According to Osho, when asked who you are, answer only from truth: if nothing real arises, say 'I don't know.' Refuse secondhand labels—Hindu, Muslim, name, nationality—these are provisional, merely functional. Wait patiently for identity to unfold from within, like a seed sprouting; only that lived knowing is authentic—until then, honesty is your answer.
Just say the truth: right now you don’t truly know who you are, labels are just stickers, and you’ll wait for the real answer to grow from inside.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, when the world questions us, what should we answer? I have gone missing, my Lord; tell me my address. People ask me where I am from.
Buddha added a new chapter to human history: that which cannot be said, don’t say. Say it by silence. Let silence speak. Then leave it to the other. If he thinks you are ignorant, that is his affair. Why be disturbed? But I understand your hitch. If you cannot answer, people think: “Ah, so you are still ignorant! A sannyasi and still ignorant! Donning ochre and still ignorant!” Say: I am indeed ignorant. Make no claim to knowledge. And I tell you: this acceptance of ignorance will become the manure that cracks your seed. This acceptance will become rain upon you. After all, what does the effort to prove to others that “I know” really mean? Only this: that my ego depends on others’ recognition. Ego wants the prop of the other. You cannot be a knower alone; you can be a knower only if someone says so. Go sit…
Osho, I don’t know who I am, what I am. I have come to ask you for my “address.”
Narayan Shankar! No one else can give you this address—neither I nor anyone else. You will have to dig for it within yourself. If you keep asking outside, only confusion will come to hand. You will find many eager to hand you an address; they sit everywhere, waiting. Without your even searching you will bump into them. They are on the lookout for someone to ask, so they can advise. People are so keen to give advice, so eager to thrust their “knowledge” upon one another, that there’s no measure to it—because the ego has no greater enjoyment than this. Whenever you start giving wisdom to another, two things are instantly established: the other is ignorant and you are wise; the other doesn’t know and you know. And who doesn’t want that pleasure? Therefore it’s hard for you to find a person who won’t advise you, won’t “give” you knowledge.…
Who are you?
So there are two kinds of ignorances: one, when you are and you don't know; and the second, a luminous ignorance, full of light -- but you are not there, so who is there to say that "I know"? The 'I' is no longer there. The second thing: whenever you know something, it has to be separate from you, it has to be an object of knowledge. How can you know the knower? You cannot reduce the knower to an object of knowledge. It remains the knower, it never becomes known. Whatsoever you know simply proves that it is not you. That is one of the basic meditations in the East. Look at things, watch things, and whatsoever you become capable of knowing, you can be certain this is not you. So that is eliminated. This is called 'the process of elimination'. You watch, sitting silently -- you can see…
I myself am a question. I know not who I am. What to do? Where to go?
REMAIN WITH THE QUESTION. Don t do anything, and don t go anywhere; and don't start believing in any answer. Remain with the question. That is one of the most difficult things to do -- to remain with a question, and not to seek the answer; because the mind is very cunning, it can supply a false answer. It can console you; it can give you something to cling to; and then the question is not answered but suppressed. Then you go on believing in the answer, and the question remains deep down in your unconsciousness like a wound. The healing has not happened. If you remain with the question, I'm not saying that you will receive the answer. Nobody has ever received any answer. If you remain with the question, by and by the question disappears. Not that the answer is received; there is no answer. There cannot be,…
Question: Second question: Osho, becoming empty—that is, attaining supreme bliss—is no goal for me. Who am I? My previous births? Where do I go after death? From where do people come, where do they go? What is all this? I have been wandering for fourteen years. When I was fifteen, a monk told a story in his talk. Its impact carried me away. Then from one monk to another—whomever I heard of, I went to. I kept vows, I kept meditating. I tried to know myself. Then another question began to arise: Who is going to know whom? Who wants to see whom? Who will search for whom? Nothing makes sense. The breath goes on. The heart beats. And nothing else! Then a notion formed that no one knows the mystery of this life! All useless. All lies. All talk; nothing.