Being yourself - Osho

A GREAT HASSID MYSTIC, Zusya, was dying. His old aunt was always worried about Zusya because he was not following the traditional Jewish religion. She was very much worried about him. She was an old woman with all the old orthodox thoughts. At his deathbed she came and asked Zusya, "Have you made peace with God?"


Zusya opened his eyes and said, "But I have never been in and conflict with him! Why should I make any peace with God? I have never struggled against him. I have lived a life of let-go!"

The old woman could not understand the life of let-go, the life of total surrender to the

ultimate, to the whole, flowing with the whole. She again asked, thinking that he had not understood; she said, "Have you made peace with Moses?"



Zusya said, "When I am in front of God, he is not going to ask me, 'Zusya, why are you not
a Moses?' He will ask me, 'Zusya, why are you not a Zusya?' I am not supposed to be Moses, otherwise ke would have made me a Moses! Who was preventing him? He never made another Moses."

God never repeats. He never sends carbon copies to the world. Mahavira is not repeated,
Buddha is not repeated, Christ is not repeated, Mohammed is not repeated, Kabir, Nanak --
nobody is ever repeated.

And this is what we all are doing: we are trying to be like Moses or like Mahavira or like
Mohammed. Zusya is right, his insight is great. He says, "God will ask me, 'Why are you
not Zusya?' He has made me Zusya and I have to be myself. That is my responsibility. To
be Moses is not my responsibility; that was Moses' responsibility and that is something
between Moses and God. I have nothing to say about it, nothing to do with it; it is not my
concern at all."

The most essential thing is: you have to be yourself. Don't be distracted by anybody, by
any scripture, by any priest, by any politician. Don't be distracted. Stick to one thing: "I
have to be myself." Don't be stubborn. Don't bother about non-essentials. If the rule is to
keep to the left, follow it; it is a non-essential thing. Whether you keep to the left or
whether you keep to the right does not matter; it is just a traffic convenience. In India we
keep to the left because of the Britishers, because they had the idea of keeping to the left;
the Americans keep to the right. Both are okay; there is nothing essential about it. But one
thing is certain, that the traffic has to be managed and one has to decide either left or right
-- the traffic cannot be left in chaos.

These are non-essentials. Don't start fighting for them; that is a sheer wastage of energy.
But about the essential no compromise should ever be made.

The Desiderata (A mystic) says: Without surrender, without making any compromise, remain
yourself. That does not mean that you have to be continuously fighting. It simply means if
you are alert, aware, watchful, you can save your being without being contaminated by the
others.

Everybody is like a vulture trying to dominate you. Even those who say they love you,
their love is also nothing but an ego trip. They love you so that they can dominate you. The
husband loves the wife to reduce her almost to a thing, to a commodity. The wife loves the
husband just to dominate him, just to exploit him. All this love, all these relationships. . .
Parents love their children if the children are following the ideas of the parents; if they are
obedient then they love their children, if they are not obedient then all love disappears --
instead of love they start hating.

One sannyasin asked me just the other day: "Listening to the Desiderata I am confused
about what to do. I have not Gone to see my mother for two years because she insists that I
have to come to her not as a sannyasin. I cannot come in orange with a new name." So she
is puzzled: "What to do? Is it an essential or a non-essential? Should I compromise?"
If you think only of clothes it will look like a non-essential: why hurt the mother
unnecessarily? You can go in white, you can go in any other color -- clothes are just
clothes. But that is not the point: the mother is trying to dominate you. It is not a question
of clothes, because why should she be against orange? If you go in blue she is not against
it, if you go in green she is not against it, if you go in white she is not against it. Why
should she be worried about orange? What is wrong with orange? Is your mother a kind of
bull or something? Why should she be worried about orange? Orange is one of the colors!
If all other colors ate acceptable and orange is not acceptable, it is not a question of colors
or clothes; the question is deeper. She insists that you have to be obedient to her. And the
sannyasin is thirty-two years old, not a small child. But the desire to dominate. . .

"Otherwise," the mother says, "I don't want to see you." What kind of love is this? It insists
that "You have to be according to me."
Forget the clothes. It is a very essential question; it is not non-essential. It is essential to
defend yourself against all these who try to dominate you, because they will not stop only
at that. Once you give in, then the whole trip begins, and then there is no end to it.

Every person has the freedom to be himself or herself. And if the mother really loves you
she would like you to be yourself, she would like you to come the way you are. Love
always accepts the other without any conditions; if there are conditions, it is not love.