Osho: You Are Absolutely Essential

HJ: Osho is one of the most interesting and provocative philosophers of the 21st century.  His thoughts and ideas have simultaneously helped many to reach higher levels of awareness and also managed to upset and provoke quite a few others.  Overall, I find his messages to be nothing short of profound (at least what i’ve read) and filled with a deep love for humanity.  He is definitely a genius and has quite a distinguished career, culminating in a massive network of ashrams and temples across the world.

What does he tell us in this article?  That we are absolutely essential, every one of us.  This is such a powerful concept.  Like all great truths, it resonates deeply and has the power to totally shift your perspective if you let it.  The fact is, that everyone of us, with all of our imperfections and faults, is absolutely necessary, just the way we are now.  I won’t give it all away… read the article to hear the concept explained more beautifully and eloquently than I can.  All I can say is that if you let it, this idea will liberate your mind to a very profound degree.  No need to judge… all is perfect.

– Truth

From “Don’t Look Before You Leap” by Osho

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Osho – Anand means bliss, mahbuba means beloved. God creates the world out of his love. The world flows out of his love – it is an expression of his love, an explosion of his love. He loves every creature… from stones to stars. We are all protected by his love, we are all continuously showered on by his love. Everyone has to consciously become a beloved of god. Once this recognition penetrates the heart, it transforms your whole being. It is as if suddenly a light comes into darkness and darkness is gone.

Just the idea ’God loves me’, just the feel of it – ’He surrounds me like a caress, his lips are on my lips, his heart is in my heart. I am not abandoned by existence; I am loved, cherished by existence. I am not worthless, I am not unworthy…’ and the dignity and the splendour starts growing in one.

And remember a great paradox: the real dignity has no ego in it; the real splendour has no idea of any superiority. In fact, the ego is just a cover-up for our worthlessness. Because we think ourselves worthless, we try to prove in every way that we are not worthless. That effort is our ego trip – ’I am a president of a country, I am not worthless. I have so much education; I am not worthless.’ ’Look, I have got so many lovers; I am not worthless.’ But deep down we are constantly nagged by our worthlessness. Deep down we know we are worthless, dust unto dust.

That has been taught to us down the centuries. Our souls have been corrupted and poisoned. The priests and the politicians have conspired against the whole of humanity. This is their whole conspiracy: to create the feeling of worthlessness in human beings. If they feel worthless they can be dominated by the politician, they can be dominated by the priest. If they feel worthless they will seek some authority figures to depend on. If they feel worthless they cannot not be independent. That is the secret trick in it. If they feel worth, if they feel loved by god, if they are nourished and cherished by existence, they will not look up to any father-figure, to any authority – political, religious, or any other.

So the basic conspiracy has been created in every child – the idea that you are absolutely worthless, that you are not up to the standard, that you are not as intelligent as you should be, that you are not as beautiful as you are supposed to be, that your behaviour is ugly, to improve yourself, to prove yourself. That’s what improvement is: an effort to prove ’I am somebody.’ The ego is nothing but an effort to cover this inner worthlessness that has been created by the society. My effort here is to give back the dignity that really belongs to you.

Everyone is utterly essential. This existence needs you – without you it would not be the same existence. And not only does it need you: it needs everybody in the same way, so there is no question of superiority. It needs even a small blade of grass as much as it needs the sun and the moon. As far as the whole is concerned, everything is absolutely essential – the great oceans and the small dewdrops. It will miss the small dewdrop if it is not there; it will not be so beautiful. There will remain a hole in it which cannot be filled by the great oceans; they can only be filled by small dewdrops.

As far as the whole is concerned, there is absolute equality. In asserting one’s own dignity, one asserts the dignity of the whole of existence of animals, of trees, of people, of mountains, of rivers, of all. So it does not create any superiority complex, because a superiority complex is nothing but an inferiority complex standing on its head, doing sirshasan, a headstand; that’s all it is. And it has nothing to do with ego. Ego simply shows a poor person who has not yet become aware of his inner splendour and the gifts that god has given to him.