Osho's perspective on Personality
When Osho Spoke About Personality
Passages from the discourses where this theme comes alive.
Osho, is there a person you would like to meet that you have never met? Can you name a personality?
There was a person I wanted to meet. I met him thirty-five years ago: myself. Since then I have not had any desire to meet anybody.
Beloved Osho, is it really worth putting any energy into improving my personality?
Anand Tarika, have you ever heard me? I have been constantly telling you that the personality has to be dropped so that your individuality can be discovered. I have been insisting that the personality is not you; it is a mask people have put over you. It is not your authentic reality, it is not your original face. And you are asking me, "Is it really worth putting any energy into improving my personality?" Put your energy into destroying your personality. Put your energy into discovering your individuality. And make the distinction very clear: individuality is that which you have brought from your very birth. Individuality is your essential being, and personality is what the society has made of you, what they wanted to make of you. No society up to now has been able to give freedom to their children to be themselves. It seems risky. They may prove…
Osho, yesterday you spoke in detail about introvert and extrovert personalities. I want one more thing clarified in this regard: What are the fundamental bases and causes of someone being introvert or extrovert? And are extroversion or introversion unchangeable? Are Krishna, by nature, introvert or extrovert?
The complete man stands beyond prediction; hence he is hard to understand. That is why there are many lovers of Krishna—and yet, in truth, those who accept him are as good as none. To accept Krishna wholly is very arduous. Those who “accept” also choose; they do not accept the whole Krishna. Some accept the child Krishna; they do not touch the youth. “Our Bala-Gopala is good,” they say—because the later Krishna appears dangerous. So they settle for the little Kanhaiya—that suffices for them. Their fear is their own. For the youth—what he does—frightens them. How can Surdas accept the youthful Krishna? He put out his eyes at the sight of women! How can youthful Krishna and Sur meet? Where Surdas, who, seeing the eyes lead to lust, put them out—and where Krishna, who can make the eyes dance and play the flute! Sur will say the later Krishna is…
Osho, do they have any separate entity now, in the liberated state?
They have no separate entity left. The moment moksha happens, no personality remains for a person. But we still have a personality, because we are not liberated; therefore, through certain methods—if we make use of them—answers can become available to us almost as though from a person. They have no personality left.
"Dismantle your personality, for it is merely a social mask; invest your energy in discovering your innate individuality, and you will find true freedom and joy."
"The only person worth meeting is yourself; in that self-encounter, all seeking and dependency dissolve, revealing the source of true fulfillment within."
"Your temperament is not a fixed trait but a momentum of karma and conditioning that can be transformed through the practice of inwardness and silence."
"When the personal personality dissolves, answers do not vanish; they merge into the infinite ocean of consciousness, waiting to be invoked by those who seek."
"Personality exists only as long as there is craving; in the total negation of desire, the true essence of compassion emerges, illuminating the silence of being."
Profound Quotes on Personality
Explore our structured collection of meaning-mapped quotes regarding Personality.
Open Quotes Library →