Osho on Manipulation

[A sannyasin says: I don’t really want to change at all. I’ve been looking inside, and what I’m really up to is adjusting the environment, and manipulating most of the time, keeping myself really well defended.]

Osho – Mm, it’s good that you have become aware of it. You were not aware of it before and this is a good insight. Now things will start being different. Once you understand that you are trying to manipulate, then the base disappears. Manipulation is so useless and futile a thing. If you succeed, nothing is gained; if you fail, there is much frustration.

So whatever the result, whether you succeed or fail, the ultimate result is frustration. You can go on manipulating only if you are not aware; it is an unconscious process. In some other thing’s name – love, helping people, creating order – you can go on manipulating, and the process can continue, but it needs something to hide behind, a good name. Once you start feeling the truth of it then you will see that you are phoney. To understand that one is phoney is a great insight, and if you remain with it… I will not say to you to drop it, to become authentic, no – remain with the phoniness and you will find that it is disappearing, evaporating.

Once you understand that something is untrue, you cannot live with it; it has to go. So don’t do anything about it, because whatsoever you do will be phoney, will again be a subtle manipulation. Just go on understanding that this is phoney and accept it. Be phoney consciously, and the next insight will be that when you try to be phoney, when you consciously make an effort to manipulate people, one day suddenly you will see that you are incapable of manipulating.

I am happy… this is a good insight, a very essential insight. You have got the point, you have diagnosed your own illness. In the inner world the diagnosis is the treatment, there is no other therapy needed for it. Now try only one thing: not to forget it. I’m not saying to drop it – go on manipulating, but now watch and don’t do anything to change it; remain with it. It will be difficult to remain with it – even for three days it will be difficult, arduous – but it has to be done. One has to pass through it. Good.

Source: from Osho Book “Hammer on the Rock”

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