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Be a light unto yourself- Always listen to your inner voice -
"Be a light unto yourself. Do not follow others, do not imitate, because imitation, following, creates stupidity. [....] Wisdom as living in the light of your own consciousness, and foolishness as following others, imitating others, becoming a shadow to somebody else." - Osho, "Dhammapada Vol 2, #9"
"Wisdom as living in the light of your own consciousness, and foolishness as following others, imitating others, becoming a shadow to somebody else." -Osho, "Dhammapada Vol 2, #9“
"If you live with alertness, you live rightly. If you live in imitation, you live wrongly. To me there is only one sin: And that is not to be yourself. And to me there is only one virtue: And that is to know yourself." - Osho, "From Ignorance to Innocence, #12"
Intelligence is dangerous. Intelligence means you will start thinking on your own, you will start looking around on your own. You will not believe in the scriptures; you will believe only in your own experience. Please don't believe in what I say. Experiment, meditate, experience - Unless it becomes your own understanding, Nothing is going to help." -Osho, "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 1, #6, Q3"
"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"
Do not imitate anyone, Do not follow anyone
"Do not imitate anyone, do not follow anyone, otherwise you will be just a pseudo existence - and that is worse than suicide.
Be Yourself - and only then can you be responsible and authentic and real. But ordinarily everyone is just secondhand and borrowed, and that makes everything ugly."
- Osho, "A Cup of Tea, 243"
"I say to you: light the lamp of independent thinking. Don’t become a slave to anyone by accepting his thoughts. Truth belongs to those who are their own master."
-Osho, “Wings of Love and Random Thought, #4“
I don't want you to be addicted to me
Don't make me wholly responsible for your silence, because that will create a difficulty for you. Alone, what are you going to do? Then it becomes a kind of addiction, and I don't want you to be addicted to me. I don't want to be a drug to you.
The so-called masters and teachers of the religions of the whole world -- I have come across almost all kinds and all categories of teachers -- want their disciples to be addicted to them, to be dependent on them. That is their power trip. I don't have any power trip. I love you, whether you are with me or not with me.
I want you to be independent and confident that you can attain these precious moments on your own.
If you can attain them with me, there is no reason why you cannot attain them without me, because I am not the cause. You have to understand what is happening: listening to me, you put your mind aside. Listening to the ocean, or listening to the thundering of the clouds, or listening to the rain falling heavily, just put your ego aside, because there is no need... The ocean is not going to attack you, the rain is not going to attack you, the trees are not going to attack you -- there is no need of any defense. To be vulnerable to life as such, to existence as such, you will be getting these moments continuously -- soon it will become your very life.
- Osho, "The Invitation, #14"
No one can achieve one's individuality by following another
No one can achieve one's individuality by following another, the other is always the other. I may follow another and roam the whole earth, yet I cannot reach within. And if I want to reach within I will have to cease wandering. To follow always means to walk on the outer side and the outer side is following.
Mahavira does not go after anybody, Jesus does not go after somebody, Krishna does not go after anybody. It is interesting to know that innumerable people go after those who have not followed anybody. Buddha follows none but thousands follow him.
If we wish to learn from Buddha himself, we have to learn that we should not go after anyone. If we desire to learn something from Mahavira, we should learn that nothing is going to be worthwhile, by worshipping somebody. Mahavira is not in favour of worshipping anyone. If we want to learn something from Jesus, we should bear this fact in mind that God can be realized even without becoming a Christian. Jesus was not a Christian. If you wish to learn something from Muhammad, we should learn this very firmly that God has nothing to do with Musalmans. Muhammad was not a Musalman. Muhammad who is not a Musalman can meet god.
They who are followed by the whole world, do not follow anybody, and we follow them because we hope we may also get that thing which they achieved. They achieved because they went within themselves, and we wish to achieve that by following someone To follow is to go out. Therefore, I consider all forms of following as stealing and this type of following did not produce any civilization or culture.
