Self Acceptance

Osho, does self-acceptance flower out of awareness, or does awareness flower out of self-acceptance?

Here, everything is self-supported, because the truth of the Self is the truth of the Divine. No one is holding anyone else. Otherwise there would be no end to the regress. Turn from chicken to egg and you ask, “Where did the egg come from?”—again the chicken. Ask, “Where did the chicken come from?”—again the egg. There will be no end. But in life we do end it. Who bothers about which came first, chicken or egg? When you are hungry and both are before you, do you philosophize? You eat. I say the same to you. Start with awareness if you like—you will reach the same place, for awareness gives birth to self-acceptance. Or start with self-acceptance—you will reach the same place. Whether you begin with the left foot or the right makes no difference—both feet are yours, and both will carry you. You are supported by both feet,…

Question: BELOVED MASTER, WHY AM I SCARED TO ACCEPT MYSELF THE WAY I AM? Kalyan Mitto, everybody is in the same situation. Everybody is scared to accept himself the way he is. This is how all the past centuries of mankind have cultivated, conditioned every child, every human being. The strategy is simple but very dangerous. The strategy is to condemn you and to give you ideals so that you are always trying to become someone else. The Christian is trying to become a Jesus, the Buddhist is trying to become a Buddha, and it seems so clever a device to distract you from yourself that perhaps the people who have been doing it are themselves unaware. What Jesus said on the cross, his last words to humanity, are immensely significant in many ways -- in this context particularly.

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…

Am I okay?

YOU CANNOT BE -- CERTAINLY NOT. Otherwise the question will not arise. The very question says something is wrong somewhere, otherwise who will bother to ask it? 'Okayness' is such a feeling that when it is there you know it. It is just like a headache: you never ask anybody else, "Have I got a headache?" And if you ask they will laugh. They will say, "Have you gone mad?" If you have, you have, and you know! If you don't have, you don't have, and you know. Okayness is an inner well-being. A great, beautiful feeling arises in your being, and goes on spreading -- ripples upon ripples. Everything seems to be light. Everything seems to be weightless. You don't walk -- you run. You don't run -- you dance. You feel as if gravitation does not exist. You start flying. You move in unknown bliss. You go on…