“Each person is born with a unique individuality, and each person has a destiny of his or her own. Imitation is crime, it is criminal. If you try to become a Buddha, you may look like Buddha, you may walk like him, you may talk like him, but you will miss. You will miss all that life was ready to deliver to you. Buddha happens only once.”
Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 146)
“There is an intrinsic law: thoughts don’t have their own life. They are parasites; they live on your identifying with them. When you say, ‘I am angry,’ you are pouring life energy into anger, because you are getting identified with anger. But when you say, ‘I am watching anger flashing on the screen of the mind within me,’ you are not anymore giving any life, any energy to anger.”
Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 117)
“The outer is easier, and the outer is objective. For example, one man, Thomas Alva Edison, discovers electricity and the whole of humanity uses it; there is no need for everyone to discover it again and again. Inner growth is a totally different phenomenon. A Gautama Buddha may become enlightened, but that does not mean that everybody else becomes enlightened. Each individual has to find the truth for him or herself.”
Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 96)
“Everyone is born unique. No comparison is possible. You are you, and I am I.”
Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 85)
“You have to be again innocent, ignorant, not knowing anything, so that the questions can start arising again. Again the inquiry becomes alive, and with the inquiry becoming alive you cannot vegetate. Then life becomes an exploration, an adventure.”
Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 79)
“A true religion will have the humbleness to admit that only a few things are known, much more is unknown, and something will always remain unknowable. That ‘something’ is the target of the whole spiritual search. You cannot make it an object of knowledge, but you can experience it, you can drink of it, you can have the taste of it – it is existential.”
Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 73)
“Seventy-five percent of our energy around the earth is being poured into war efforts. Are we servants of death and destruction? This 75 percent of energy could be poured into life, into the service of life-and there will be laughter, and there will be greater health, and there will be more wealth, more food. There will be no poverty. There is no need for poverty to exist at all.”
Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 52)
“Religion can be condensed in a single phrase: total freedom to be oneself.”
Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 34)
“Do things with your whole heart, with as much intensity as you are capable of. Anything done halfheartedly never brings joy to life. It only brings misery, anxiety, torture, and tension, because whenever you do anything halfheartedly you are dividing yourself into two parts, and that is one of the greatest calamities that has happened to human beings – they are all split.”
Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 20)
“The world has known only very few rebels. But now is the time: if humanity proves incapable of producing a large number of rebels, a rebellious spirit, then our days on the earth are numbered. We have to change our consciousness, create more meditative energy in the world, create more lovingness.”
Osho, The Book of Understanding (page 3)
“Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality. One learns so much just from living a lifetime. Share that knowledge with the people you come across, it can only help them in their journeys. Even more important, share your failures so that others will not repeat them.” ~ Jordan Lejuwaan, highexistence.com
“The smallest acts of kindness has the power to change someone’s life. Whether it’s from holding a door for someone, or paying for their coffee, or giving them a genuine smile, or giving random strangers high fives while you’re running, it could dramatically change their entire day in an instant and light up their world. Show other people that you’re human, that we’re not robots. We’re human beings born out of love, with a lot more to give. Even when people are being difficult, that’s when you should be the most kind to them. Kill them with kindness.” ~ Satori, infinitesatori.org
“When you choose to always see the good in people, their bad somehow melts away. When you start to believe that they are good, they too, will believe it as well and will choose to be the good that you see in them.” ~ Satori, infinitesatori.org
“You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid…. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand. Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there “is” such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
“If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. Every now and then I wonder what I want them to say…I’d like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I’d like for somebody to say that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day, that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say, on that day, that I did try, in my life, to visit those who were in prison. I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Drum Major Instinct” (1968)