An adverse effect has been created by this concept of following in every civilization, as all these followers do nothing but fight and murder. The church, the temple, the masjid and the gurudwara have become the centres and the means to fight one another. Man's history is full of religious wars. These followers, believing in following Muhammad and Mahavira, Krishna and Christ could not evolve any system of becoming Krishna or Christ, but they exhibited great skills in annihilating one another. There are many kinds of killing. Some jump into the battlefield with sword in hand, and some others go out fighting with swords of thoughts and principles. The Jains try to falsify the principles of the Musalmans, the Musalmans try to pervert the principles of the Hindus, the Hindus misrepresent the principles of the Christians, and the Christians falsify the principles of the Bauddhas. And when they get tired or are not content by fighting with principles, they draw out swords to do so.
Man should have been greatly pleased in having Buddha, Mahavira and Christ among mankind but on the contrary much troubles have been created because of them
-Osho, “The Perennial Path: The Art of Living, #4”
Understanding is only that which hasbeen experienced by the person himself.
Seeking truth in scriptures, seeking truth in philosophies, is looking at the reflection. If you ask somebody else how you should live your life, you are asking for misguidance, because that man can only talk about his own life. And never, never, are two lives the same. Whatsoever he can say or impart to you will be about his own life -- and that too only if he has lived. He may have asked somebody else, he may have followed somebody else, he may have been an imitator himself. Then it is a reflection of a reflection. And centuries pass and people go on reflecting the reflection of the reflection of the reflection -- and the real moon is always there in the sky waiting for you. It is your moon, it is your sky, look directly. Be immediate about it. Why borrow my eyes or anybody else's eyes? You have been given eyes, beautiful eyes, to see, and to see directly. Why borrow understanding from anybody? Remember, it may be understanding to me. but the moment you borrow it, it becomes knowledge to you -- it is no more understanding, Understanding is only that which has been experienced by the person himself.
- Osho, "The Art of Dying, #1"
Truth can never be borrowed from anybody
There are two ways to seek the true: one is to borrow knowledge, the other is to seek yourself. Of course borrowing is easy, but whatsoever you borrow is never yours, and that which is not yours cannot be true. This condition must be fulfilled: truth must be yours.
I may have known truth, but I cannot transfer it to you. In the very act of transferring it becomes a lie. That is the nature of truth. So nobody can give it to you, you cannot borrow it, you cannot steal it, you cannot purchase it -- you have to know it. And unless you know, your knowledge is not a knowing -- it is a hiding place for your ignorance. You are deceiving yourself, you are completely misguided.
The first thing to remember is that truth is a lived phenomenon. Who can live for you? You have to live for yourself, nobody can be a substitute. Who can love for you? Servants cannot do that, friends cannot be of any help -- you have to love.
- Osho, "The Hidden Harmony, #6"
Understanding is totally different from knowledge.
Understanding is totally different from knowledge. Knowledge is borrowed, understanding is one's own. Knowledge comes from without, understanding wells up within. Knowledge is ugly, because it is secondhand. And knowledge can never become part of your being. It will remain alien, it will remain foreign, it cannot get roots into you. Understanding grows out of you, it is your own flowering. It is authentically yours, hence it has beauty, and it liberates.
Truth can never be borrowed from anybody, and the borrowed truth is no longer truth. A borrowed truth is already a lie. The moment truth is said, it becomes a lie. Truth has to be experienced, not to be heard, not to be read. Truth is not just going to be a part of your accumulation, part of your memory. Truth has to be existential: each pore of your being should feel it. Yes, it has to be a feeling. Each breath should be full of it. It should pulsate in you, it should circulate in you like your blood. When truth is understood, you become it.
