To Be Authentic Means to Be an Individual

Osho,
What is the meaning of an authentic man? What is his nature, and his way of life?

“The authentic man means one who has come out of his personality. You have two words: personality and individuality.

Personality is the false identity given by the society to you. And individuality is what nature has given to you. Individuality is existential. Personality is social.

“Ordinarily, everybody is living as a personality; hence, his life is not authentic. It is false, it is deceptive, it is a hypocrisy. He is not only cheating others, he is cheating himself. He is deceiving others and he is deceiving himself too.
“The word personality comes from Greek drama. Greek drama has a speciality: in ancient Greek drama all the actors have masks. You cannot find out who the actor is, you see only a mask, but the voice that comes through the mask is of the actor. It was called persona in Greek: sona means sound, sound coming through a mask. You cannot find out who the real face is.
“Slowly, slowly, we have forgotten the origin of the meaning of the word personality.

But watch yourself, and you will be surprised: everything that you are is borrowed. All your thoughts are borrowed. Even about feelings you are not certain.

“People write letters to me and they say, ‘I think I have fallen in love.’ Great… ’I think that I have fallen in love.’ They cannot trust their feeling, they are thinking….
“The personality is surrounding you from everywhere, and your individuality becomes almost a hidden thing. You never allow it to live – because the society does not want you to live in freedom according to your nature; the society wants you to live in the way that the society finds useful.
“The personality is very useful: it is never rebellious, it is always a slave. It has no guts to say no. It knows only to say, ‘Yes sir.’ Even in moments when your innermost being is saying no, your personality goes on saying, ‘Yes sir.’ You are living a split life.
“Society supports your personality; hence, the personality has become very powerful.
“There is nobody to support your individuality; hence, individuality – which is your nature, which is your real power, which is your authentic being – remains in darkness, repressed.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: A Man of Rebellious Spirit

We seem to be victims of living this borrowed, inauthentic life.

“Almost the whole of humanity is a victim: victims of pretensions, victims of having masks, victims of not being natural, because being unnatural pays – society gives respect to the false. Society is not respectful to the authentic and to the real, because the false can be controlled, and society is deeply interested in controlling everybody.
“But the authentic cannot be controlled, and society is very much afraid of those people who are authentic and real and themselves, because they cannot be enforced into any slavery, into any obedience, into being oppressed or exploited.
“The desire for reward keeps society respecting the false. And because the false is respected, each small child slowly starts following the false. Parents teaching, teachers teaching … the whole effort is to give you a certain mold that is acceptable to everybody. The end result is a phony world, where nobody is real, where smiles are false, where love is only a word.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Sat, Chit, Anand: Your Birthright

How can we even respect ourselves when we are reduced to living such a phony life?

“You are enemies of yourselves; you have crippled your own being. And then you go on complaining that life is miserable – it is your doing!

You have compromised, for small comforts from the society. And for small comforts from the society, you have sold your soul.

“Now you have comforts but no soul – good furniture, good house, good salary… but for whom? You are non-existent. This is the misery, this is the hell that every man is passing through.
“And there are people who are exploiting the situation. The politicians become your leaders because they say they will bring a utopia into the world – soon there will be no poverty, there will be no suffering, no exploitation, no inequality. All their slogans give you a consolation, and a feeling, ‘Follow this man.’ Although for thousands of years these same people, the same kind, have been giving you the same idea of utopia, the utopia never comes.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: A Man of Rebellious Spirit

How do we fall for this trick of making us all false?

“To be authentic means to be totally factual. Ideologies, theories, isms, they distort you and they give you a false persona. You cultivate faces, then whatsoever you show you are not. The reality is missed and you are suddenly acting and acting. Your life becomes less alive and more a game in which you are enacting something – not your real soul, but the culture, the education, the society, the civilization. Man can be cultivated – and the more you are cultivated, the less real you are.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Remaining with the Facts

So, all “culture” is really a kind of “cultivation” to make sure we fit into society?

“The reality is your uncultivated self, untouched by society. But that is dangerous. A child, if left to himself, will be just an animal. He will be authentic, but he will be an animal; he will not become a man. So that is not possible, that alternative is closed. We cannot leave a child to himself. We have to do something, and whatsoever we do will disturb the real self. It will give clothings, it will give faces and masks to the child. He will become a man, but then he will become an actor; he will not be real….
“So, it is a necessary evil that we have to teach him, we have to cultivate and condition him. Then he becomes a man, but unreal.
“The third possibility opens with these techniques of meditation.

All techniques of meditation are really ‘unconditionings.’

“Whatsoever society has given to you can be taken away again, and then you will not be an animal. Then you will be something more than man. You will be a superman – real, but not an animal.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Remaining with the Facts

If this dishonesty is almost inevitable, then what is an authentic man?

