Responsibility

If I am to be my brother's keeper, how far does my responsibility go?

No, you are not. Nobody is. Nobody is meant to be anybody's keeper. You are here to be yourself. Your only responsibility is towards yourself. I would like you to be totally selfish because only in that is there a possibility that you may be helpful to others. Unless you are deeply self-centred, unless you are so selfish in your being that you are happy, celebrating, you will not be able to share it. Humanity has been put on the wrong track by altruists, by people who say: Serve others, you are responsible for others. Nobody is responsible for anybody. The only responsibility is towards yourself. And if you are fulfilled in that responsibility you respond beautifully. A really fulfilled husband will love his wife, because out of his fulfilment love flows. But if he thinks he has to fulfil responsibilities, he has a duty to care because he has…

Beloved Osho, it is my experience that outside our international communes mankind has based life on a system of penalty and reward. Are our communes the only places where there is complete acceptance of responsibility, and mistakes are recognized as opportunities to learn? Please comment.

In my commune there is no punishment because I accept your mistakes as human, natural. To punish you for something natural and human is to destroy you, your humanity and your natural spontaneity. Nobody is rewarded, because punishment and reward are together. The reward says, "You have done right. Now go on doing right until you get the Nobel Prize." It is a bribe. It is an effort to mold your life according to the vested interests. The society needs slaves, it does not need independent rebels. And my commune consists only of independent individuals, rebels. They have gathered together -- not that they believe in a certain catechism, not that they believe in a certain dogma. I don't give you any dogma, any doctrine. You have gathered here because you have found a certain synchronicity with other sannyasins. You are all rebels. Your rebellion joins you together. Your rebellious…

You said the other day that duty was a four-letter word, but I have also heard you say many times that you want your sannyasins to be tremendously responsible. Please tell me, are not a sense of duty and a sense of responsibility the same thing? I hope, beloved Osho, that I am not confusing you!

You cannot... because I am utterly confused. You cannot confuse me any more. I am absolutely confused. Duty and responsibility are synonyms in the dictionary. but not in life. In life they are not only different, they are diametrically opposite. Duty is other-oriented, responsibility is self-oriented. When you say 'I have to do it', it is a duty. 'Because my mother is ill, I have to go and sit by her side.' Or, 'I have to take flowers to the hospital. I have to do it, she is my mother.' Duty is other-oriented: you don't have any responsibility. You are fulfilling a social formality -- because she is your mother; you don't love her. That's why I say that duty is a four-letter, dirty, word. If you love your mother, you will not say 'This is a duty.' If you love your mother, you will go to the hospital, you…

Beloved Osho, in being responsible, one has to choose. How does it fit together with choicelessness?

He came back. He was looking very miserable, even after the shower. And I said, "I was just joking! Can't you see me? Can't you understand? Have you forgotten all those Hindus outside?" -- because in India you can recognize very well who is who. Mohammedans have different caps, different kind of clothes; Hindus have different caps, different kind of clothes. It is not difficult. I said, "You are just unnecessarily bothering." He fell again. He kissed my feet this time really hard. He said, "I was suspecting while I was taking the shower... this man does not look like a Mohammedan. And I am relieved of a great difficulty; otherwise I would have repented my whole life." I said, "You will have to repent. Can't you see my beard?" He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Exactly what you understand. I am a Mohammedan." The man rushed back…