Osho on Self acceptance, Learn to forgive yourself again and again

Question - Osho, I still don't accept myself. Why Not?

Osho - Anand Leena, IT IS BECAUSE YOU ARE CONDITIONED to be perfectionists, and perfection is such an ideal that everybody falls short of it. Then condemnation, self-condemnation arises. These are the tricks that have been played upon you -- beware of these tricks. It is time that man should be mature enough to know that imperfection is the way of life. Everything is imperfect, and it is beautiful that things are imperfect. If everything was perfect and everyone was perfect, life would be so dull and boring that it would be impossible to tolerate it even for a single moment.

I perfectly agree with Bertrand Russell. He used to say that he did not want to go to heaven -- jokingly, humorously, because in fact he never believed that there is any heaven or hell. But he used to say, "Even if there is heaven I would prefer hell because in hell you will find good company."

In heaven you are bound to be bored, utterly bored. Just think -- living with saints for eternity! Mahatma Gandhi sitting on one side and so many saints, Jaina, Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Buddhist, and to only live with them! They don't even know how to play poker, they don't even drink beer! Beer? They will not even be ready to drink Coca-Cola, because there is cocaine in it! And smoking of course is not possible in heaven because cigarettes contain nicotine. In fact, life will be so impossible with these saints. And they will never laugh -- laughter is for imperfect human beings.

Christians say Jesus never laughed. If the Christians are right, then Jesus must have been absolutely wrong. But I know that they are not right. Jesus must have laughed, must have -- his whole life says so. He enjoyed the small things of life; he even enjoyed drinking wine. Now I don't think your saints will allow him into heaven; they will call him a drunkard and throw him out. And he lived with drunkards and gamblers and prostitutes. Your saints will be very angry. The rabbis who crucified Jesus may be allowed into heaven, but not Jesus. He is too human, too alive, too imperfect.

Bertrand Russell is right that in heaven you are not going to find good company. You will see sad faces, long faces, everybody almost dead. And what will these people be doing there? No gossipping -- you cannot even sermonize because to whom will you sermonize? They are all sermonizers! You cannot find disciples in heaven -- they are all Masters! And Jainas say no woman has ever entered heaven. Now you see the utter boredom? Just these ugly, half-starving saints and not even a single woman! It will be like a desert without any oasis.

Have you seen? If a dozen men are sitting in a room, it is full of a certain vibe. And let one beautiful woman enter and the vibration immediately changes. The desert is no longer a desert; an oasis has come in. They all become alive, their kundalinis start rising! Those who had fallen asleep wake up. Buddhas go on saying, "Wake up!" and they won't listen. But just let Sophia Loren enter and immediately all the saints are alive, awake, fully awake!

But Jainas say no woman can enter into heaven. If a woman is religious and spiritual she will be born in her next life as a man and then she can go to heaven, but only from a man's body, never from a woman's body. As if souls were also male and female! As if bodies also went to heaven! What kind of stupidity is this? But the fear.... A woman can create a disturbance and, naturally, if for centuries no woman has entered into heaven and suddenly one woman enters, there will be a great commotion, there will be a great disturbance, chaos and a great fight will break out. And all the saints will be at each others' throats -- a jihad, a religious war for the woman! Everybody will be ready to die!
You have been told to be perfectionists. That's why, Leena, this problem arises. It is not only your problem, it is everybody's problem.

But remember a few things. First: All evil is potential vitality in need of transformation.
Even evil is to be accepted because evil is potential vitality in need of transformation. Anger is potential vitality -- accept it. I am not saying that you should remain angry; it is through acceptance that you can transform anger into compassion. It is the same energy that becomes compassion. I am not saying remain sexual for your whole life, but it is the energy of sex that becomes love and it is the energy of love that becomes prayer. Go on transforming it. But if you reject it from the very beginning, how are you going to transform it? If you condemn it you create a barrier between yourself and your own energy; now no transformation is possible. You become antagonistic, you become split.