- Osho, "The Secret of Secrets, Vol 2, #13"
Accept yourself as you are
"Accept yourself as you are. And that is the most difficult thing in the world, because it goes against your training, your education, your culture. From the very beginning you have been told how you should be. Nobody has ever told you that you are good as you are; they have all put programs in your mind. You have been programmed by the parents, by the priests, politicians, teachers -- you have been programmed for only one thing: just go on improving upon yourself. Wherever you are, go on rushing for something else. Never rest. Work unto death. My teaching is simple: Don't postpone life. Don't wait for tomorrow, it never comes. Live it today!"
- Osho, "The Revolution, #4"
Live courageously, don't be cowards
“Experience life in all possible ways - good-bad, bitter-sweet, dark-light, summer-winter. Experience all the dualities. Don't be afraid of experience, because the more experience you have, the more mature you become. Search for all possible alternatives, move in all directions, be a wanderer, a vagabond of the world of life and existence. And don't miss any opportunity to live.
Don't look back. Only fools think of the past -- fools who do not have the intelligence to live in the present. And only fools imagine about the future, because they don't have the courage to live in the present. Forget the past, forget the future, this moment is all. This moment has to become your prayer, your love, your life, your death, your everything. This is it.
And live courageously, don't be cowards. Don't think of consequences; only cowards think of consequences. Don't be too result-oriented; people who are result-oriented miss life. Don't think of goals, because goals are always in the future and far away, and life is herenow, close by.
And don't be too purposive. Let me repeat it: don't be too purposive. Don't always bring in the idea, "What is the purpose of it?" because that is a strategy created by your enemies, by the enemies of humanity, to poison your very source of life. Ask the question, "What is the purpose of it?" and everything becomes meaningless.”
- Osho, "The Book of Wisdom, #14“
To be blissful is the greatest courage.
To me, to be blissful is the greatest courage. To be miserable is very cowardly. In fact to be miserable, nothing is needed. Any coward can do it, any fool can do it. Everybody is capable of being miserable, but to be blissful, great courage is needed - it is an uphill task.”
- Osho, "The Buddha Disease, #27"
To be an individual is the greatest courage.
In this society nobody accepts himself. Everybody is condemning himself. This is the lifestyle of the society: condemn yourself. And you are not condemning yourself, you are accepting yourself; you have fallen away from the society. And the society does not tolerate anybody who falls out of the fold because the society lives by numbers; it is a politics of numbers. When there are many numbers people feel good. Vast numbers make people feel that they must be right -- they cannot be wrong, millions of people are with them.
And when they are left alone great doubts start arising: Nobody is with me. What is the guarantee that I am right?"
That's why I say that in this world, to be an individual is the greatest courage.
- Osho, "The Osho Upanishad, #12"
Accept yourself as you are
Accept yourself as you are; drop all shoulds. Don't carry any ought on your heart! You are not to be somebody else; you are not expected to do something which doesn't belong to you — you are just to be yourself. Relax! and just be yourself. Be respectful to your individuality. and have the courage to sign your own signature. Don't go on copying others signatures.
You are not expected to become a Jesus or a Buddha or a Ramakrishna -- you are simply expected to become yourself. It was good that Ramakrishna never tried to become somebody else, so he became Ramakrishna. It was good that Jesus never tried to become like Abraham or Moses, so he became Jesus. It is good that Buddha never tried to become a Patanjali or Krishna -- that's why he became a Buddha.
When you are not trying to become anybody else, then you simply relax -- then a grace arises. Then you are full of grandeur, splendor, harmony -- because then there is no conflict! nowhere to go, nothing to fight for; nothing to force, enforce upon yourself violently. You become innocent.
In that innocence you will feel compassion and love for yourself. You will feel so happy with yourself that even if God comes and knocks at your door and says, "Would you like to become somebody else?" you will say, "Have you gone mad?! I am perfect! Thank-you, but never try anything like that -- I am perfect as I am."
The moment you can say to God, "I am perfect as I am, I am happy as I am, "this is w hat in the East we call shraddha -- trust; then you have accepted yourself and in accepting yourself you have accepted your creator. Denying yourself you deny your creator. [....]
