Approval

Beloved Osho, I am aware of my need for approval and acceptance from others. I don't want to be driven by this need. How does it resolve?

Drop all this nonsense! You are already approved of, otherwise you could not have been here. God has accepted you, given birth to you. If van Gogh paints, whatsoever painting he creates is already approved of -- otherwise he would not have created it in the first place. If Picasso paints something, in the very painting, the painting is approved of. The painter has put his heart into it. Just go deeper into your own being -- God has put all the treasures that you need there. He has approved of you, accepted you. He is happy that you are! But you don't look there. You are asking from others like a beggar: Approve of me! -- and they are also beggars just like you. Beggars asking beggars. Even if they approve of you a little, they will wait for you to approve of them. It is going to be…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHY IS IT THAT WE WANT APPROVAL? It is simple. from the very beginning a child is told what is right, what is wrong. He is never given freedom to choose on his own. He is taught principles; he is not allowed to enquire and to find out himself. And of course, whenever he does anything on his own, he is disapproved of by the family, by the society, by the school, by everybody. He becomes shaky. Just to do anything on your own is not accepted by the society. You need approval for everything. When I was a small child, as far back as I can remember, I could not understand it. I said, "It is my life, I am going to live it. You have lived your life. Why should you impose things upon me?

Beloved Osho, why is it that I feel I need to have approval and be recognized, in my work especially? It puts me in a trap -- I cannot do without it. I know I am in this trap but I am caught in it and I cannot seem to get out of it. Can you help me be able to find the door?

While I was teaching in the university, the same thing came about from a different angle. Now I was asking the students questions to bring to their attention that all the knowledge that they have gathered is borrowed, and they know nothing. I told them that I don't care about their degrees, I care about their authentic experience -- and they don't have any. They are simply repeating books which are out of date; long ago they have been proved wrong. Now the authorities of the university were threatening me, "If you continue in this way, harassing students, you will be thrown out of the university." I said, "This is strange -- I was a student and I could not ask questions to the professors; now I am a professor and I cannot ask questions to the students! So what function is this university fulfilling? It should be a place…

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.