Assertion

 

 

My approach is simple:

 

Everybody has to be assertive, not aggressive.

 

Those two words are totally different. You can be assertive and very humble. You cannot be humble and aggressive. Aggressive is trespassing somebody else's right. Assertion is simply making your right proclaimed, clear. These are totally different processes.

 

Assertion is everybody's fundamental right: "If you are not capable of understanding then I have to shout, but I am not interfering in any way in your life. I am simply saying, please keep away from my territorial prerogative. I will never trespass your territory, but the same I expect from you."

 

That's what I would like our small children to be from the very beginning - assertive, not aggressive; humble, but not ready to be enslaved by anybody.

 

The whole of humanity is enslaved, and enslaved by such beautiful names: God, religion, morality, truth, motherland, father, mother, family. In all these good names are hidden the very poisonous seeds of your slavery.

 

This type of man cannot be blissful; so misery in the world is simply the outcome of all this. Now we cannot do anything about the past - that is gone - but you can start from this very moment to live an assertive, individual, humble but clear-cut life: it is your life, and you want to live it this way. And you will have to insist because from everywhere there will be pressure that "you should not live this way, this is wrong. We know the right way, you do it the right way.“

 

- Osho, “From Misery to Enlightenment, #15”