The roses bloom so beautifully because they are not trying to become lotuses. And the lotuses bloom so beautifully because they have not heard the legends about other flowers. Everything in nature goes so beautifully in accord, because nobody is trying to compete with anybody, nobody is trying to become anybody else. Everything is the way it is.
Just see the point! Just be yourself and remember you cannot be anything else, whatsoever you do. All effort is futile. You have to be just yourself.
- Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder, #8"
A follower is never ready for insecurity
If you are like a sheep, you cannot be a disciple. Of course many sheep think that they are disciples. If it is only because of fear that you follow me, you follow your fear, you don't follow me. I am not here to make sheep out of you. The society, the politicians, the priests have done enough damage -- no more is needed. You have been reduced to cowards down the centuries; everybody has been there forcing you to be a coward. Everybody has forced you into a frightened existence; you are always trembling.
I am here to help you to drop this trembling. There is nothing to fear because there is nothing to lose. There is nothing to fear even with death, because there is nobody to die. No harm can be done to you. Once you understand this, the sheep disappears. The sheep can be a follower but not a disciple.
And a follower is not necessarily a disciple. A follower is just finding ways and means to protect himself, to be secure. A follower is trying just to throw responsibility onto somebody else's shoulders. The follower is simply trying to find a group where he can be lost and his own fears are no more there, where he is not alone. He is simply seeking company. He cannot be alone, he is afraid to be alone. He cannot trust himself. A follower is one who cannot trust himself.
A disciple is one who trusts himself. Out of his trust he comes to learn from somebody who has gone a little further than himself. He is not a follower, he is not an imitator and he is not seeking security -- he is seeking understanding. Even if that understanding brings more insecurity, he is ready for it.
A follower is never ready for insecurity; he comes to a guru, to a master, to seek protection, shelter, to hide behind him. He is seeking a father figure.
A disciple is seeking a master, not a father figure. He wants to learn what life is. Even if life is insecurity, he is ready to learn. Even if life implies death, he is ready to learn.
The follower just wants a map. The disciple wants to go on an adventure. He is not worried about the map, he simply wants a challenge. 'Challenge me!' says the disciple. 'Pull me out of my stupor,' says the disciple. 'Send me on a venture,' says the disciple. The follower says, 'Protect me, never leave me alone. Without you I am lost. Don't send me away! Just let me hide behind you.'
Remember, the disciple is a seeker, the follower is simply sick with fear.
-Osho, "The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 1, #10, Q4"
I have not arrived through belief,I have arrived through doubt.
Trust has to be deserved, belief is a very cheap substitute. Belief means you are afraid of doubt, because doubt creates trouble, and doubt keeps you in a state of confusion. And you are not courageous enough to live in confusion, not courageous enough to live in a state of chaos, in anarchy -- and doubt creates that. So you immediately repress the doubt, and the way to repress is to believe.
The way to trust is DOUBT, and doubt to the very end. Go the whole way! Don't repress your doubt at any point, otherwise you will miss trust. Trust arises out of doubt, not by repressing but by experiencing doubt to its ultimate extreme.
When you go on doubting and doubting and doubting, a moment comes when all beliefs are destroyed by doubt, all faith evaporates in the heat of doubt, and all that is left is your being. Now there is nothing to doubt because you have doubted all and everything. When there is nothing to doubt, doubt dies, commits suicide, because there is nothing to keep it going on, nothing to nourish it any more.
That has been my way. I have not arrived through belief, I have arrived through doubt. It is better to begin as a great doubter than as a believer, because the believer will remain always pseudo; he will always remain superficial, shallow. Belief can never be more than skin-deep: scratch it a little bit and immediately the doubt is there. Trust needs a continuous hammering; doubt has to be used as a hammer. Until you reach to the rock bottom of it all... [....]
One has to go on and on doubting - until-a you sing-a it right!
