According to Osho, only inner awareness makes true awareness of others possible; without awakening within, you merely project your dreams and prejudices onto people. Begin by being 'selfish' in the higher sense—lighting your own flame—then perception clears, projection drops, and you genuinely see others as they are. Enlightened 'selfishness' becomes a blessing that naturally helps and understands others.
Wake up inside yourself first, then you can really see other people instead of imagining them.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
In being selfish does one still remain aware of others or not?
If you are aware of yourself you become aware of others. How can it be otherwise? If you are not aware of yourself, how can you be aware of others? Awareness first must happen within you. The light must be lighted there first. The flame must arise within you; only then can the light spread and envelop others. You live in darkness, unawareness -- how can you be aware of others? You go on thinking, you dream -- you are not aware of others. The husband may say, "I am aware of my wife and her feelings." Simply not possible, because the husband is not aware of himself. He lives in deep darkness and unconsciousness. He does not know from where his anger comes, he does not know from where love arises, he does not know from where comes this existence, flowing. He is not aware of himself -- and…
Osho, “If there is awareness, the other is always beneficial.” Is this what you mean by a buddha, an awakened one?
If there is awareness, the other is neither beneficial nor harmful; if there is awareness, you draw your well-being from everywhere. Without awareness, you draw your ill-being from everywhere. If there is awakening, wherever you are, heaven begins to be created—because of your awakening. If there is no awakening, wherever you are, the stench of hell begins to rise—because of you. Understand it this way: to live in stupor builds hell; to live awake builds heaven. No one has ever suffered while awake. No one has ever known happiness while asleep. In sleep, at most you can hope for happiness; happiness never arrives. In the hope of happiness you can bear a great deal of suffering, but happiness never arrives. What comes with wakefulness—that alone is happiness. There is no relation to the other at all. If you understand rightly, there is no other; it is you. Your idea about…
Osho, yesterday you said that jealousy is included in respect. I have immense respect for you, but the jealousy inherent in it keeps poisoning it, and I feel guilt and pain. Does reverence transcend this poison-laced respect?
It needs a little explaining—it's a delicate point. Whenever you respect someone, you do so because you see in that person something you do not have. You respect because you glimpse in the other something you would also like to possess. A beggar respects an emperor because he, too, longs to be an emperor. So on the one hand he respects, and inside he also envies. Because he is not yet an emperor but wants to be. You have attained what he wants to attain. He respects you as skillful, successful: “I stand far back in the line; you have gone ahead to where I should have been.” So you are powerful, clever, intelligent, strong—he respects you. But inside a fire of jealousy also burns—if he gets the chance, he would like to be in your place and push you aside. And if the beggar gets that chance, he will…
Is not the search for enlightenment a selfish search?
You cannot be centred and you are trying to help others, to be of service to them. The only help that you can give, the first and the very basic thing, is to be centred and rooted within yourself. Yes, enlightenment is a selfish search. This is half of the answer I would like to give you.Now the other half. Because enlightenment is a selfish search, the most selfish, incomparably selfish -- that's why you cannot attain enlightenment through search. The search will make you a beautiful person, wise, compassionate, in a thousand and one ways, but not enlightened. So, for me there exist three types of persons; one, the so called religious person, the moral, the puritan, the so-called good, who goes on trying to be unselfish and remains selfish. Second, the person who knows there is no other way to be, that to be selfish is the only…
These people here are not social workers or social servants. These people are here for their absolutely selfish ends. And I teach them to be selfish, because to me that is the only way to be in the world. And if everybody is selfish, the world will be very very beautiful. These do-gooders are very dangerous people. They themselves are nowhere and they go on interfering in other people's lives. My approach is very selfish. First, look at yourself. First let the light be there. First let love be there. First let some inner treasure be available there... and then you can share. How can you share something that you don't have? You want to be loving -- good! But do you have love? You would like to be compassionate, but do you have compassion? Deep inside anger is boiling -- and people are trying to be compassionate.