[A sannyasin says: I’ve got a real sense of self-disgust. I realise that a my life I’ve been trying to make myself respectable, and to give. myself some kind of esteem. I’ve been going after every substitute for love – and for me love just means manipulation. I can’t take it because I’ve got this tremendous fear of being manipulated]
Osho – To seek respectability is a substitute, and a worthless substitute, a counterfeit. Only if respect comes through love is it meaningful. If it comes through any other way, then not only is it meaningless, it is poisonous.
That is how a man becomes political. Politics is a substitute for love. When somebody loves you they care about you, they make you feel worthwhile and significant. Whatsoever you are, howsoever you are, you are accepted. But if people miss love they start playing tricks.
The trick is to manipulate others’ respect by doing something, having something – character, morality – something that people have to give respect to. But it is never fulfilling, and one can go on and on till you need a whole crowd….
You can become a president or a prime minister of a country where millions of people pay you attention. They have to because you are powerful, and you can manipulate and become dangerous. But even then, the love of one person is more valuable than the whole country looking up to you.
One person’s love is enough because that is real value. If you are given respect, it is never for you but for something else. For example, if you are a very good man, moral, the respect is for morality, not for you. If you are very rich, you are respected for your house and your car, not for you. You know too, deep down, that if the car disappears and the house is no longer yous, if you are defeated in the elections and are no longer prime minister, all the respect will disappear, because it was never for you in the first place. So you become afraid….
Respect is for something you have, not for you and what you are. Love is simply for you – whether you are rich or poor, capable of certain things or not, talented or not, it is simply for you. At least to one person you are not a stranger. Somebody has given you his or her total friendship and heart; that is fulfilling enough.
Respect is like when you are hungry and you go on reading a book on cooking. Your appetite will not be satisfied, because you need real food. You can have a thousand and one books on cooking, but that is not going to help. Love is food – and respect is a book on cooking. Everybody has been conditioned, taught from the very childhood, to become respectable: to come first in the class, to win the gold medal in the university – to do something so that you become precious.
It has been taught that only by doing something can you become precious – while you simply are! Whether you do something or not is secondary, irrelevant. So if you have become aware of it, drop it immediately. It is a dangerous poison, so don’t allow it to remain in you a single moment. Accept yourself; because whenever you want respect from others, it simply shows that you don’t respect yourself. Otherwise what is the need?
You hate and condemn yourself, so you go on creating masks to hide behind, to deceive others with. At least you can try to deceive others, even if you cannot deceive yourself. But nobody is deceived, because those people are trying the same trick themselves The whole world is in the same mess. So the first thing is to respect yourself, and not to make any demands on yourself.
There is no should to life. Life is as it ought to be; it already is. You just have to accept and enjoy yourself, and give yourself in love. If respect comes through love it is beautiful. And it always comes through love because there is no other way.
… and I don’t see any problem. You have simply created them. There are people who really do have problems, and people who don’t have any, but just to remain occupied they create them. So drop them, they are simply rubbish, and start to enjoy from this very moment. Right? Give it a try
Source: from Osho Book “Hammer on the Rock”