“You are asking me: What is an authentic man? An authentic man is a man of rebellious spirit. He rebels against his own personality, whatever the cost. He is not ready to compromise as far as his freedom is concerned; he would rather die than to be enslaved.

My whole teaching is to bring the authentic being to the surface, from the hidden corners of darkness where you have pushed it.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: A Man of Rebellious Spirit

Will bringing this authentic being to the surface be painful?

“Be an authentic man or be an authentic woman. Do not allow any falsity; do not pretend. Be real and suffer reality. Suffering is good. Suffering is really a training, a discipline. Suffer it! Suffer anger and suffer love and suffer hate. Remember only one thing: never be false. If you do not feel love, then say that you do not feel love. Do not pretend; do not try to show that you are loving. If you are angry, then say that you are angry and be angry.
“There will be much suffering, but suffer it. Through that suffering a new consciousness is born. You become aware of the whole nonsense of hate and love. You hate the person and you also love the same person, and you go on moving in a circle. That circle will become crystal clear for you, and it becomes crystal clear only through suffering.
“Do not escape suffering. You need a real suffering.

It is like a fire: it will burn you. All that is false will burn and all that is real will be there.

“This is what existentialists call authenticity. Be authentic, and then you cannot be any more in the mind. Be non-authentic, and you will be for lives and lives in the mind.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Beyond the Mind to the Source

It sounds like without authenticity our lives are a sham. Can you say more to help us really understand this?

“To be authentic means: to remain true to your own being. How to remain true? Three things have to be remembered. One, never listen to anybody, what they say for you to be: always listen to your inner voice, what you would like to be. Otherwise your whole life will be wasted…

Remember, be true to your inner voice. It may lead you in danger; then go in danger, but remain true to the inner voice.

“Then there is a possibility that one day you will come to a state where you can dance with inner fulfillment. Always look, the first thing is your being; and don’t allow others to manipulate and control you. And they are many: everybody is ready to control you, everybody is ready to change you, everybody is ready to give you a direction you have not asked for. Everybody is giving you a guide for your life. The guide exists within you; you carry the blueprint.
“To be authentic means to be true to oneself. It is a very, very dangerous phenomenon; rare people can do that. But whenever people do it, they achieve. They achieve such beauty, such grace, such contentment, that you cannot imagine. If everybody looks so frustrated, the reason is that nobody has listened to his own voice….
“Then the second thing – if you have done the first thing only then the second becomes possible:

Never wear a mask. If you are angry, be angry. It is risky, but don’t smile, because that is to be untrue.

“But you have been taught that when you are angry, smile; then your smile becomes false, a mask. just an exercise of the lips, nothing else. The heart full of anger, poison, and the lips smiling – you become a false phenomenon….
“When you want to be angry, be angry. Nothing is wrong in being angry. If you want to laugh, laugh. Nothing’s wrong in laughing loudly. By and by you will see that your whole system is functioning. When it functions, really, it has a hum around it, just as a car, when everything is going good, hums….
“Second thing: don’t use masks – be true whatsoever the cost.
“And the third thing about authenticity:

Always remain in the present – because all falseness enters either from the past or from the future.

“That which has passed has passed – don’t bother about it. And don’t carry it as a burden; otherwise it will not allow you to be authentic to the present. And all that has not come has not come yet – don’t unnecessarily be bothered about the future; otherwise that will come into the present and destroy it. Be true to the present, and then you will be authentic. To be here-now is to be authentic. No past, no future: this moment all, this moment the whole eternity.
“These three things, and you attain what Patanjali calls truthfulness. Then whatsoever you say will be true. Ordinarily you think you have to be alert to say the truth. I’m not saying that. I am saying: you create authenticity – whatsoever you say will be true. An authentic man cannot lie; whatsoever he says will be true.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: The Five Vows of Patanjali
“With everything that you are doing, or you are thinking, go deep down. Dig out the facts, and do not allow interpretations and words to color it.
“If this consideration is there, by and by you will become authentic. And this authenticity will not be like that of an animal. This authenticity will be like that of a saint, because the more you know how ugly you are, the more you know how violent you are, the more you penetrate inside your facts and become aware of the nonsense that you are doing, the more this awareness will help you. And by and by your ugliness will drop away, will wither away, because if you are aware of your ugliness it cannot continue….

The authentic man lives the unknown, allows the unknown, moves on the unknown path, risks everything. He may not find gold mines, but he finds a tremendous satisfaction. His life is a life of blessings; his death is a death of fulfillment.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: A Man of Rebellious Spirit
To read more about what Osho says about authenticity or any other subject you are interested in you can go to the OSHO Online Library.
It contains all the Osho books in English and Hindi which can be read and searched.

Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
LinkedIn
WhatsApp
Email

The post To Be Authentic Means to Be an Individual appeared first on OSHOTimes.