Question :

How can i serve you?

 

Just be yourself. There is no other service to me.

Just be yourself; that's how you can serve me. That's how you have already served me -- if you are yourself. My whole effort is to help you to be yourself. If you are centered, rooted, grounded, if you have come to a point where you are not worried to become somebody else, where the ambition to become somebody else has dropped -- when there is no desire to move into the future, when the present is enough unto itself; when you are deeply contented as you are; when you can thank God, when you can be grateful and there arises no complaint; when your whole heart is simply full of gratitude -- you have served me. There is no other way.

Of course it would have been easier if I had given you some other ways to serve me, because those things you can do. You can come and massage my feet. That won't help; that is not of much use. That is not going to lead you anywhere. You may feel happy, but that happiness is not bliss.

My whole effort is: fall back on yourself. Don't move into the future and don't be motivated by the future. If THIS moment becomes your total reality, you have come close to me, the closest that one being can come to another. By being yourself, you will be near me; by trying to be something else, you will go far away.

Don't be imitators. The mind is an imitator, because it is easier to play the game of imitation than to become authentically true. Many ideas have been given to you: become like a Buddha, become like Jesus. become like Krishna -- as if you have to become everybody else EXCEPT yourself. As if God is only against you. He's for Krishna, for Christ, for Mahavir, for Buddha -- only against you. Then why does He create you? Then He seems simply foolish. Why does He go on creating you? If He's interested in Buddha, Hc can create Buddhas. Why you?

It would be simpler. He can go on creating Buddhas... like Ford cars. They go on coming through the assembly line: one car after another: one Buddha after another. That will be good. But God is not interested in it. He never creates Buddha again, have you observed? He never creates, He never bothers to create, a Jesus again. Why?

There is no need to repeat. All repetition is dead. He goes on creating the new, the novel. He creates you! He's more interested in you than in creating more Buddhas or more Christs. And remember, He will not repeat you either, so while you are here, be true and authentic. Be yourself.

I have heard one story. One American made a beautiful teacup and then he wanted to mass-produce it. But to mass-produce it in the States would have been very expensive, so he sent it to Japan to be mass-produced.

In transit, the cup handle was broken. The Japanese, as you know, are perfect imitators. They mass-produced it exactly as it was: with a broken handle. They repeated it exactly as it was!

This has been going on. God goes on creating the new, God goes on creating the novel, God goes on creating you, and the imitators in the churches and temples go on saying, "Be like Jesus. be like Buddha, be like this." And in transit, everybody's handle is broken!

The transit: two thousand years. Even if Jesus comes back, he will not be able to recognize the Jesus that is worshipped in the churches. Impossible. Jesus was totally a different man -- alive! Churches go on worshipping somebody who was never there. It is their invention.

Why do I go on speaking on Jesus, Buddha or Krishna, or Zarathustra or Lao Tzu? This is the reason: I would like to bring you Jesus as he was before the transit: unbroken, complete -- before the priests entered.

In one of my friends' house, there's a very valuable painting: a seventeenth-century painting of a great master -- very precious. He loves it so much that he's always afraid to even clean it. Something may be destroyed; it is old and very fragile.

But much dust had gathered on it and an expert had to be called. When the expert started cleaning it, a new problem arose: the paint started peeling off. The expert was very worried. He said, "Should I stop? "

I was staying with the friend. I said, "Don't stop. You go ahead." The friend was not there, otherwise he would have stopped the man.

But he said, "It may be destroyed."

I said, "Don't be worried. You just go ahead, because I can see something else behind the painting."

And it was so. When the paint peeled off, it was discovered that the real painting was hidden behind. Some other painter had just tried to improve on the master. There were two paintings, and the real came out only when the imposed painting and the paint peeled off. Then everybody was happy. But the risk was there!

When I talk on jesus, I am trying to peel off the paint with which Christianity has tried to improve upon the original face of the master. But it is natural in transit. Things change.

You be true to yourself. Never try to be anybody else. That is the only sin I call sin. Accept yourself! Whatsoever you are, you are beautiful. God accepts you; you also accept yourself. He created you in His own image. He trusts; He has committed himself in your being. Don't betray Him, don't become imitators.

That is the only way you can serve me: by being yourself. Be thyself! Suddenly you will be close to me, the closest that is possible. By being imitators, by trying to be somebody else, you falsify your being; you become a traitor. All ideals are treacherous and all ideals are betrayals.

I don't teach you any ideal, and I don't want you to become anything that is not intrinsic to you. You don't know who you are; that is the difficulty in being oneself. One has to remain content with the unknown.

I have heard: When the apostle, Paul, reached Athens, he told the people of Athens, "You are good, you are great in your thinking, you have given the greatest philosophies to the world. But one thing I have observed: I have seen one temple in your city which is devoted to the unknown God. Inside there is no statue -- just inscribed on a marble:'This temple is devoted to the unknown God.'"

Paul said, "This is not enough: an unknown God. This is not sufficient. Your foundation is incomplete. I give you the known God, because only with the known God is a foundation possible. Your culture, your civilization, lacks foundation."

But I tell you, only the unknown God IS the God. Once you are devoted to a known God you have started falsifying already, because the known will be knowledge, the known will be part of your mind. Buddha is known -- easy to imitate. Jesus is known -- easy to imitate. YOU are unknown. And I teach you to remain true to the unknown God.

The known is easy. You can tackle it; you can cope with it. To move into the unknown needs much courage, needs daring. And religion is the greatest adventure. It is not a consolation, it is not a convenience, it is not respectability. It is to move into the unknown, the uncharted, and to risk life.

What Paul said to the Greeks is dangerous. This man Paul talks sense but is very dangerous. You will also feel that a known God is better than an unknown God, because with the known we can relate easily; with a map we can move easily. But I tell you again and again, there is no better way to be lost than to have a map.

In the world of truth, all maps are false, because the truth is undefined and remains indefinable. Defined, it becomes untrue. That's what Lao Tzu means when he says: "The truth cannot be said. Once said, it is no more the truth."

God IS unknown. Or, it would be even better to say, the unknown is God. And that unknown resides in you, abides in you. If you want to serve me and to be close to me, be close to your unknown God which is within you. Serve that unknown God which is within you, help that unknown God to be: to expand, to become, to flow, to flower.

 

-Osho, "Come Follow To You, Vol 2, #8, Q2"