance and intelligence.
Truth is not a belief, it is utter intelligence. It is a flaring-up of the hidden sources of your life, it is an enlightening experience of your consciousness. But you will have to provide the right space for it to happen. And the right space is accepting yourself as you are.
Don't deny anything, don't become split, don't feel guilty.
Rejoice! And I say to you again, rejoice as you are.
-Osho, "The Book of Wisdom, #11, Q2"
Remain true to yourself
You should never listen to what others are saying; listen to your feelings. Remain true to yourself and you will remain true to God. He has already given you the key -- the key is in your feelings. Never imitate, because there is no one way for all. If you understand me rightly, then the really religious world will be a world of no religions -- no Hindu, no Mohammedan, no Christian, no Jain. A real world which is religious will be of religious people: everybody seeking and searching in his own way. And God is not limited.
-Osho, "The Beloved, Vol 2, #9"
Always listen to your own feelings
Always listen to your own feelings -- there is no need to look around. And by looking at people, you cannot see exactly what is happening to them, because their face is not their reality -- just as your face is not your reality. Their outside appearance is not their inner, just as your outside appearance is not your inner.
-Osho, "Be Realistic: Plan for a Miracle, #10"
Be an authentic man or be an authentic woman.
be authentic when you feel angry toward your lover or your beloved. Be authentic while you are in anger, and then with no repression, when the moment of love will come, when the mind will move to the other extreme, you will have a spontaneous flow. So with mind, take fighting as part of it. It is the very dynamism of the mind to work in polar opposites. So be authentic in your anger, be authentic in your fight; then you will be authentic in your love also.
So for lovers, I would like to say: be authentic. And if you are really authentic, a unique phenomenon will happen. You will become weary of the whole nonsense of moving in polar opposites. But be authentic; otherwise you will never become weary.
A repressed mind never becomes really aware that he is gripped in polar opposites. He is never really angry, he is never really in love, so he has no real experience of the mind. Thus, I suggest to be authentic. Do not be false. BE REAL! And authenticity has its own beauty. Your lover, your beloved will understand when you are really angry -- authentically angry. Only a fake anger or a false non-anger cannot be forgiven. Only a false face cannot be forgiven. Be authentic, and then you will be authentic in love also. That authentic love will compensate, and through this authentic living you will become wearied. You will come to wonder what you are doing -- why you are just a pendulum moving from one pole to another. You will be bored, and then only can you decide to move beyond mind and beyond polarity.
Be an authentic man or be an authentic woman. Do not allow any falsity; do not pretend. Be real and suffer reality. Suffering is good. Suffering is really a training, a discipline. Suffer it! Suffer anger and suffer love and suffer hate. Remember only one thing: never be false. If you do not feel love, then say that you do not feel love. Do not pretend; do not try to show that you are loving. If you are angry, then say that you are angry and be angry.
There will be much suffering, but suffer it. Through that suffering a new consciousness is born. You become aware of the whole nonsense of hate and love. You hate the person and you also love the same person, and you go on moving in a circle. That circle will become crystal clear for you, and it becomes crystal clear only through suffering.
Do not escape suffering. You need a REAL suffering. It is like a fire: it will burn you. All that is false will burn and all that is real will be there. This is what existentialists call authenticity. Be authentic, and then you cannot be anymore in the mind. Be non-authentic, and you will be for lives and lives in the mind.
You will get bored of the duality. But how can one get bored of the duality unless one is really in the duality, not pretending? Then you will know that the so-called love of the mind is nothing but a disease.
Have you observed that a lover cannot sleep? He is not at ease -- he is feverish. If you examine him, he will show many symptoms of many diseases. This love, the so-called love of mind and body, is really a disease, but one remains occupied -- that is the function of it. Otherwise you will feel unoccupied, as if you are not doing anything in this world. Your whole life will seem vacant, so love is good to fill it.
Mind itself is the disease, so whatsoever belongs to the mind is going to be a disease. Only beyond mind, where you are not divided in duality, where you are one, only there does a different love flower. Jesus calls it love. Buddha calls it compassion. This is just to make a distinction. It makes no difference what you call it.
There is a possibility of a love which has no opposite to it, but that love can come only when you go beyond this love. And to go beyond, I suggest that you be authentic. To be authentic -- in hate, in love, in anger. In everything, be authentic, real, not pretending, because only a reality can be transcended. You cannot transcend unreal things.
-Osho, "Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, #12"
Just be yourself.
- Never try to be anybody else. That is the only sin I call sin. Accept yourself! -
Question : How can i serve you?
-Osho, "Come Follow To You, Vol 2, #8, Q2"
Drop Conscience, Become Conscious
These two words have to be understood deeply: One is 'conscience', and the other is 'consciousness'. Conscience represents morality, consciousness represents religion. Conscience is a social strategy. It is created by others, it is a trick to manipulate the person. Conscience means others have told you what is right and what is wrong; they have not given an opportunity to you to explore, to know, to experiment. They have not given you freedom to judge on your own. They have given you fixed ideas, ready-made answers, ten commandments.
