According to Osho, you never know 'who' you are as second-hand knowledge; all such identities are borrowed, parrot-like. Real knowing is a lucid not-knowing—an alert, living awareness that drops labels. Wisdom begins by seeing that concepts cannot contain you. Resting in this mystery makes you authentic, vibrantly alive, and free from second-hand beliefs.
You can’t pin yourself down with ideas—just feel you’re alive and be okay not having a fixed label.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, you said that you don't know who you are. Don't you really? Do we never know who we are?
But it has been a great problem for the scholars: "Why did Eknath treat his own god in this way?" They don't have any answer. At least he could have looked at him, at least he could have said, "Please sit down on the brick." I have talked with many Maharashtrian scholars who are followers of Eknath; they don't have any answer. I said, "It is so simple. The story may be bogus, and I know that it is bogus. There is no Vithoba; nobody ever comes, whether you keep your door open or locked. But one thing is certain: Eknath was really an authentic man. When he was doing one thing, he was doing it totally. When God comes he says, "Stand there, don't bother me till I am finished with my work." To me this is the implication in my saying that if death comes to my sannyasins…
Who are you?
So there are two kinds of ignorances: one, when you are and you don't know; and the second, a luminous ignorance, full of light -- but you are not there, so who is there to say that "I know"? The 'I' is no longer there. The second thing: whenever you know something, it has to be separate from you, it has to be an object of knowledge. How can you know the knower? You cannot reduce the knower to an object of knowledge. It remains the knower, it never becomes known. Whatsoever you know simply proves that it is not you. That is one of the basic meditations in the East. Look at things, watch things, and whatsoever you become capable of knowing, you can be certain this is not you. So that is eliminated. This is called 'the process of elimination'. You watch, sitting silently -- you can see…
Osho, I don't know who I am. I feel like I need grounding at some level. Is there no place for grounding?
This is my understanding: unless you can enjoy the meaningless, you will never become religious. God, to me, is the meaningless beauty that surrounds you, the meaningless song that is heard all around: the meaningless murmur of a brook, the meaningless whisper of the winds, the meaningless silence of the stars. Tremendously beautiful, but meaningless. Why do I say meaningless? Because it is unknowable. A thing remains meaningless unless it is known. Once you know, then it is meaningful. And I tell you, stars are mysterious, but they are nothing compared to your inner being. Rivers are mysterious, but they are nothing compared to your inner stream of consciousness. The Himalayas are mysterious, but nothing as compared to your inner peaks of ecstasy. Be, rather than know. Marcus Aurelius looks to me to be of more and deeper understanding when he says, "Be thyself!" than Socrates when he says, "Know…
Osho, I don’t know who I am, what I am. I have come to ask you for my “address.”
Narayan Shankar! No one else can give you this address—neither I nor anyone else. You will have to dig for it within yourself. If you keep asking outside, only confusion will come to hand. You will find many eager to hand you an address; they sit everywhere, waiting. Without your even searching you will bump into them. They are on the lookout for someone to ask, so they can advise. People are so keen to give advice, so eager to thrust their “knowledge” upon one another, that there’s no measure to it—because the ego has no greater enjoyment than this. Whenever you start giving wisdom to another, two things are instantly established: the other is ignorant and you are wise; the other doesn’t know and you know. And who doesn’t want that pleasure? Therefore it’s hard for you to find a person who won’t advise you, won’t “give” you knowledge.…
Do you know who I am?
NO Sir, NOT AT ALL. Because you are not. You are an emptiness -- anatta. No sir. On the surface you may be somebody, but I am not concerned with your surface. In the deepest core you are simply a nobodiness, not even a nobody -- nobodiness. How can I know you? And that's the beauty, because if I can know you I have defined you, I have made you limited by my knowledge. If you can be known, immediately you become an object, you are no more a consciousness. If you can be known you cannot be infinite, and you are -- infinite in your emptiness. How can I know you? Even you yourself cannot know. There exists nothing like self-knowledge. When you come to realize it, it is a NO-SELF-knowledge. When you come to settle with it, suddenly you become aware that the knower and the known have…