According to Osho, an authentic man is one who drops the socially imposed personality—the mask of borrowed thoughts and compliant 'yes-sir' habits—and lives from his innate individuality. He embodies a rebellious spirit, refuses compromise on inner freedom, and brings his real nature to the surface. Such authenticity ends hypocrisy and dependency on utopias, yielding present-moment fulfillment, love, and fearless integrity.
Be your real self, not the mask others gave you, even if it means saying no.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, what is the meaning of an authentic man? What is his nature, and his way of life?
Those who are dominating may have good intentions. Nobody is doubting their intentions. And perhaps if you had followed their intentions you would have been the richest man in the country, and now you are just a beggar with your guitar on the street. But I say to you that to follow your own nature and to be a beggar with a guitar in the street is more fulfilling, more blissful than to be the richest man in the country, if it is not your desire. One great surgeon, the greatest in his country, was retiring, and his friends had gathered to celebrate. His students had gathered -- because he was really a master surgeon; there was no comparison at all with anybody else. He was a brain surgeon. Even at the age of seventy-five, his hands were not shaking a bit -- because while you are performing surgery on…
Osho, what is it to be a man?
It is one of the most difficult questions to ask -- difficult because it cannot be answered. It cannot be answered because it is not really a question but a quest. Questions are simple, they can be easily answered, but a quest is a challenge, it is an adventure. You have to explore it; it is not possible to give a ready-made answer to you. You have to go into your own depths and experience it, because man is not a being in the ordinary sense of the word. A rosebush is a being, a tiger is a being, a dog is a being; but man is not a being, man is a becoming. To be a being means that one has come with a fixed programme into the world. The rosebush can only grow roses -- it has an inbuilt programme -- it cannot grow lotuses or marigolds; that…
You said last night that modern man has become inauthentic in expressing anger, violence, sex, etc. You say that in india students and the younger generation are less violent in their emotional expressions than are western youth does this mean that western youth are becoming more authentic in their expressions? Is permissiveness in the expression of sex and anger a growth toward being authentic in emotional expressions?
Remember, whenever you lie, deceive, are dishonest, you are forced to do that. That is not your choice, not a real choice. Why do you lie? Because of the consequences, because of the society: you will suffer if you say the truth. You lie and you escape suffering. Really, the society has forced you to lie; it was not your choice. If you say the truth, it is your choice, no one is forcing you to say the truth. Everything is forcing you to say a lie, to be dishonest. That is more convenient, safe, secure. Now you are entering danger, insecurity, but this is your choice. With this choice, for the first time you attain a self. So animal authenticity is one thing, and man's authenticity is qualitatively different -- it is a conscious choice. So a buddha is one again. He is like an animal, with only one…
Question: Anando has asked: OUR BELOVED MASTER, WHAT IS IT TO BE ORIGINAL? IS THE AWAKENED MAN, THE MAN OF ZEN, THE ONLY TRULY ORIGINAL MAN? I said, "Then it is not your experience. Have you been to heaven? Have you seen that there are no women there?" He said, "My God, nobody has asked about this, and nobody comes back from heaven." "Then," I said, "who has written that scripture? Somebody who has not gone to heaven writes that a woman cannot enter heaven, and you are repeating it like a parrot...?" The poor fellow's learnedness was finished, and my grandfather would take hold of me and say, "Child, let us go." Back home my father would say, "I asked you to come but at that time you were talking great philosophy. Why did you go with your grandfather?" I said, "I never deny him, he is so old.
Osho, what is the definition of God?
Words are very small. If you say God is light, then what of darkness? The scriptures have said that God is light. Suppose we accept this as a definition—then what about darkness? Where will darkness go? Darkness is too; in fact it is far more than light. Light sometimes is and sometimes is not; darkness is always, eternal. Where will you place darkness? If you say God is light, darkness is left out. If you say God is darkness, then light is left out. If you say God is both darkness and light, a contradiction arises: they cannot be together. Try to have both darkness and light in the same room. If you bring in light, darkness disappears; if you preserve darkness, you cannot have light. Then how can both be together? That becomes an impossibility. So you cannot say “both” either. Then the fourth device is to say: it…