According to Osho, achourya (non-stealing) goes beyond property and condemns the subtlest theft: imitation. When we copy, borrow identities, or become another’s shadow, we steal from our own soul. Real non-stealing is to remain a witnessing center while relating—receiving and giving without letting others’ waves replace your own—so individuality stays unborrowed, untouched.
Don’t copy others; stay yourself inside even while sharing life with people.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, today the questions are on “achourya” (non-stealing). To understand achourya, I would like to understand “theft” very closely. So for now let us talk only about theft. You have said that at the level of body, feeling, or mind, imitation or following another is theft. But life is a web of inter-relationships; everything here is interconnected. Then how can a person distinguish his purest originality from the subtle waves coming from outside—their influence or imposition? How does one avoid that?
Religion is concerned with the theft of influences, the theft of personalities, the theft of faces. And we are all living as the stolen. We are all living as if we were someone else. We are not ourselves. I am not I; I am living like someone else. In this sense I have said that “achourya” is the path to the attainment of individuality in the human soul, and “theft” is the method of losing the soul. This can happen at the level of feeling, at the level of thought, or at the level of the body. We do not even walk in our own way; we even learn our walk from others! We do not think in our own way; we learn thoughts from others! We do not feel in our own way; we learn feelings from others! A man reads the newspaper in the morning and then all…
In your conscious or unconscious, is there the insistence to become like someone? If yes, then it is necessary to understand it rightly and be free of it. Otherwise the state of Achaurya—no-theft—will not arise. And this theft is such that no one can stop you, for personality thefts are invisible. Go to steal money—you may be caught. Go to steal a personality—who will catch you? How? Where? And the theft of personality is such that you snatch nothing from anyone, yet you become a thief. Personality theft is easy and simple. From morning onward watch how many times you become someone else. We fail to be a person because of personalities. Because of personalities the person does not happen. This word “personality” is beautiful. It comes from Greek drama. In Greek drama each actor had to wear a mask, a face. That face was called persona.
Have we got any such thing which we can call 'unlearnt', or not obtained from anyone? If not so, the life which we live is one of stealing. A revolution begins to take place in my life if even once I remember that I have no property which is my own. Therefore, don't think you haven't stolen even a cowrie don't think you haven t stolen anything from someone else's house. What relation has such a theft with religion? Such a theft has relation only with man -- concerned with a special kind of theft which is beyond the grips of law, which cannot be decided by courts, which is beyond the scope of judges.
Question: Osho, Saint Ryokan lived in a hut at the foot of a mountain. His life was utterly simple. One evening a thief entered his hut, but he saw there was nothing in it. Meanwhile the saint returned to the hut and saw the thief leaving. He said to the thief, “You have come a long way to see me, so it would not be right for you to go back empty-handed. Please, as a gift, take my robe.” The thief was utterly astonished. Embarrassed, he took the clothes and slipped away without a word. Ryokan was now naked. Sitting there, he kept gazing at the moon in the sky. And then he said to himself: “If only I could give that poor fellow this beautiful moon as well!” Osho, what is the essence of this beautiful Zen parable? A saint’s giving is infinite.
Lao Tzu says, Even the Supreme Truth has to be stolen. Why stolen? Because He is the heart of our heart, yet He has become very far from us. He is our own, but so alien now that to attain Him will be called stealing. You yourself have made Him so alien, so distant. It is your own treasure, but you have placed such a distance that to obtain it you will have to pass through almost the state of a thief. You have completely squandered it, completely lost it. Now when you go to regain it, no claim remains yours; your ownership ended long ago. That is why you wander like a beggar. If this beggar now wishes to become an emperor again, it is almost the condition of theft. Because that empire has not been his for long.