You are divided, constantly in conflict with yourself. Your life becomes a sheer wastage.
And I know that you commit many mistakes, but to err is human. It is nothing to be worried about, nothing to make so much fuss about. It is how one learns, it is how one by and by becomes mature. The man who never commits any mistake never grows either. It is by going astray that one learns.

Hence, Leena, learn to forgive yourself again and again and again and again, because life is a constant growth. You will have to forgive yourself thousands of times. And if you cannot forgive yourself, who is going to forgive you? But you have been taught wrong values, wrong ideals and they are heavy on your head. Don't be worried about small things -- enjoy them. Everyone lies, cheats, pretends -- yes, you too, and most certainly I myself. So don't be worried at all.

Even Buddhas have to create false devices. I have to trick you into things which you will not enter into in any other way. I have to create devices. All devices are false; they have to be false because your illnesses are false.

For example, you are suffering from ego; now I say, "Surrender." In the first place the ego is a false entity, there is no ego at all. You are simply dreaming, you are making it up. But what to do? You have made it so big a thing that I tell you, "Please, surrender it to me." Rather than telling you that it doesn't exist -- you won't understand right now -- it is better to tell you, "Give it to me, surrender it." And you feel good that you can at least do something with your ego -- you can surrender. It appeals to your logic.

It is like homeopathy: the illness is false, the medicine is false -- just sugar pills, nothing to be worried about. Whenever you are suffering from false diseases -- and remember, out of one hundred, almost seventy-five percent are false -- rather than torture my doctors in the Medical Center, go to Narendra Bodhisattva. He is the homeopath, although he has not been able to cure his own headache! He has suffered from headaches his whole life. And he will not be able to cure himself -- that is the difficulty -- because he knows that all those pills are just sugar pills, but he helps others. He has helped many people, he has cured many people's headaches, and he feels puzzled, "What is the matter? Why can't I cure my own headache?"

That's the difficulty with false medicines: if you know, they are useless. But others you can cure easily. That's why there are so many "pathies." Except for allopathy, all "pathies" are more or less psychological. But they have a great appeal for the simple reason that if you go to the allopath and your illness is false he will say, "It is all in your mind." That does not feel good: "All in my mind?" You don't like that idea at all. You immediately start looking for some ayurvedic physician. And they are clever people -- they have to be very clever. You start searching for some homeopath, some naturopath, and there are hundreds of "pathies" available. And all "pathies" work, they all help, so as far as help is concerned they are all helpful.

If you go to the ayurvedic physician he will never say that it is in your mind, never. He will talk much about your disease, he will analyze the disease. He may even go to your past lives, he may look at your hand, he may read the lines, he may even ask you to bring your birth chart. Now this man seems to know what he is doing, and that foolish allopath doctor, he was simply saying, "It is in your head." Now he is puffing up your ego. He is telling you your disease is really very dangerous and it needs a long treatment and a very careful treatment and you need a real genius of a physician -- and you have come to the right person now. And he will be able to help you. He will give you all kinds of things which are really of no value, no medicinal value. But if you start believing in him.... If you go to the homeopath he will ask your whole life history -- three hours he will give to you.
Now people who suffer from false diseases also suffer from talking about their diseases; they like very much to talk about their diseases. They magnify their diseases, they make them as big as possible. They have nothing else to brag about, but they have big diseases, great diseases. And the homeopath buttresses your ego.

I used to know a very famous homeopath doctor, a certain Dr Mukerji. He was a famous homeopath in all of India. For three days he would simply talk about your past diseases -- from your very childhood when you were three years of age, as far back as you can remember, and he would write down everything. And you are just suffering from a headache! And he would go back to the age of three because he would say that a history begins there. "No disease is a separate phenomenon, it is a continuity." And it seems logical: "Everything is connected with everything else, nothing is discontinuous. Everything relates to everything else so unless we go to the roots...." He would say, "I don't touch the leaves, I go to the roots."

