To be totally free one needs to be totally aware, because our bondage is rooted in our unconsciousness; it does not come from the outside. Nobody can make you unfree. You can be destroyed but your freedom cannot be taken away... unless you give it away. In the ultimate analysis it is always your desire to be unfree that makes you unfree. It is your desire to be dependent, your desire to drop the responsibility of being yourself, that makes you unfree.
The moment one takes responsibility for oneself.... And remember it is not all roses, there are thorns in it; and it is not all sweet, there are many bitter moments in it. The sweet is always balanced by the bitter, they always come in the same proportion. The roses are balanced by the thorns, the days by the nights, the summer by the winters. Life keeps a balance between the polar opposites, so one who is ready to accept the responsibility of being oneself with all its beauties, bitternesses, its joys and agonies, can be free. Only he can be free...
Live it in all its agony and all its ecstasy -- both are yours. And always remember: ecstasy cannot live without exist without death, and joy cannot exist without sadness. That's how things are -- nothing can be done about it. That's the very nature, the very tao of things.
Accept the responsibility of being yourself as you are, with all that is good and with all that is bad, with all that is beautiful and that which is not beautiful. In that acceptance a transcendence happens and one becomes free.
Freedom means transcendence, going above the duality. Then you are neither ecstasy or agony; you are just a witness to all that happens to you. That transcendence is real freedom and that makes one enlightened, liberated. [....]
The greatest courage in the world is to not imitate others, to live one's own life as authentically as possible, whatsoever the cost. Even if life is lost in living your own life it is worth it, because that is how the soul is born. When one is ready to die for something, in that very agony -- the word "agony" comes from agon; it means struggle -- in that very struggle one is born. It is a birth pain. It takes courage, it takes guts.
Live your life without being bothered by the moralists, puritans, priests, stupid people who go on advising. Live your life. Even if you live in error, then too it is better to live your own life than to be right according to somebody else, because the man who is right according to somebody else is false, and the man who is wrong according to his own decision is going to learn from his error sooner or later. He will grow out of it, he will be benefited by it.
The only person who learns is the person who is ready to commit errors, and the best way to commit errors is not to listen to others -- just go on doing your thing!
Sandip means a lamp, a light. The last words of Buddha to his disciples were: Be a lamp unto thyself.
People search in scriptures, but in vain; and people go searching for guides, but they will be disappointed because the real guide is within you, the real light is within you. Your own consciousness has to become a light unto itself....
Never be an imitator. Listen to the enlightened ones just to find your own light. Don't become a parrot, don't repeat them. That's what has been done down the ages by millions of people. They have become Christians, Mohammedans and Hindus and Buddhists, but they have not become enlightened. Their life goes on remaining in the same dark state, in the same hell.
Remember it: I am here to help you to be yourself. I don't give you a character, I don't give you any discipline. I don't give you any clear-cut indications of what to do and what not to do. I only give you vague hints, indications, fingers pointing to the moon, the moon that is within you.
-Osho, "Scriptures in Silence and Sermons in Stones, #19"