Rajneesh Quotes

Never follow anybody else's idea - that is very dangerous because you will become imitative. Always follow your own nature, self-nature; only then will you attain to freedom. It is better to die following one's nature than to live following somebody's else's nature, because that will be a pseudo life. To die following one's nature is beautiful, because that death too will be authentic.

The more time we invest imitating others, the less that's available to discover and be ourselves.

Yeah, it's nice to look up to people, but the more you try to be somebody else, the less you are of yourself.

Be stupid, be dumb, be funny, if that's who you are. Don't try to be someone that society wants you to be; that's stupid. So be yourself.

If knowing yourself and being yourself were as easy to do as to talk about, there wouldn't be nearly so many people walking around in borrowed postures, spouting secondhand ideas, trying desperately to fit in rather than to stand out.

Don't imitate. If you want to know who you are, please avoid imitation, that's a way of avoiding knowing yourself.

If you're able to be yourself, then you have no competition. All you have to do is get closer and closer to that essence.

Imitation is very easy, and the whole culture and society depends on imitation. Everybody is telling you how to behave, and whatsoever they are teaching you is nothing but imitation. Religious people - the so-called religious people, the priests, the theologians - they are also teaching you, 'Be like Jesus, be like Buddha, be like Krishna.' Nobody ever tells you, 'Just be yourself' - nobody. Everybody is against you, it seems. Nobody allows you to be yourself, nobody gives you any freedom. You can be in this world, but you must imitate somebody.

When people say 'I want to be like you', I tell them if you want to be like me, then be yourself.

If you keep changing for every person who tells you to, then who's going to be left? Why get the success and be somebody else?

If you try all different styles that are in vogue, I think you con yourself. Me, I just stick by my guns; I don't want to play out of another man's bag.

To be oneself is a rare thing, and a great one.

Never imitate. The mind is an imitator, because imitation is very easy. To be someone is very difficult. To become someone is very easy - all that you need is to be a hypocrite, which is not much of a problem. Deep down you remain the same, but on the surface you go on painting yourself according to some image.

You should not really entertaining anyone else, but trying to be yourself, because there are already more good books than you or I could ever read in our lifetime.

I didn't start to work until I realized what it was I had to offer. I stopped imitating performers I admired and started just being myself.

What we must try to be, of course, is ourselves and wholeheartedly. We must find out what we really are and what we really want.

I wanted to become me, totally me. The more me, the better. I instinctively knew this and I was right.

I can't be anybody but myself.

Now all of a sudden I'm so less interested in pretending to be a lot of other people, and much more interested in being me.

Everyone kept telling me, Just be yourself. Be yourself. I kept thinking, there's got to be more to it than that!

I don't want to be the next anyone. I just want to be me, now. And that means all different things.

Often we're recreating what we think we're supposed to be as human beings. What we've been told we're supposed to be, instead of who we authentically are. The key about the creation of full self-expression is to be authentically who you are, to project that.

If there's one theme in all my work, it's about authenticity and self-expression. It's the idea that some things are, in some real sense, really you - or express what you and others aren't.

I certainly wouldn't want to be a Mini Me of any of the people whose footsteps I've followed in.

I just realized the best way to live your life is to just be you, as cliche as it sounds. I grew up trying to please everyone.