Once I took my father to him. My father was very interested in homeopathy, so much so that when he started talking about his childhood he started talking about the childhood of his grandfather; he always started from there.

Dr Mukerji looked a little worried. I laughed. I said, "Now you have the right patient! Now you will know -- three days won't do!"

My father always used to start from his grandfather's illnesses, then his father's illnesses, then his illnesses. It took almost ten days!

Dr Mukerji met me one day in the garden. He said, "I am tired! You please take your father to some other doctor -- he is a very dangerous person. I have never come across such a person, but I cannot say anything to him because he is following the homeopathic principle exactly. And if one man's life diseases are connected, then certainly the son's diseases are connected with the father's diseases and the father's with the grandfather's."

I said, "You should be happy that he does not know anything about his other ancestors, that he knows only up to his grandfather! Otherwise it would have taken years for him to come first to his own illness!" And what was his illness? He was suffering for two, three days from a stomach upset. And I knew what the reason was: he always used to suffer whenever he would eat cucumbers. That was the simple reason -- cucumbers, nothing else! No need to go to the father and the grandfather.

And I told Mukerji, "Now you know your homeopathic principle can be dangerous. You are a homeopathic doctor and he is a homeopathic patient -- be patient! Listen silently to him. That's why I have brought him to you -- he will put you right! His problem is very simple, not connected at all with any disease; he has just eaten cucumbers and they always give him stomach ache. It is as simple as that!"

Homeopathy helps you because it accepts your illnesses very seriously and that's what you want really, that's exactly what your desire is: you want attention, and a doctor listening to you silently....

That's the whole secret of psychoanalysis, particularly Freudian psychoanalysis: it helps the patient without doing anything; the psychotherapist just goes on listening. The patient goes on talking for months, for years even, and the doctor has to be very patient and just listen. Whether he listens or not, that is not the point; he has to pretend at least that he is listening very attentively, and that helps.

The Buddhas have devised many false methods. In fact, all methods are bound to be false because your spiritual illnesses are all false, because your spiritual being can never be ill; it is just your belief. And your belief has to be destroyed by something which can appeal to you in the mind in which you are right now.
Leena, don't be worried.

You say: I STILL DON T ACCEPT MYSELF.

Why? What you have done? A few mistakes here and there. Maybe you lied once to somebody, maybe you deceived somebody. So what? This whole life is a drama and we are all actors. And a little bit of cheating is perfectly okay -- it makes life a little juicy, it gives life a little spice! Otherwise everybody telling just the truth.... That happens to a few foolish people who go through Encounter and Gestalt -- this happens. They start telling the truth to anybody! Stupid people are stupid people -- they won't understand anything.

They write to me: "Osho, now I am in trouble. I have been through Encounter and I have learned that one has to be authentic and one has to be true. So I told my wife that many times I feel like going with some woman. Now there is great trouble -- my life has become a nightmare. We are continuously quarreling. Before this Encounter everything was going smoothly. Now the Encounter is finished, Teertha is gone, but with my wife the Encounter continues! And now there seems to be no end to it. What should I do now?"

You need not be so foolish. In an Encounter group be authentic -- even if you have to lie, lie and be authentic! If you don't know how to be authentic, pretend to be authentic, enjoy being authentic. But don't carry this nonsense everywhere and don't create troubles for yourself.

Just think: if even for twenty-four hours everybody on the earth decides to tell the exact truth, there will be no world -- finished! Just think in your mind: twenty-four hours... everybody telling the exact truth and nothing else... nobody will be a friend to you; you will not find two friends in the whole world. Every couple will be divorced. Children will leave their parents, parents will leave their children. All will be finished! No customers will come to any shop. The world will come to a stop immediately -- nirvana for the whole world in a single blow!

This world needs a few lies too. It makes life smooth, it helps. Lies are like lubricants.
Leena, start accepting yourself as you are. And watch, be alert. Of course, ninety percent of it will be transformed -- and the ten percent will become more skillful!

Source - Osho Book "Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen"

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