Self-Criticism

The other day I took a piece of paper and did a little doodling or free writing, and I was pained to find that I was full of self-condemnation and self-pity. I had not a nice word for me in that long note. Is it that I am too idealistic and self-centred and is there a way out of this darkness?

Everybody is brought up in such a way that everybody has become idealistic. Nobody is realistic. The ideal is the common disease of humanity. Everybody is brought up in such a way that everybody goes on thinking that they have to be something, somebody, somewhere in the future. An image is given and you have to be like it. That gives you a tension because you are not it, you are something else, yet you have to be it. So one goes on condemning the real for the unreal -- the unreal is unreal. And the ideal goes on pulling you towards the future, out of the present. The ideal becomes a constant nightmare because it goes on condemning. Whatsoever you do is imperfect because you have an ideal of perfection. Whatsoever you attain is still not fulfilling because you have a mad expectation which can never be satisfied. You…

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.

Can cowardice and hypocrisy also be beautiful? Can I accept even my cowardice, my hypocrisy, my miserliness and a tendency towards privacy that you yourself have called "idiocy"? And if I accept such tendencies, all of which tend to bottle me up, how will I get free?

See the beauty of fear, see the alchemical work of fear. It is simply trying to prepare you for the situation so that you can accept the challenge. But rather than accepting the challenge, rather than understanding fear, you start rejecting it. You say, "Ashoka, you are such a great man, a great sannyasin, and you are trembling? Remember what Osho used to say, that there is no death, that the soul is immortal. An immortal soul, and trembling? Remember what Krishna said: 'Death cannot destroy you, fire cannot burn you, weapons cannot penetrate you.' Remember! And don't tremble: hold yourself in control!" Now you are creating a contradiction. Your natural process is that of fear, and you are bringing in an unnatural process to contradict fear. You are bringing ideals to interfere in the natural process. There will be pain, because there will be conflict. Don't bother whether the…

Why is it that whenever I leave your lecture I quickly become disillusioned with myself because I am unable to live up to the ideals you put forward in your lecture?

What are you talking about? Ideals? That's exactly what I go on destroying. I am not putting any ideals before you. I am not giving you any fantasies about the future. I am not giving you any future at all, because the future is a trick to postpone the present. It is a trick to avoid yourself, a way to escape from yourself. Desire is a deception, and ideals create desires. I am not giving you any 'should' or any 'should not' either positive or negative. I am simply telling you to drop all ideals and BE. But I can understand your question. You make an ideal out of it. You start thinking 'How should I be?' You start thinking 'What should I do to be?' I am trying to take away the ideals and you make an ideal out of it -- how to drop all ideals. You misunderstand…