Doubt is a sword: it cuts all beliefs, but it is a dangerous path. The path to truth is bound to be dangerous because truth is the ultimate peak. The higher you move towards Everest, the more you are entering into a dangerous arena. A single wrong step and you will be lost forever.
Truth liberates, but to reach truth you have to go through a very narrow passage, climbing towards the heights. It is dangerous. Hence millions of people decide to live in their dark valleys and they believe that "Everest exists and it is sunlit and there is tremendous beauty, because Jesus has reached there, Buddha has reached there.
We can believe in them. What need is there for us to go there? We can live in our dark valleys comfortably. There is no need to take any risk."
But without risk there is no truth, without risk there is no life. You have to learn to gamble, you have to be a gambler.
If you doubt and go on doubting, a moment comes when all that you have ever believed disappears, evaporates. It is almost a state of madness. One can fall any moment into the abyss that surrounds you. If one falls, it is a breakdown. If one keeps alert and aware, watchful, cautious, then it is a breakthrough.
Trust is the ultimate breakthrough: it helps you to know the truth on your own. And truth liberates only when it is YOURS; somebody else's truth cannot liberate anybody. It creates bondage and nothing else.
-Osho, “Guida Spirituale, #10, Q2”
Going beyond history.Don't live in events: live in awareness.
Blessed are the meek. Certainly they shall inherit the earth. History will never know about them, because history has nothing to do with them. History knows only friction, history knows only mischief. History knows only mischief-mongers. History knows only mad people -- because history records only when something goes wrong. When everything goes absolutely in tune, it is out of time and out of history also.
History does not report much about Jesus -- in fact, nothing. If the Bible was not in existence, there would have been no record about Jesus. And I would like to tell you that many people like Jesus have existed, but we don't have any record about them. History never took any note. They were so meek, they were so silent, they were so in tune, so deep in harmony, that not even a ripple was created around them. They came and they left, and they have not left even a footprint.
History has not been recording Buddhas. That's why when you hear about a Buddha or a Mahavira or a Zarathustra, they look like mythological figures, not historic. It appears that they never existed, or they only existed in the dreams of man, or they existed only in the poetries of a few imaginative, romantic people. They look like wish-fulfillments. They look like how man would like man to be... but not realities. They were real. They were so real that no trace has been left behind them.
Unless you create some mischief, you will not be leaving your signature on history. That's why history records only politics, because politics is the mechanism of mischief. The politician is in conflict. The religious person lives in harmony. He lives like trees. Who records about trees? He lives like rivers. Who records about rivers? He moves like clouds. Who bothers about clouds?
The meek person is one who is in harmony. And Buddha says he is the most powerful. But this concept of power is totally different.
- Osho, "The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 2, #5"
Man can live in two ways: one is in time, one is beyond time. History is the name of the life that we live in time; it leaves marks in the temporal. But there is also a life which we live beyond time -- it leaves no marks anywhere. It is not just an accident that the existence of Jesus is doubtful, so is the existence of Krishna, Lao Tzu and Zarathustra. Why is their existence doubtful? They have not really left any mark in time. They lived a life of interiority, they lived in themselves. Their life had no visible, tangible impact, but they transformed human consciousness. They lived in consciousness and they impressed human consciousness. But history takes no note of them. History takes note of Adolf Hitler, Genghis Khan, Tamerlaine; history takes note of people who live in time and leave marks on the sands of time. But people like Buddha, Christ, almost pass from existence as if they have not passed at all. That's what I mean by going beyond history. Don't live in events: live in awareness.
- Osho, "Believing the Impossible Before Breakfast, #21"
Listen to Your Heart- Be Yourself, Be Original, Be Unique -
Only love is the law, the fundamental law, to be lived. All other laws drive people astray from their natural being: love brings you home. There is no higher law than love, so love is the true foundation of morality -- not codes, not commandments.
