What is more important: to be thyself or to know thyself?

Osho, what is more important in your religion -- to be thyself or to know thyself?

Gurdjieff calls them "selves; it is the same. You can call personalities selves or egos, and you can start looking for them -- it is a tremendously charming game to look at them. In the evening, you decide that tomorrow morning you are going to get up at five. This you have been deciding for many years, and you know it -- that every evening you decide.... But this night is different! -- that too, you know. Every night you have been saying, "This night is different; tomorrow I am going to get up. There is a limit to everything!" But all these things you have been saying every night. You are not saying a single new thing, but you are not aware of it. And at five o'clock when the alarm goes, you just press the button; and you are angry at the clock. You may throw the clock,…

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…

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…

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…

"be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass. "take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. "nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness."

Life is bound to be arid, desertlike, if you don't have any love in you. It is going to be a continuous disillusionment, from one disillusionment to another. BY the time you reach the very end you are nothing but a sad sad story: "... a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing." People die utterly disillusioned. People die complaining against life. And you cannot expect gratitude from them towards existence; you cannot expect prayer, you cannot expect any thankfulness, because they have not known anything for which they can be thankful to existence. And the whole thing was missed because they missed love. Love is as perennial as the grass. Love is the only experience which transcends death. All that is God-given to you, which includes many things -- intelligence is there, compassion is there, sympathy is there, creativity is there, sensitivity is there,…