[Osho gives a sannyasin a come close energy darshan]
Osho – The energy is perfectly good. Just one problem is there, that you don’t listen to your own voice; and that has to be done. Don’t be distracted by anything else – follow your own feeling. If you are feeling happy, be happy; don’t think of anything else. If you are feeling sad, be sad; don’t consider others, their expectations. Your energy is flowing perfectly well, but you consider others too much, so sometimes you repress, sometimes you become pseudo, inauthentic. You look into others’ eyes and then you try to fulfill their idea of you. Now this is the problem.
Nobody is here to fulfill somebody else’s expectations. And the person who tries to fulfill somebody else’s expectations will always be in misery because he will not be true to his own self. He will not be respectful to his own self, and to show disrespect to one’s self is to show disrespect to god. And the punishment is misery. Respect yourself! That does not mean that you become hard on others – that simply means that you become soft on yourself. Be tender towards yourself.
You immensely need to grow a kind of tenderness towards yourself. You are very tender towards others but very hard towards yourself. That’s what has been taught to everybody, to be hard on yourself and be soft to others; that is utter nonsense. If you are not soft to yourself your softness towards others is just a show, a pretension, hypocrisy. And it is not going to make the other happy either, because he will see through the game; and particularly those who are close to you, who are in love with you, will always be able to see through the game. So you become false and they are not satisfied with your falsity, because falsity can never satisfy anybody. To be really tender and caring towards others, one needs first to be basically tender and caring towards oneself That’s where you are a little hard. Relax!
And your energy is going so well that now I can speak through your energy to you, so whenever you hear something from the inside, remember: I am telling it to you! And that is your commitment. Be polite to others if sometimes you have to go against their expectations; apologise, but don’t pretend. This is one of the problems that always comes in relationship: you have to consider the other, continuously, and he has to consider you, and both become false, inauthentic. How can love grow when both are inauthentic, insincere? Love grows in authenticity – it is a fragrance of authenticity. One needs to be absolutely genuine, only then does love grow. So in the world there are so many lovers and no love at all, because the basic requirement is never fulfilled.
So from this moment, this is your work on yourself: be utterly genuine. And even… it may create a few troubles in the beginning, but only in the beginning. Soon people start understanding – they can see your truth…. And if you respect yourself, others start respecting you and start respecting the space in which you are. But if even you are not respectful to it, who is going to. be respectful to it?
The old saying in the Talmud is: ’If I am not for me then who is going to be for me?’ Then nobody is for you and you are left in a kind of limbo. Be for yourself and only out of that can you be for others too, because then you will have something to share, to give. The energy is perfectly good – there is nothing wrong in the energy; just your mind goes on interfering with it. Stop interfering!
Source – Osho Book “Don’t Look Before You Leap”