People go on following what is written in the Bible and in the Geeta; they only become pretenders. Listen to your own heart and follow it. Wherever it leads it is good; it cannot lead you astray. It is infallibly moving towards god.
- Osho, "Turn On, Tune In and Drop the Lot, #26"
if you really want to listen to me, listen to your heart and just follow it.
I am not here to impose any discipline on you. I am here to make you free of all discipline so that your natural being starts flowering.
One should not have any structure, any character. One should be simple, characterless, structureless. And listen to the heart - that is what real obedience is. The word obedience comes from a root which means the art of listening, but the word has gone very far away from the root. The basic art of listening is to listen to the heart because that is where fulfillment is going to happen. So remain alert; very delicate alertness is needed.
- Osho, "Beloved of My Heart, #22"
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.
- Osho, "The Book of Wisdom, #11"
"Love starts with self-love. Don't be selfish but be self-full -- and they are two different things. Don't be a Narcissus, don't be obsessed with yourself -- but a natural self-love is a must, a basic phenomenon. Only then out of it can you love somebody else.
Accept yourself, love yourself, you are God's creation. God's signature is on you and you are special, unique. Nobody else has ever been like you and nobody else will ever be like you; you are simply unique, incomparable. Accept this, love this, celebrate this -- and in that very celebration you will start seeing the uniqueness of the others, the incomparable beauty of the others. Love is possible only when there is a deep acceptance of oneself, the other, the world. Acceptance creates the milieu in which love grows, the soil in which love blooms."
- Osho, "The Revolution, #4"
Don't follow others' advice.
Question: Osho, Should one not listen to and follow the wise advice of one's parents, teachers and well-wishers?
Prem Deva, LISTEN, but don't follow. Listen well, but follow your own insight, don't follow others' advice. Listen certainly, very meditatively, try to understand what they are wanting to convey to you. They may REALLY be well-wishers, but if you start following blindly you will never attain to your own intelligence. You will remain dependent on crutches, you will always look up to others to tell you what to do, what not to do. You will always need leaders -- which is a very unhealthy state, to need leaders.
Listen, because people have great experiences, and if they are sharing, willing to share, it will be foolish on your part not to listen. Sharing their experience may give you great insight -- it will help you to become more aware -- but don't follow. People follow literally and then they become just blind. When others are giving you all that you need, what is the need to have your own eyes? And when others are chewing for you, what is the need to chew on your own? Slowly, slowly you become more and more weak, more and more impoverished, more and more starved [.....]
Now if you go on listening to people you will become more and more confused; that's how you have become confused. Your confusion is this: that you have been listening to many kinds of people and they are all giving different advice. And I am not saying that they are not well-wishers; they are well-wishers, but not very conscious well-wishers, otherwise they would not give you advice. They would give you an insight, not advice. They would not tell you what to do and what not to do.
They would help you to become more aware so that you can see yourself what has to be done and what has not to be done. The real friend is one who does not advise you, but helps you to become more alert, more aware, more conscious of life -- its problems, its challenges, its mysteries, and helps you to go on your own voyage, gives you courage to experiment, gives you courage to seek and search, gives you courage to commit many mistakes... because one who is not ready to commit mistakes will never learn anything at all.
Commit as many mistakes as you can, but don't commit the same mistake twice because that makes you stupid. Commit new mistakes, invent new mistakes, and you will be learning all the time, and your intelligence will be growing all the time. Your intelligence needs sharpening.
The real friends help you to sharpen your intelligence. They don't give you fixed advice, because fixed advice is of no use. What is true today may not be true tomorrow, and what is right in one situation may be wrong in another. And situations are changing all the time, so what you need is not a fixed pattern of living but a way of seeing, so wherever you are, in whatsoever situation you find yourself, you know how to behave spontaneously, how to depend on your own being.
- Osho, "The Guest, #5"
The moment you ask for advice, you become a slave.
Question : Osho, Should We take your advice not to take anyone’s advice?
