From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

11 December 1984 pm in Lao Tzu Grove
Question 1
OSHO,
CHAPTER 13
Ecstasy is knowing that nobody is holding your hand
WHAT IS MORE IMPORTANT IN YOUR RELIGION – TO BE THYSELF OR TO KNOW THYSELF?
Do you think they are different? How can you know yourself if you are not yourself? And vice versa
– how can you be yourself if you don’t know who you are? To be thyself and to know thyself are not
two separate things, hence the question of choice does not arise. They are two aspects of a single
process.
You have to work on both together simultaneously; neither can be neglected. But it is easier to start
from being thyself; easier, because you have been distracted from yourself by others. The masks
that you are carrying are not your own imposition. Unwillingly, reluctantly, you have been forced to
be someone other than you are; hence it is easier to throw it off.
Slavery of any kind is easier to get rid of, because intrinsically who wants to be a slave? That is not
in the nature of any being, human or not human. Slavery is against existence; hence it is easier to
throw it off. It always remains a burden, and deep down you continue
to fight with it, even though on the surface you follow it; deep down nobody can make you accept it.
At the innermost core of your being it remains rejected forever; hence it is easier to throw it off.
The process is simple. Whatever you are doing, whatever you are thinking, whatever you are
deciding, remember one thing: is it coming from you or is somebody else speaking? And you
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