Morality is given by others from the outside. It is not an inner growth; because it is not an inner growth it remains like a plastic flower. You can hang the plastic flower on the rose bush -- maybe it can deceive a few fools, but it cannot deceive the rose bush. It cannot deceive the bees and the butterflies, and certainly it cannot deceive you, because you have planted those false, phony flowers on the rose bush.
Conscience is a plastic flower, planted by others -- the society, the church, the state. Consciousness is your inner growth; it is a real rose, alive, unfolding, fragrant, each moment growing, breathing. It has a beauty, because it has life, and it is yours, authentically yours. It is not borrowed. Everything borrowed is always ugly. The borrowed becomes a burden on your head; it cannot allow you freedom, it can only repress you, oppress you, exploit you. Morality is being used for psychological slavery. Other kinds of slavery have disappeared from the world, but the psychological slavery still exists, in fact more so than before, because before there were many other kinds of slaveries available; now there is only one kind of slavery available and that is psychological. So the people who want to exploit -- all their efforts have become concentrated on a single point and that is psychological exploitation.
So every child is being programmed by the society, given fixed ideas, what is right, what is wrong, and this is utterly absurd. Something may be right today and may not be right tomorrow, something may be wrong this moment and may not be wrong the next moment. Life continuously goes on changing, it is a flux, it is a constant movement, nothing is static; hence no static answers can be of any help. All static answers will prevent you in seeing the reality and responding spontaneously to that which is.
Consciousness helps you to become responsible, and I am not using the word 'responsible' in the sense of dutiful, etcetera. I use the word 'responsible' in the literal sense: the capacity to respond.
The man who is burdened with conscience has no capacity to respond, he only reacts. Before the question is there he already has an answer. His answer will never fit the question because the question is always new. Even if the question appears the same it cannot be the same because the context is different, the situation is different, the whole reference is different -- and you have to be very alive, unprejudiced, you have to be just like a mirror, reflecting whatsoever is the case and responding accordingly, not according to a preconceived idea.
Morality is a phony lie, because the ideas are given by others and you are living them -- you are just an imitator. I am against all morality -- that does not mean that I am for immorality. In fact it is morality that creates immorality too. I am for transcendence, transcendence of the very idea of morality -- and of course, this implies immorality too.
I am for consciousness, not for conscience. I don't want to give you any shoulds or should nots. I simply want you to become more aware, alert, watchful, clear, unclouded. When you are like a flame without smoke, whatsoever you do will be right. In a state of clarity the wrong is impossible, but then your character comes from your consciousness, not from your conscience, then it comes from yourself. Then it is a real rose, growing out of your being, and everything real has a beauty -- it has a fragrance.
Jesus was not moral, that's why he was crucified. He did not follow the old idea given by the society. He started living on his own, he was an individual, a rebel. Socrates was not moral, that was his crime. The society could not forgive him.
No authentic person has ever been moral in that sense; although in another sense only those few authentic people have been really moral, but then you have to write the word 'moral' with inverted commas. It is a totally different thing, it is not the so-called 'morality'. Authentic people's morality comes from their consciousness; hence they never feel the puritan's ego. You can never see in their eyes the holier-than-thou look, you can never see in them any condemnation for anybody. They have immense respect, even for those who are fast asleep and snoring, because they know that once, they too were sleeping and they too were snoring, and if they can awake, others also can awake.
The moment a person becomes awakened, becomes a buddha, he knows that everybody has the potential of being a buddha, and he becomes tremendously respectful to the buddhahood of everybody -- awake or asleep it doesn't matter -- buddhahood is buddhahood!
So I teach you buddhahood, awareness, awakening, but I don't give you any discipline. And that is my revolution. Religions have given only conscience, and that's how they all have cheated human beings. They have created hypocrites, they have also created a very schizophrenic humanity, a mad world. The people who are responsible for all this insanity are your so-called saints, sages, mahatmas.
-Osho, "Nirvana now or never, #6“
The mind is the inner mass. The mass has created a mechanism inside you; from there you are controlled. The society believes in certain things; the society has inculcated those beliefs in you. Deep down, when you were almost unaware, it hypnotized you into a certain role. If you do something against it, immediately conscience will say no. That conscience is not really conscience; that’s a substitute, a social trick, politics. The society has created certain rules inside your mind, and if you go against them, immediately the voice of the society comes from inside: Don’t do it; it is wrong, it is a sin. The society, from inside, will force you to feel guilty.
If you want to leave this so-called conscience, and achieve a real and authentic conscience, then great effort is needed. The whole effort is going to be this: to shift consciousness from your mind to no-mind, from conscience to consciousness.
Conscience is given by society; consciousness arises in you. Conscience is borrowed, stale, rotten. It comes from the past which is no more: life has changed completely. Consciousness comes from you. Consciousness is always in the present, it is always fresh. Consciousness makes you integrated – consciousness is integrity.