Advice is the only thing in the world which everybody gives and nobody takes. You can ask me a question, but you cannot ask for advice; I am not that foolish. I will never give you any advice, because who am I to give you advice? You are unique, every individual is unique. My advice will be my experience. That may distract you from your own life, that may take you away from your own being. I have never advised anyone.
Yes, you can ask a question. The answer that I give only has to be understood, it has not to be accepted on my authority. You have to be just a listener to it, without any prejudice. My answer, listened to without any prejudice, will become a totally different thing in you; it will be molded by your being. Then it is no longer mine; it is yours.
That’s the function of a master — not to create followers, but to create masters. I am not saying anything to be believed. I am saying, just give me a little understanding, try to understand what I am saying to you. Listen — and it will take a different shape, a different form, a different aura within you. It will not be the same that was said, because words are empty.
When the words are in my heart they are full. The moment they leave my lips, the content is left behind; only the container reaches you. But if you allow the container to enter you, it will reach your heart — because it is coming from the heart — and your heart will fill it with its own content. Then it is yours, it has nothing to do with me.
You cannot blame me; whatever happens to you, it is your responsibility. I just like talking — I don’t take any responsibility. Why should I take anybody’s responsibility? I like talking, you like listening — good! So far, so good. But understand the whole alchemy of listening: listening rightly, you will have your own understanding flowering. You will not be dependent on me, you will not be my follower. You will be yourself.
You are asking for advice. I don’t give any advice. And I say to you, don’t ask anyone for advice either. You ask advice only because you are not courageous enough to experience on your own. The moment you ask for advice, you become a slave. And if you follow it, you have committed suicide. I don’t want you to commit suicide. I want you to grow higher and higher into life, into love, into light.
- Osho, “From The False to The Truth”
Be a light unto yourself.Do not follow others, do not imitate
- Wisdom as living in the light of your own consciousness, and foolishness as following others, imitating others, becoming a shadow to somebody else. -
Be a light unto yourself. Do not follow others, do not imitate, because imitation, following, creates stupidity. You are born with a tremendous possibility of intelligence. You are born with a light within you. Listen to the still, small voice within, and that will guide you. Nobody else can guide you, nobody else can become a model for your life, because you are unique.
Nobody has there been ever who was exactly like you, and nobody is ever going to be there again who will be exactly like you. This is your glory, your grandeur - that you are utterly irreplaceable, that you are just yourself and nobody else.
The person who follows others becomes false, he becomes pseudo, he becomes mechanical. He can be a great saint in the eyes of others, but deep down, he is simply unintelligent and nothing else. He may have a very respectable character but that is only the surface, it is not even skin-deep. Scratch him a little and you will be surprised that inside he is a totally different person, just the opposite of his outside.
By following others you can cultivate a beautiful character, but you cannot have a beautiful consciousness, and unless you have a beautiful consciousness you can never be free. You can go on changing your prisons, you can go on changing your bondages, your slaveries. You can be a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian or a Jaina - that is not going to help you. To be a Jaina means to follow Mahavira as the model. Now, there is nobody who is like Mahavira or ever can be. Following Mahavira you will become a false entity. You will lose all reality, you will lose all sincerity, you will be untrue to yourself. You will become artificial, unnatural, and to be artificial, to be unnatural, is the way of the mediocre, the stupid, the fool.
Buddha defines wisdom as living in the light of your own consciousness, and foolishness as following others, imitating others, becoming a shadow to somebody else.
The real master creates masters, not followers. The real master throws you back to yourself. His whole effort is to make you independent of him, because you have been dependent for centuries, and it has not led you anywhere. You still continue to stumble in the dark night of the soul.
Only your inner light can become the sunrise. The false master persuades you to follow him, to imitate him, to be just a carbon copy of him. The real master will not allow you to be a carbon copy, he wants you to be the original. He loves you! How can he make you imitative? He has compassion for you, he would like you to be utterly free - free from all outer dependencies.
