Question – How can I be nothing and unique?
Osho – You can be unique only when you are nothing. If you are something, you are comparable. If you are somebody you can be compared with others, and that which can be compared cannot be unique. Unique means incomparable. Unique means you are alone, there is nobody like you.
So if you are somebody … If you are a man there are millions of men; you are comparable. If you are rich, then there are millions of rich people; you are comparable. If you are good you are comparable. If you are bad you are comparable. If you are a painter you are comparable. If you are a singer you are comparable. If you are somebody you are comparable, and by being comparable you cease to be unique.
The moment you attain to a nothingness, when the “I” disappears … The “I” is comparable; the “no-I” is incomparable. That’s why I say if you become nothing you become unique. If you become nothing you become uncorruptible; the nothing cannot be corrupted.
You have heard Lord Acton’s saying, “Power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Why does power corrupt? Because power makes you somebody. It gives you a definition. It says who you are — you are a prime minister of a country or a president of a country. Power gives you a definition; it demarks who you are. If you have money, it demarks you. If you don’t have money, it demarks you. If you are a musician or a poet or a singer, it shows who you are. The moment you know who you are, you are limited, you are finite — and you are comparable.
But if you are nobody — just a pure nothingness, pure sky with not even a particle of dust — then how can you be compared.? God is unique because God is nothing. You cannot find God anywhere. Either you can find him everywhere or nowhere, but you cannot find him somewhere. Either he is the whole or he is nothing.
When you are nothing you also become the whole. When you are nothing you also become divine. By being somebody you remain human. By being nobody you attain to divinity, you become divine. Hence I have said that the moment nothingness arises in you, you have become unique.
Buddha is unique not because he is the great saint, because there are millions of saints. Jesus is unique not because he is the most virtuous man. That’s all nonsense. He is unique because he is nothing. He is unique because he is ready to crucify his ego. And the moment his ego is crucified, he resurrects — he resurrects as the whole. He dies as the part and resurrects as the whole. He dies in time and is resurrected in eternity.
Source – Osho Book “The First Principle”