According to Osho, acceptance begins by dropping the very desire to be different. Desire is bondage; transformation comes by relaxing into what is. Acknowledge every experiential fact—fear, cowardice, hypocrisy—without denial or repression. Stop clinging to fixed self-images of how you “should” be. Honest, nonjudgmental seeing unifies your being; paradoxically, only a brave person can admit cowardice, and this wholeness is the beginning of real change.
Gently notice your fear and flaws without trying to fix them, let go of “shoulds,” and by calmly accepting what’s real, you become whole and change naturally.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Can cowardice and hypocrisy also be beautiful? Can I accept even my cowardice, my hypocrisy, my miserliness and a tendency towards privacy that you yourself have called "idiocy"? And if I accept such tendencies, all of which tend to bottle me up, how will I get free?
See the beauty of fear, see the alchemical work of fear. It is simply trying to prepare you for the situation so that you can accept the challenge. But rather than accepting the challenge, rather than understanding fear, you start rejecting it. You say, "Ashoka, you are such a great man, a great sannyasin, and you are trembling? Remember what Osho used to say, that there is no death, that the soul is immortal. An immortal soul, and trembling? Remember what Krishna said: 'Death cannot destroy you, fire cannot burn you, weapons cannot penetrate you.' Remember! And don't tremble: hold yourself in control!" Now you are creating a contradiction. Your natural process is that of fear, and you are bringing in an unnatural process to contradict fear. You are bringing ideals to interfere in the natural process. There will be pain, because there will be conflict. Don't bother whether the…
I feel sick with cowardice.
But in the human situation the whole thing has taken a very wrong shape, because you have been taught wrong goals. Each child should be taught to be true to life. If there is fear, then be afraid. Why hide it? Why pretend that you are not afraid? If you want to cry, cry. Why be afraid of tears? But we have been taught not to cry, particularly men. With small children the mother will say, 'Don't be a sissy. Don't start crying. That is only for girls.' And the boy becomes hard. Look, men cannot cry. They have missed one of the most beautiful things in life. Nature has not made any difference between man and woman; man has as many tear-glands as woman, so the thing is proved -- there is no difference. Tears are needed. They are cleansing. But how to cry? What will people say? They…
[A sannyasin who is leaving for the west says he has a hard time accepting everything about himself and finds it particularly tricky relating to people -- especially to strangers and to groups of people: I don't know whether to just accept it, or to try and do something about it... ] Accepting it is doing something about it. Acceptance is not mere acceptance: it is the very method of changing it. The moment you accept anything, it starts coming into the conscious. It leaves the unconscious, it starts coming to the light because now you are not denying it so there is no need for it to hide. Now you are not against it and there is no need to go on living underground: it can come and face you. And when things come to the conscious and you see them clearly....
In moods of extreme desire, be undisturbed.
THIS SO-CALLED UNIVERSE APPEARS AS A JUGGLING, A PICTURE SHOW. TO BE HAPPY, LOOK UPON IT SO. OH BELOVED, PUT ATTENTION NEITHER ON PLEASURE NOR ON PAIN, BUT BETWEEN THESE. OBJECTS AND DESIRES EXIST IN ME AS IN OTHERS. SO ACCEPTING, LET THEM BE TRANSFORMED. We have double standards -- one standard for one oneself and another standard for everyone else. This double-standard mind is going to be in deep misery always. This mind is not just, and unless your mind is just you cannot have a glimpse of the truth. Only a just mind can leave this double standard. Jesus says, "Don't do to others what you would not like done to you." This means a similar standard is needed. This technique is based on the idea of a single standard: "OBJECTS AND DESIRES EXIST IN ME AS IN OTHERS...." You are not exceptional, although everyone thinks he is…
Question: OSHO, I AM A HYPOCRITE. WHAT SHOULD L DO? You can ask an American girl, "how many times you have made love before you got married?" and she will answer. But no Indian woman will answer; it is impossible. Her whole life will be destroyed. You can collect such data only in America, not in India. And Indian saints go on saying, "Look! In our country no girl ever loses her virginity" -- because there is no data for it. You cannot collect data for the simple reason -- not that it is true -- for the simple reason that nobody is ready to say the truth. Only in America you can find such data. You can ask all kinds of questions to people and people are willing to answer sincerely, for no other reason than just to help the scientific survey.