But the ordinary human being does not want to be free. He wants to be dependent. He wants somebody else to guide him. Why? - because then he can throw the whole responsibility on the shoulders of somebody else. And the more responsibility you throw away onto somebody else's shoulders, the less is the possibility of your ever becoming intelligent. It is responsibility, the challenge of responsibility, that creates wisdom.
One has to accept life with all its problems. One has to go through life unprotected; one has to seek and search one's way. Life is an opportunity, a challenge, to find yourself.
But the fool does not want to go the hard way, the fool chooses the shortcut. He says to himself, "Buddha has attained - why should I bother? I will just watch his behavior and imitate. Jesus has attained, so why should I search and seek? I can simply become a shadow to Jesus. I can simply go on following him wherever he goes."
But following somebody else, how are you going to become intelligent? You will not give any chance for your intelligence to explode. It needs a challenging life, an adventurous life, a life that knows how to risk and how to go into the unknown, for intelligence to arise. And only intelligence can save you - nobody else - your own intelligence, mind you, your own awareness, can become your nirvana.
Be a light unto yourself and you will be wise; let others become your leaders, your guides, and you will remain stupid, and you will go on missing all the treasures of life - - which were yours! And how can you decide that the other's character is a right character for you to follow?
A Buddha lives in his own way, a Mahavira in his, a Jesus still different. A Mohammed IS Mohammed, he is not Mahavira. Whom are you going to follow? Just by the accidents of birth you are going to decide your life, your destiny? Then you will remain accidental. And the fool IS accidental. The wise man never lives by accidents. He does not become a Hindu because he is born in a Hindu family; he does not become a Christian because his parents are Christian; he does not become a communist because he is born in Russia. He seeks, he inquires.
Life is a tremendously beautiful pilgrimage, but only for those who are ready to seek and search.
Jesus says: Seek and ye shall find; ask and it shall be given to you; knock and the doors shall be opened unto you.
He is not saying: Follow, imitate. He is not saying: Be a Christian and the doors shall be opened unto you. He is not saying: I have knocked on the doors and opened them for you. He is saying: Knock and the doors shall be opened unto you. And everybody has to knock, because everybody has to enter by different doors. People are so unique, people are individuals.
This is your glory. Don't deny it; otherwise you will remain a fool. That does not mean don't learn from the buddhas, the awakened ones -- learn! Imbibe the spirit! Drink out of their springs, fresh springs of joy. Be in their company, become attuned to their inner music, listen to their harmony, and be filled with great joy that a man like you, just like you, has achieved, so you can also achieve. Become thrilled that a man just like you, made of blood and bones, has become enlightened, so you can also become enlightened.
A buddha has not to be followed but understood. A buddha has not to be imitated but listened to -- listened to in tremendous silence, love, trust. And the more you understand a buddha, the more you will feel he is speaking not from the outside but from within, from the very core of your being. He is a mirror who reflects your original face -- but he is only a mirror. All great masters are mirrors, they reflect your original face. But don't cling to the mirror. The mirror is not your face! [....]
You will not become knowledgeable if you listen from the heart; you will become more and more wise. If you listen from the head, in the first place your listening will be distorted because all your prejudices will become mingled with it, and all your a priori conclusions will be a distraction, and your mind will give its color to what is told to you. In the first place you won't listen to what is being said; your mind will make much noise and you will listen to your own noise. In the second place, whatsoever you gather will become knowledge, not wisdom. Knowledge is superficial, it does not go deep, it cannot go deep. Knowledge is a way to hide your ignorance, it does not destroy it.
Wisdom is a light, it dispels darkness. But wisdom is ALWAYS of the heart, remember, it is never of the head. When you come to a buddha, forget all about your head. It is a totally different approach to your being -- through the heart. Listen through the heartbeats, become attuned -- as if you are listening to great music. It IS great music; in fact, what greater music can there be?
- Osho, "Dhammapada Vol 2, #9"
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