According to Osho, to 'just be yourself' means to live as unprogrammed, unconditioned awareness — the silent watcher of thoughts, desires, and memories, untouched by them. You cannot watch watchfulness; that witnessing is your very being. Remain in the world yet inwardly separate, bringing alertness to every act. This unaffected watchfulness preserves purity, revealing joy, beauty, and the timeless richness of your true nature.
Be the quiet awareness inside you that notices thoughts and feelings without getting caught in them, and stay alert in whatever you do.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, what does it mean when you say, "just be yourself"? How can I be myself when I don't know who I am? I know many of my preferences, likings, dislikings and tendencies, which seem to be the outcome of a programmed biocomputer called the mind. Does just being oneself mean that one totally lives out the whole content of the mind as watchfully as possible?
Yes, it exactly means that -- to live as an awareness: awareness of all the programs the mind has been conditioned for, awareness of all the impulses, desires, memories, imaginations... all that the mind can do. One has to be not part of it, but separate -- seeing it but not being it -- watching it. And this is one of the most essential things to remember, that you cannot watch your watchfulness. If you watch your watchfulness, then the watcher is you, not the watched. So you cannot go beyond watchfulness. The point that you cannot transcend is your being. The point that you cannot go beyond is you. You can watch very easily any thought, any emotion, any sentiment. Just one thing you cannot watch -- and that is your watchfulness. And if you manage to watch it, that means you have shifted: the first watchfulness has become…
Can you please speak upon what it means and how to be totally yourself? My mind is figuring out examples and situations, but I don't know.
YOU HAVE NOT LISTENED TO ME ATTENTIVELY To be oneself, to be totally yourself, needs no know-how. You are it already! It is not a question of knowing the means and the ways and the methods. It is not a question of becoming -- being is already the case! But your mind has become so habituated to desiring, becoming, goals, future, that when I say, "Be yourself," you immediately transform it in your mind into something else. You start asking, "How to be oneself?" I am not saying that you have to BECOME yourself: you are ALREADY it! It is not a question of 'how'. Don't ask how to become because that will lead you astray from yourself. Drop all becoming, let becoming cease. Live the moment as you are: live it as you are. Don't judge, don't evaluate. Just live the moment AS YOU ARE. If you are sad,…
Beloved Osho, there is a growing awareness of when I am not "myself." in meditation, and being in your presence, in the good moments, there is no "myself." beloved master, what do you mean when you say, "be yourself?"
Prem Purna, it is one of the greatest statements made by Socrates: "Know thyself." But I have always thought it is incomplete. Unless another statement is added to it, it will not be complete, and that statement is: "Be thyself." To know thyself, first you have to be thyself; otherwise, how can you know? The second thing: as you enter into the inner world of mystery, of being oneself, of knowing oneself, you will come to a point where you become aware that the word `self' is confusing -- confusing in the sense that it has two meanings. Its true meaning is your soul; and its pseudo meaning is your ego. And that's what is creating your problem: whenever we use the word `yourself', usually we mean your ego, your I-ness. When Socrates says, "Know thyself," or when I say, "Be thyself," we are not using the word `self' in…
Your teaching seems to be: to be absolutely oneself. This is beyond me. How can one be oneself if one is not oneself?
Let me ask you another question: how can you not be yourself? You can believe it, but you cannot be anything other than yourself. You can think that you are somebody else, you can imagine that you are somebody else, but all the time you are just yourself, nothing else. So whether you believe you are yourself or not is irrelevant. You remain, all the time, yourself. You can go on running and chasing shadows, but one day or the other you will have to realize that you have just been doing an absurd thing. How can you be other than yourself7 How? You ask me how one can be oneself. I ask you how one can be other than oneself -- and in my questioning is the answer. Nobody has even been other than himself; nobody can ever be other than himself. To be oneself is the only way…
You told me to be myself. I don't understand. How can I be myself if I don't know myself?
Whether you know or not, you cannot be other than yourself. To be yourself, knowledge is not needed. A rosebush is a rosebush. Not that the rosebush knows that it is a rosebush. A rock is a rock. Not that the rock knows that it is a rock. Knowledge is not needed. In fact it is because of knowledge that you are missing to be yourself. You ask "You told me to be myself. I don't understand. How can I be myself if I don t know myself?' Knowledge is creating the problem. Look at the rosebush. She is not confused. Every day it goes on being a rosebush. Not even for a single day does it become confused. It does not start some morning growing marigolds; it goes on being a rosebush. It is not confused at all. Knowledge is not needed for being. In fact you are missing…