My whole message is: Accept the you that you are, because God accepts it. God respects it, and you have not respected your being yet. Be immensely happy that God has chosen you to be, that God has chosen you to exist, to see his world, to listen to his music, to see his stars, to see his people -- love and be loved -- what more do you want? Rejoice! I say again and again rejoice in it! And in that very rejoicing, by and by, it will explode in you like lightning that you are special.

 

But remember, that will not come as an ego that you are special as against others. No, in that moment you will know that everybody is special. The ordinary exists not.

 

So this is the criterion: If you think I am special' -- more special than that man, more special than that woman -- then you have not understood yet. It is the ego game. Special, not comparatively; special, not in comparison with anybody -- special just as you are. [....]

 

I have never heard the bush asking the cypress tree "Why am I not like you?" And I have not heard the cypress tree ask the bush "Why am I not like you?" The cypress tree is the cypress tree, and the bush is the bush; and they both are happy in being themselves.'

 

I am myself, you are you. The comparison brings conflict. The comparison brings ambition, and the comparison brings imitation. If you ask 'Why am I not like you?' then you will start trying to BE like me, and that will be the undoing of your whole life: you will become an imitator, a carbon copy. And when you are an imitator you will lose all respect for yourself.

 

It is very rare to find a person who respects himself. Why is it so rare? Why isn't there reverence for life -- your own life? And if it is not for your own life, how can it be for others? If you don't respect your own being, how can you respect the rose hush and the cypress tree and the moon and the people? How can you respect your Master, your father, your mother, your friend, your wife, your husband? How can you respect your children if you have not respected yourself? And it is very rare to find a person who respects himself.

 

Why is it so rare? -- because you have been taught to imitate. From the very childhood you have been told 'Become like Christ' or 'Become like Buddha.' But why? Why should you become like Buddha? Buddha never became you. Buddha was Buddha. Christ was Christ. Krishna was Krishna. Why should you become like Krishna? What wrong have you committed, what sin have you committed that you should become like Krishna? God never created another Krishna. He never created another Buddha, another Christ -- never! Because he does not like to create the same things again and again. He is a creator, he is not an assembly line -- one Ford comes, another Ford, another Ford -- Ford cars go on coming, all alike, on the assembly line. God is not an assembly line. He is an original creator: he never creates the same.

 

And the same will not be valuable. Just think: a Krishna walking again -- the same type of man. He will look like a joker. He will only get some place in a circus, nowhere else, because he will be repetitive. He will say the Gita again -- whether Arjuna is available or not, whether the Mahabharata, that great war, is happening or not -- but he will have to repeat his Gita. And he will walk in his clothes, and they will look very odd.

 

Just think of Jesus amidst you again. He will not fit! He will be out of date, he will be antique, he will be useful only in a museum, nowhere else.

 

God never repeats. But you have always been taught to become somebody else. 'Become somebody else -- the neighbour's son... become like the neighbour's son. Look how intelligent he is. Look... that girl, how gracefully she walks. Be like that!' You have always been taught to BE LIKE SOMEBODY ELSE. Nobody has told you: BE YOURSELF, and be respectful to your being; it is God's gift.

 

Never imitate -- that's what I say to you. Never imitate. Be yourself -- that much you owe to God. Be yourself! Be authentically yourself and then you will know that you are special. God has loved you so much, that's why you are! That's why you are in the first place, otherwise you would not have been. It is indicative of his tremendous love for you.

 

But your specialness is not in comparison with anybody else, it is not that you are special in comparison to your neighbours, friends, your wife, husband. You are simply special because you are alone. You are the only person just like you. In that respect, in that understanding, efforts to become special will disappear.

 

All your efforts to become special are like putting legs on a snake. You will kill the snake. You think... because of compassion you are putting legs on the snake. 'Poor snake, how will he walk without legs?' Just as if the snake has fallen in the hands of a centipede. And the centipede has great compassion on the snake, he thinks 'Poor snake. I have one hundred legs and he has none. How will he walk? He needs at least a few legs.' And if he operates and puts a few legs on the snake he will kill the snake. The snake is perfectly okay as he is, he need not have any legs.

 

You are perfectly okay as you are. This is what I call respect towards one's own being. And to respect oneself has nothing to do with ego, remember. To respect oneself is not self-respect. To respect oneself is GOD'S respect! It is to respect the creator, because you are just a painting -- his painting. Respecting the painting, you respect the painter.

 

Respect, accept, recognise, and all those foolish efforts to be special will disappear.

 

-Osho, “I Say Unto You, Vol 2, #4, Q4”