According to Osho, you won’t recognize your original face—because the recognizer is the false, and it vanishes the moment the real appears. Encountering the original face is seeing through the mirror-self; the reflection drops, the authentic remains and knows itself. Practice entering within and returning daily, slowly letting the real move to your life’s circumference until it shines unobstructed.
You can’t spot the real you like a face in a mirror—when the true you arrives, the pretend you disappears.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, Zen Master Hogen of Seiryo Monastery was just about to give his discourse before the evening meal when he noticed that the bamboo screen hung for meditation had not yet been put away. He pointed to it, and immediately two monks rose from the assembly and began to put it away. Observing that very moment, the Master said: “The first monk’s state is good, but the second’s is not.” Osho, please explain the purport of this Zen enlightenment story.
A Marwari, dying, told his lawyer: “To every servant who has served me for five years, I bequeath fifty thousand rupees.” The lawyer couldn’t believe it—he knew the man; he never gave five paise. Fifty thousand to each—and there were many servants. He asked, “Are you in your senses?” The Marwari said, “More than you. There is no servant in my house I let stay for five years! I’ll give nothing—but the news of my charity will spread.” Even at death, the relish is in reputation. The mask doesn’t drop, not even in the last moment. What people say after you die is important; what you are is not. You have no taste for being—only for others’ opinions. That is the mark of the householder. The sannyasin’s mark is: what I am is my relish. What people say—what is the use? That is their business. What I am—that is mine,…
Maneesha has asked, beloved Osho, will we recognize our original face, when we encounter it?
Maneesha, encountering the original face simply means realizing what is real and what is reflection. You become a reflection when you see the real. It is just like standing before a mirror. It seems you are standing in the mirror. When you realize the fact that you are standing outside the mirror -- in the mirror is only the reflection and the reflection is not a truth -- then you encounter your original self. Suddenly you realize that up to now you have lived a false face, this is your original face. Up to now you have been living as a reflection, a shadow, an unreality. You disappear, only the original face remains. Your question is logical, relevant, because how will you recognize that this is your original face? You will not be there. You will disappear as the original face appears; you will not have to recognize it; you…
I don't understand the concept of original realization, or the original face zen people talk about. Please explain.
ZEN HAS ITS OWN WAYS OF TALKING about the ultimate reality, or God. The original face is what God is. The original face means the face of you when you had no definition, when you had no body, no contours, no localization. The original face means your formless reality, when you were not even born, when not even your father or your father's father was born. Original face means the source energy, the absolute source energy, the original energy beyond which we cannot go -- beyond which there is no way to go. Original face means: drop all the masks, drop all the names and the forms, and just go on looking into yourself and try to find out that one thing that you have not created, that the society has not created, that is not a belief system, that has nothing to do with your mind. Go on looking,…
Beloved Osho, I love the words you use, "one's original face," but I have no existential glimpse or understanding of what you mean by them. Would you care to explain further?
The original face is a beautiful poetic expression, but it does not mean that you will have a different face. This same face will lose all its tensions, this same face will be relaxed, this same face will be nonjudgmental, this same face will not think of others as inferior. This same face under these new values will be your original face. There is an ancient proverb: Many a hero is a man who did not have the courage to be a coward. If you are a coward what is wrong in it? You are a coward -- it is perfectly good. Cowards are also needed, otherwise from where will you get heroes? They are an absolute necessity to give the background to create heroes. Just be yourself, whatever it is. The problem is that never before has anybody told you just to be yourself. Everybody is poking his nose…
I do not feel I am a man yet I see a man's face in the mirror.
A great insight has happened to you, a great realisation. Let it sink deep, let it become a constant awareness. No face is yours. All faces are false. Once you had the face of a lion, once you had the face of a donkey, once you had the face of a tree and once the face of a rock. Now you have the face of a man -- or a woman, ugly, beautiful, white, black. But you don't have any face. Your reality is faceless. And that facelessness is what Zen people call the original face. It is not a face at all. When you were not born, what face had you then? When you die, what face will you carry with yourself? This face that you see in the mirror will be dropped here; it will disappear into the earth -- dust unto dust. You will go faceless just…