According to Osho, sincerity is the highest value in life — indeed, synonymous with life itself. Without sincerity, existence becomes fake: you act roles, speak words you don't mean, and live as if on someone else's behalf. Authenticity demands your whole heart in word and action. Cultivating attentive awareness, including truly listening, breaks the shell of pretenses, allowing real living, love, and understanding to blossom.
Being sincere — saying and doing what you truly feel — makes your life real instead of pretend.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, would you please say something about sincerity?
That's why the cowards escaped to the monasteries, to the Himalayan caves, just for a single reason: that there they will not be found out at all. But what kind of life you can live in a cave? You have already committed suicide. To be in a cave is to be in a grave -- and alive! If you are dead and in a grave, that seems right -- where else you can be? But alive AND in a grave -- it is real hell! In the monasteries people are living a miserable life; that's why they have such long faces -- not that they are religious. Those long faces are a simple outcome of a cowardly life. If you are in the world living with people you cannot hide for long; you can deceive a few people for a time being, but not forever. And how can you deceive…
Success is nearest to those whose efforts are intense and sincere. The chances of success vary according to the degree of effort.
SUCCESS IS ALSO ATTAINED BY THOSE WHO SURRENDER TO GOD. GOD IS THE SUPREME RULER. HE IS AN INDIVIDUAL UNIT OF DIVINE CONSCIOUSNESS. HE IS UNTOUCHED BY THE AFFLICTIONS OF LIFE, ACTION AND ITS RESULT. IN GOD THE SEED IS DEVELOPED TO ITS HIGHEST EXTENT. People ask me, "Why you go on talking every day?" I enjoy; it is just like birds singing. What is the purpose? Ask the rose why it goes on flowering? What is the purpose? I am talking to you because this sharing of myself with you is in itself a value, it has intrinsic value. I am not looking at the result; I am not worried whether you are transformed through it or not. There is no worry. If you listen me, that's all. And if you are also not worried, then transformation can happen this very moment. Because you are worried how to use…
Osho, I feel I can lovingly understand you, and I can even make others understand. Then why does that very understanding fail to bring authenticity into life—whose absence keeps a constant disintegration going inside and out? Where is the mistake being made? Kindly shed your light.
But how does authenticity arise? If you tie it to “how,” you will be stuck—because authenticity is not something you can produce. Whatever you produce will be inauthentic. Keep this well in your heart: whatever you manufacture will be false. How can what you put on be authentic? The authentic has already been created by the divine. You ask, “How do I wear my original face?” The original face is not worn; it is. Only masks are worn. Anything you can put on will be false. Don’t say, “Fine, I won’t wear the false; I will wear the true.” Can the true be worn? The true is that which is on you without your putting it on—which even if you tried, you could not remove. That which you never miss, never lose, from which you are never separate—that is authentic. So what to do? Only see the false as false.…
Beloved master, for my whole life, friendliness has been a shield for me to protect myself from others. Sitting with you in discourse and feeling your overwhelming love, layers of this shield are dropping away, more and more, and I feel a space in which I am enough unto myself. Out of this space, a more open and less fearful connection happens. And yet, I often watch myself not being totally authentic and real. Why is this so difficult?
So it is not only you, Indradhanu, but everybody in the world in which we have been living has been untrue and unauthentic. My vision of a sannyasin is of a rebel, of a man who is in search of his original self, of his original face. A man who is ready to drop all masks, all pretensions, all hypocrisies, and show to the world what he, in reality, is. Whether he is loved or condemned, respected, honored or dishonored, crowned or crucified, does not matter; because to be yourself is the greatest blessing in existence. Even if you are crucified, you will be crucified fulfilled and immensely contented. Just remember Jesus' last words on the the cross. He prayed to God, "Father, forgive these people who are crucifying me, because they know not what they are doing." He is not angry, he is not complaining. On the contrary, he…
A humble heart is one of the greatest virtues For one who is in search of truth. Only those who are humble can know truth. The egoists are prohibited. The ego itself becomes the barrier. It cuts you away from existence. Ego means you are thinking You are separate form the whole. And you are not! We are not islands, no man is an island. We are part of an infinite continent. The ego gives us a false feeling of separation And because of that false feeling of separation Slowly slowly we become enclosed in ourselves. We become too self-conscious, self-centred Utterly closed to the world. Closed to the sun, to the moon To the wind, to the rain. We become encapsulated. That is a kind of living death. We start carrying our grave around ourselves. It is a very invisible grave But it is a grave all the same.