According to Osho, imitating even the highest ideals kills your authenticity: you become a carbon copy, acting a role, wearing a mask, committing psychological suicide. Imitation replaces spontaneity with borrowed patterns, blocking growth and intelligence. Learn from Buddhas and Christs, drink their presence, but live your own unique way; even a successful imitation leaves you empty, while authentic living brings contentment.
Copying great people makes you a fake—learn from them, but be yourself.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
What is wrong, in imitating the great ideals taught down the centuries?
It is not a question of great ideals or petty ideals, it is a question of imitating. What you imitate is immaterial; the important thing is that you imitate. If you imitate you become a carbon copy. If you imitate you have betrayed your authentic being. If you imitate you are no more your being, you are no more your soul, you are no more yourself. You have committed suicide -- and this suicide is far more suicidal than when you destroy your physical body. This is destroying your very psychology. Imitation means you will not live according to your own spontaneity, you will live according to somebody else as your image; you will follow somebody else's character, behavior, way of life. You will have to impose. What will you do if you want to follow Christ; if you want to imitate Christ, what will you do? You will act…
Cannot people learn by imitating others?
A man purchased a Picasso painting. It was very costly, one million dollars, but he knew perfectly well that it is authentic -- he knew it because he was an eye witness when Picasso was doing it. When he had purchased he was so happy -- he was a friend to Picasso -- he went to show him the painting and to tell him that, "I have purchased your painting. Of course it has cost me a fortune, but I am immensely happy that I have got one of your original paintings with me." Picasso looked at the painting and said, "This is not original -- this is a copy." The man was shocked. Then he has been robbed of one million dollars! He said, "But what are you saying? -- because I have seen with my own eyes! I was staying with you in those days when you were…
Question: Osho, in almost all great beings, part of their character is personal and part is collective. Recently there has been discussion on Krishna’s life; in it there were many personal traits such that, in today’s age, if we even tried to imitate a little of them, it seems the only likely result would be a beating—nothing else appears possible. Today we cannot sling a pebble to break someone’s pot of curds and milk. Today we cannot run off with the clothes of maidens bathing somewhere. And moreover, even if we wish, we cannot love some Radha. In Krishna there are also things that are collective; you have said that whatever Krishna spoke has significance for the past, present, and future.
Question: OSHO, CHRIST AND FIVE MILLION CHRISTIANS CARRYING THEIR CROSSES! BUDDHA AND TEN MILLION BUDDHISTS CARRYING THEIR LOTUS FLOWERS! ONE WONDERS, CAN WE ESCAPE THE RISKS OF IMITATION IN THIS AMAZING GAME YOU HAVE CREATED? It is impossible to imitate me. I am taking every care that if you try to imitate me you will fall like Humpty Dumpty -- and then nobody can put you together, not even me. It is impossible to imitate me, for the simple reason I am so inconsistent, so self-contradictory that it is impossible to follow me. Because in the morning I will say, "Go north!" In the afternoon I will say, "Go south!" By the evening I have changed the whole idea -- "Go to the west!" How can you follow me? Christ can be followed, because his message is small and very consistent.
The prince of wu took a boat to monkey mountain. As soon as the monkeys saw him they all fled in panic and hid in the treetops.
ONE MONKEY, HOWEVER, REMAINED, COMPLETELY UNCONCERNED, SWINGING FROM BRANCH TO BRANCH -- AN EXTRAORDINARY DISPLAY. THE PRINCE SHOT AN ARROW AT THE MONKEY, BUT THE MONKEY DEXTEROUSLY CAUGHT THE ARROW IN MID-FLIGHT. AT THIS THE PRINCE ORDERED HIS ATTENDANTS TO MAKE A CONCERTED ATTACK. IN AN INSTANT THE MONKEY WAS SHOT FULL OF ARROWS AND FELL DEAD. THEN THE PRINCE TURNED,TO HIS COMPANION YEN PU'I: 'YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENED? THIS ANIMAL ADVERTISED HIS CLEVERNESS. HE TRUSTED IN HIS OWN SKILL. HE THOUGHT NO ONE COULD TOUCH HIM. REMEMBER THAT! DO NOT RELY ON DISTINCTION AND TALENT WHEN YOU DEAL WITH MEN!' WHEN THEY RETURNED HOME, YEN PU'I BECAME A DISCIPLE OF A SAGE TO GET RID OF EVERYTHING THAT MADE HIM OUTSTANDING. HE RENOUNCED EVERY PLEASURE. HE LEARNED TO HIDE EVERY DISTINCTION. SOON NO ONE IN THE KINGDOM KNEW WHAT TO MAKE OF HIM. THUS THEY HELD HIM IN AWE.…