From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 24. IMITATION IS YOUR CREMATION
In other words, by disobeying it you are disobeying the personality and obeying the individuality.
I have not said that you have to disobey everything – you will go nuts, unless you are already
nuts. I have emphasized disobedience because all the religions have been emphasizing obedience.
Obedience to whom? Obedience to their God, which is their creation; obedience to the
commandments, which are their creation; obedience to society, convention, tradition – which are
all their vested interests – obedience to the parents, to the teachers, to the priests.
All the religions have been teaching you obedience; hence, just to emphasize it clearly before you, I
had to say disobey, rebel.
That does not mean that I am against obedience. But the obedience I am for is a very different
phenomenon.
It does not come as an imposition on you, it comes as a flowering of your being.
It is your intelligence, your maturity, your centeredness, your aliveness, your response.
You are the source of it; not Moses, not Mohammed, not Jesus, not me, but you, just you.
But do you know who you are? You know you are a Jew, and you are not. You know you are a
Christian, and you are not. You know you are a Hindu, and you are not. These are all impositions.
People have been painting on you as if you are a canvas. They are making your face according
to their idea. They want to become in some way ideals for you, and they want to reduce you to
imitators.
There is a great Christian classic, Imitation of Christ, which is respected by the Christians almost
next to the Bible. But it is an ugly book. The very title of the book shows what it is: Imitation of
Christ. You may imitate Christ for millions of lives; still you will not be a Christ, you will be only an
imitation. And the imitation is not your original face.
The more you succeed in imitating, the more you are failing as far as your being is concerned. The
deeper you go into imitation, the farther away you are going from yourself; and the return journey is
not going to be easy.
It is going to be immensely difficult, because when you were continuously imitating a certain pattern,
you were becoming identified with it. The return journey means you will have to start killing all that
identification. It will look like committing suicide, as if you are cutting off your own limbs. It is not
going to be just like dropping your clothes, not that easy. It is going to be like peeling your skin.
It is so difficult that even a very intelligent man like Bertrand Russell confessed, ”My reason says
that Gautam Buddha is certainly the greatest figure in the whole of human history, but although I
am not part of any Christian congregation, although I have completely disassociated myself from
Christian mythology, religion, theology, somewhere I cannot put Buddha above Christ. With my
reason I understand, but as far as my feelings are concerned Jesus remains higher – and I know he
is not.”
From Ignorance to Innocence 340 Osho