The word integrity is a Latin word; it comes from two roots – in and tangiere. Tangiere means pure, whole, uncorrupted, virgin. A man of integrity is a whole; not many – one. A man of integrity is pure, uncorrupted by the past, virgin. And out of that virginity arises the fragrance which we call religion.
Morality is not religion. Morality is a social trick. Religion is individual discovery – you have to discover religion. Morality can be given; religion never.
-Osho, “The Search, #4”
Drop your conscience, which is imposed, and become conscious of every situation that faces you. And every moment there is a situation that faces you; become conscious of it, and out of that consciousness, act.
And whatever you do out of consciousness is right. And whatever you do unconsciously is wrong.
So to me the act itself is not right or wrong. To me it depends on you -- your consciousness, the quality of awareness that you bring to the act. Then everything has a different perspective.
-Osho, “From Misery to Enlightenment, #11”
Morality is for man -- man is not for morality. And morality has to change with the times. Peoples' needs change, requirements change; you cannot continue with old rules. Ten commandments were given three thousand years ago; now everything is different -- they are absolutely irrelevant. You have to find new ways to live, new ways to be. The only possibility is that we drop the whole idea of conscience. Instead of conscience we should depend on consciousness.
Conscience is always created by others. It is a manipulation, it is a subtle slavery. Consciousness is created by you. It is your own effort to stand on your own two feet, to look at life and to gather enough courage to live according to your light. Of course when you live according to your light you may commit many mistakes, but there is nothing wrong in committing mistakes because that's the only way to learn. The more mistakes one commits, the more one learns. He only thing to be remembered is: don't commit the same mistake again and again, because that is stupid' Commit new mistakes, find out ways to commit new mistakes.
As you grow, as you learn, as you become conscious, as you become more and more alert, a certain inner discipline arises without any imposition, because you can see what is right and what is wrong. And when you see it, there is no split; then you are not of a double mind, then it does not create a kind of schizophrenia. Otherwise the whole humanity has lived a schizophrenic life up to now, because of the moralistic past.
We have to free religion from morality. Once religion is freed from morality, then religion gives you a totally new kind of morality, but it will not be of Manu and it will not be of Moses and it will not be of Jesus, and it will not be of Buddha, it will not be mine -- it will be yours. And when it is yours there is a joy in living it, there is great growth through it. You don't feel crippled, paralysed, hampered, obstructed, manipulated; you become more and more natural, simple, spontaneous. You become more and more attuned to the universe.
-Osho, “The Imprisoned Splendor, #24“
I don't believe in conscience, I believe only in consciousness. I don't believe in morality, I believe only in religion. I am amoral.
Conscience is a trick of the society played upon you. The society creates conscience so that you may never need consciousness. You have been deceived. For example, when Jesus says 'Love is God' it is not out of his conscience, it is out of his consciousness. He knows it. It is not a belief, it is his experience. When a Christian says 'Love is God' it is his conscience, not his consciousness.
He has not known it, he has not lived it. He has only heard it repeated again and again - he has become hypnotized by it.
Each child is being hypnotized by the parents, the priests, the politicians, the society. Constant repetition of a certain thing becomes conscience. You go on teaching to the child, 'This is right. This is right. This is right.' Hearing it again and again, his mind is being conditioned. After many years he will also say 'This is right' - it will be automatic. It will not be from his own being, it will come from the gramophone record that the society has placed in his being. It is like an electrode of Delgado. It is the dangerous trick that the society has been playing on everybody, down the centuries.
That's why there are so many consciences in the world - the Hindu has one type of conscience, the Mohammedan has another type of conscience. How can consciences be so many? Truth is one. [....]
Conscience is created; it is a conditioning. All that you think is good or bad is nothing but a conditioning. But this conditioning can go on managing your whole life. The society has entered in you and controls you from there, from within. It has become your inner voice. And because it has become your inner voice, you cannot hear your REAL inner voice. So my suggestion is: Unburden yourself of conscience. Throw all the conditioning OUt, cathart it, be free from it. That's what I mean when I say don't be a Christian, a Hindu, a Jaina, a Buddhist.
Just be. And be alert. In that alertness you will always know what is right and what is wrong. And the right and the wrong is not a fixed thing - something may be right in the morning and may be wrong in the evening, and something may be wrong in the evening and may be right in the night.
Circumstances change. An alert man, a conscious man, has no fixed ideas. He has spontaneous responses but no fixed ideas. Because of fixed ideas you never act spontaneously. Your action is always a kind of reaction - not action really.
When you act out of spontaneity, with no idea, with no prejudice, then there is real action. And action has passion in it, intensity in it. And it is original and it is first-hand. And action makes your life creative and action makes your life continuously a celebration. Because each act becomes an expression of your being. Conscience is a false being.
I think the French language is the only language which has only one word for consciousness and conscience - a single word, meaning both. That is beautiful. Real conscience should be only consciousness, nothing else. You should become more conscious.
-Osho, “This Very Body the Buddha, #4, Q4“
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