According to Osho, you’re hard on yourself because of the law of compensation: repressed hardness you dare not show others turns inward as self-attack. Culture teaches niceness outside and rejection inside, creating murderers or suicides. Go beyond both by becoming conscious. The first ripple of awareness is self-love; from accepting your own being, genuine love for others naturally and effortlessly flows.
You’re kind to others but harsh on yourself because you’re hiding anger; become aware and love yourself first, and real kindness to others will follow.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Why am I so nice to others and so hard with myself?
LET ME TELL YOU ONE STORY: "Preacher," complained an aggravated young waggoner, "I am at my wits' end about my horses. They don't eat anything but hamburgers and french fries. Already they're so skinny I'm afraid they won't last much longer." "Let me ask you something," said the preacher. "Do you pray every day?" "Why, er-uh-not usually," the driver stammered. "Do you always wash your hands before every meal?" "Not always." "And do you ask God's blessings before you eat?" "No!" the driver answered tersely. "Then all is perfectly clear," said the preacher. "It is irrevocably intertwined with the divine law of compensation. Since you eat like a horse, your horses eat like humans." You ask, Deva Sharan: WHY AM I SO NICE TO OTHERS AND SO HARD WITH MYSELF? It is the law of compensation. If you are so nice with others, you will be hard with yourself. You…
Osho, why can't I say yes to myself? I have the feeling that all my misery is rooted in this incapacity.
You have been told to love others, but you have neVer been told to love yourself. And you can love others only if you have loved yourself in the first place: if you don't love yourself you cannot love anybody else in the world. Loving yourself, you learn the art of love. And if you can love yourself with all your imperfections you will be able to love other human beings with all their imperfections. If you cannot love yourself with your imperfections, how are you going to love others with their imperfections? You will hate them! Parents hate their children, children hate their parents, wives hate their husbands, husbands hate their wives, for the simple reason that they can see the imperfections. Everybody is in search of a perfect person and you will not find a perfect person anywhere, except some fools who go on claiming that they are…
For centuries the society has been using that strategy to destroy the integrity of the individual. It gives you ideals, it tells you how you should be. It never allows you to love yourself as you are. It creates division: you are one thing, the society says you have to be something else; you become two. Your ideal self creates a constant tension in you. Your real self also becomes a burden because you don't want it; the society says that it is worthless: Drop it. The real is denied and the unreal is imposed. Now this is the whole misery of man: how can one ever be in bliss if the real is denied, rejected, condemned, and the unreal is appreciated, valued? The unreal remains unreal but it hovers above your head continuously torturing you: You should be this.
Question: LOVE YOURSELF AND WATCH -- TODAY, TOMORROW, ALWAYS. FIRST ESTABLISH YOURSELF IN THE WAY, THEN TEACH, AND SO DEFEAT SORROW. TO STRAIGHTEN THE CROOKED YOU MUST FIRST DO A HARDER THING -- STRAIGHTEN YOURSELF. YOU ARE YOUR ONLY MASTER. WHO ELSE? SUBDUE YOURSELF, AND DISCOVER YOUR MASTER. WILLFULLY YOU HAVE FED YOUR OWN MISCHIEF. SOON IT WILL CRUSH YOU AS THE DIAMOND CRUSHES STONE. BY YOUR OWN FOLLY YOU WILL BE BROUGHT AS LOW AS YOUR WORST ENEMY WISHES. SO THE CREEPER CHOKES THE TREE. HOW HARD IT IS TO SERVE YOURSELF, HOW EASY TO LOSE YOURSELF IN MISCHIEF AND FOLLY. THE KATTHAKA REED DIES WHEN IT BEARS FRUIT. SO THE FOOL, SCORNING THE TEACHINGS OF THE AWAKENED, SPURNING THOSE WHO FOLLOW THE LAW, PERISHES WHEN HIS FOLLY FLOWERS. These are poisonous ideas, but you have been poisoned.
Why am I afraid of other people?
If you are afraid of yourself. only then are you afraid of other people. If you love yourself, you love others. If you hate yourself, you hate others. Because in relationship with others, it is only you mirrored. The other is nothing but a mirror. So whatsoever happens in relationship, always know it must have happened before, within you -- because the relationship can only magnify. It cannot create; it can only show and manifest. If you love yourself, you love others. If you are afraid of yourself, you are afraid of others. Because, in coming in contact with others you will start manifesting your being. You have been conditioned -- in the East, in the West, everywhere. Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan, Jain -- you all have been conditioned to hate yourself. It has been taught to you continuously that to love oneself is bad. 'Love others. Hate yourself.' This is…