Osho,
How can I be myself?
“Drop competition and drop comparison and you will be yourself. Comparison is the poison. You are always thinking in terms of how the other is doing. He has got a big house and a big car and you are miserable. He has got a beautiful woman and you are miserable. And he is climbing up on the staircase of power and politics and you are miserable.
“Compare, and you will imitate. If you compare yourself with the rich people, you will start running in the same direction. If you compare yourself with the learned people, you will start accumulating knowledge. If you compare yourself with the so-called saints, you will start accumulating virtue – and you will be imitative. And to be imitative is to miss the whole opportunity to be oneself.”
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Is comparison something we acquire from the world around us?
“We are taught from the very beginning to compare. Your mother starts comparing you with other children, your father starts comparing you with other children. The teacher compares you: ‘Look at Johnny, how well he is doing, and you are no good at all! Look at others!’ From the very beginning you are being told to compare yourself with others. This is the greatest disease; it is like a cancer that goes on destroying your very soul – because each individual is unique, and comparison is not possible. I am just myself and you are just yourself. There is nobody else in the world you can be compared with.
“Do you compare a marigold with a roseflower? You don’t compare. Do you compare a mango with an apple? You don’t compare. You know they are different! Comparison is not possible.
“And man is not a species because each man is unique. There has never been any individual like you before and there will never be again. You are utterly unique. This is your privilege, your prerogative, existence’s blessing, that it has made you unique. Don’t compare. Comparison will bring trouble.”
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Can you say more about the trouble comparison will bring?
“If you compare, you create superiority, inferiority – the ways of the ego. And then, of course, great desire arises to compete, great desire arises to defeat others. And you remain in fear of whether you are going to make it or not, because it is a very violent struggle: everybody is trying the same – to become the first!
“Millions of people are trying to become the first. Great violence, aggression, hatred, enmity, arises. Life becomes a hell. If you are defeated, you are miserable. And there are many more chances of being defeated. And even if you succeed you are not happy, because the moment you succeed you become afraid. Now somebody else is going to take it from you. The competitors are all around, violently after you.
“Before you succeeded you were afraid whether you were going to make it or not; now you have succeeded, you have the money and the power, now you are afraid – somebody is going to take it away from you. Before you were trembling, now you are trembling. Those who are failures are miserable, and those who are succeeders, they are miserable.
“In this world, it is very difficult to find a happy man – because nobody is fulfilling the condition of being happy. The first condition is: drop all comparison. Drop all stupid ideas of being superior and inferior. You are neither superior nor inferior. You are simply yourself! There exists no one like you with whom you can be compared. Then suddenly you are at home.”
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So my happiness and unhappiness all depend on that first condition: drop all comparison?
“If you compare yourself with the people who are greater in some way than you, you will become bitter, very bitter. Your life will become poisoned by the comparison. You will remain always in a state of depression, as if life has deceived you, betrayed you, as if you have been let down.
“Or if you compare yourself with people who are smaller than you, in some way lesser than you, then you will become very egoistic. This is one of the reasons why politicians are always surrounded by people smaller than themselves. They collect them; that is their joy. They collect smaller people around themselves so that they can look bigger than they are by comparison. It is stupid, but one cannot expect anything more from a politician….
“Don’t be bothered that others are earning more money, that others are becoming more successful, more famous. Remain interested in the thing that you are really interested in; whether it keeps you poor, humble, does not matter. If you enjoy doing it, if you love doing it, if it is your creativity, then you are rich, very rich, immensely rich, and existence will be very pleased with you. If you are pleased yourself, existence is pleased with you.”
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Is comparison a collective phenomenon as well as an individual one?
“Every race, every religion, every country, thinks itself to be the greatest – not because any country is great, not because any race is great: in this existence everything is the greatest. The existence creates only the greatest, every being unique. But that doesn’t appeal to the mind because then greatness is so common. Everybody great? Then what is the use of it! Somebody has to be lower. A hierarchy has to be created….
“Everybody thinks that way. The mind tries to fulfill its desires, to be the most supreme-most. From religion race, country, everything, one has to be watchful – very watchful. Only then you can get beyond this subtle phenomenon of the ego.”
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How can I also participate in this celebration of existence?
“Drop comparison. You are unique. Nobody else is like you, nobody else has ever been like you, and nobody else is ever going to be like you. You are simply unique – and when I am saying you are unique, I am not saying you are better than others, remember. I am simply saying they are also unique. To be unique is an ordinary quality of every being. To be unique is not a comparison, to be unique is as natural as breathing. Everybody is breathing and everybody is unique. While you are alive, you are unique. Only corpses are all alike; alive persons are unique. They are never similar – they cannot be. Life never follows any repetitive course. Existence never repeats: it goes on singing a new song every day, it paints something new every day.
“Respect your uniqueness, and drop comparison. Comparison is the culprit. Once you compare, you are on the track. Don’t compare with anybody – he is not you, you are not he. You are going to be yourself, he is going to be himself: let him be, and you relax into your being. Start enjoying whatsoever you are. Delight in the moments that are available to you.”
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And how can I start accepting my uniqueness?
“Just go inside – because when you compare you have to go outside, you have to focus on others. Just go inside and see who you are. Uncomparing, just see who you are. Just see what your reality is, not in reference to somebody else. You are something authentic in your own right. Why not see it? Why compare? Comparison will give you a false identity, and that false identity is what is called ego. When the false has been dropped, the real arises. And that real is incomparable because the real is not any self, it is open sky.”
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“Heaven is an inner space where you live a life uncompared. You simply live yourself, it is your life, you are you. Just think of the beauty of it, the tremendous purity of it. You are simply you. Then are you beautiful? Are you ugly? Are you intelligent, or unintelligent? If you are simply you and there is no comparison, how can you say you are this or that? Then both disappear. There arises neti-neti, neither this nor that. Then you are simply there…. Then who will you be? All comparisons will disappear, you will simply be yourself. That is the way to be.”
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“A man who simply relaxes in his uniqueness is a man who creates ripples of bliss around him. He lives in bliss and he creates pulsations of bliss for others also. If you are around such a person you will suddenly be showered with great peace and love and silence and happiness – because he is happy. The moment you accept your uniqueness, your individuality, how can you be unhappy?
“Just think of it in this way: Existence has never created anybody else like you and it will never create anybody else like you. Existence has created only one you – only one you, mind – and it is never going to repeat you again. This is your uniqueness. Feel grateful, feel thankful.”
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Being myself sounds so beautiful!
“A man who understands the uniqueness of everybody can be religious, can only be religious, because he feels immense gratitude for whatsoever life has given to him. If you don’ t compare, then you are neither bigger nor smaller, neither ugly nor beautiful, neither intelligent nor stupid. If you don’t compare, you are simply yourself. And in that state of simply being yourself, spring comes, flowers come, because a deep acceptance of life and a deep gratitude towards existence helps to bring the spring.”
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