Fake News? Or Fake You’s?

Everyone talks about “fake news.”
Isn’t the “real” news that it is we who are all so fake? Why is this?

“People are so fake because it pays, it is a good policy. If you are true, you will be in danger. You can be true only in a true society where truth is respected, loved. This society exists through lies. Here truth is not respected, here truth is crucified, here truth is killed. Lies are enthroned. That's why politics becomes so important in this world – because politics is the game of lies.

“And the politicians become the most important people in the world. They should be the last. They become the first because this world – this whole society – is based on lies. And if you live with liars and you will live with this falsehood all around you, you have to be fake. It pays, it is economical, it is safe. It protects you – otherwise people will be against you. If you are true and they are all living through lies, they cannot tolerate you.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: “An Eternal Recurrence”

How did we learn to be so phony?

“The whole phoniness arises in life because we have been taught to do things which cannot be done. You understand? This is the whole mechanism of phoniness. You were a child and your mother said, ‘Love me, I am your mother.’ How can a child love? If love arises, it arises; if not, not – what can the child do? The child feels helpless. How to love this mother? She is a mother, and a mother has to be loved; it is a role to be fulfilled, a duty to be carried.

“What can the child do? He can pretend, at the most he can pretend – and by and by he learns the trick of pretensions. Then he smiles when he looks at the mother. She is a mother, one has to smile. By and by he completely forgets what to be natural is. The whole society expects you to do this and that – respect this man because he is your teacher, respect that man because he is your boss.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: “Live Dangerously”

What exactly is the mechanism behind this? Isn’t “my personality” at least real? Today, “personalities” are given so much attention, even adulation.

“You go on playing something which is not really there – you do something else, just the opposite. You may be angry, but you smile. You may be hurt, but you smile. You may be boiling within, but you smile. You may want to scream, but you go on singing. You may want to do something else, but it is not feasible, it is not practical, it is not the ‘right’ thing to do.

“The society creates this persona, this mask around you, this personality. There are three ‘you's’ in you. ‘You number one’ – that is the personality. The word personality comes from a Greek root 'persona'. In the Greek drama they used to use masks, and the voice would come from the mask. 'Sona' means voice, sound, and 'per' means through the mask. The real face you don't know – who the real actor is. There is a mask, and through the mask comes the voice. It appears as if it is coming from the mask, and you don't know the real face. The word 'personality' is beautiful, it comes from Greek drama.

“And that's what has happened. In the Greek drama they had only one mask. You have many. Masks upon masks, like layers of an onion. If you put one mask away there is another, if you put that away there is another. And you can go on digging and digging and you will be surprised how many faces you are carrying. How many! For lives you have been collecting them. And they are all useful, because you have to change many times.

“You are talking to your servant, you cannot have the same face that you have when you talk to your boss. And they may be both present in the room: when you look at the servant you have to use one mask and when you look at your boss you have to use another mask. You continuously change. It has almost become automatic – you need not change, it changes itself. You look at the boss and you are smiling. And you look at the servant and the smile disappears and you are hard – as hard as the boss is to you. When he looks at his boss, he smiles.

“In a single moment you may be changing your face many times. One has to be very very alert to know how many faces one has. Innumerable. They cannot be counted.

“This is your first you, the false you. Or call it the ego. It has been given to you by the society, it is a gift from the society – from the politician and the priest and the parent and the pedagogue. They have given you many faces just to make your life smooth. They have taken away your truth, they have given you a substitute. And because of these substitute faces you don't know who you are….

“This social gift has to be dropped….

“So the first 'you' is the lie, the act – the pseudo-personality that surrounds you….

“This ‘you number one’ has to be utterly dropped.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: “This Very Body the Buddha”

I am feeling pretty unreal already! There is more that is false?

“Freud helped much to make humanity aware of the pseudo-ness of personality, of the conscious mind. His revolution is far deeper than the revolution of Marx, his revolution is far deeper than any other revolution. It goes deep, although it does not go far enough.

“It reaches to the second you, ‘you number two.’

“It is the repressed you, instinctive you, unconscious you. It is all that the society has not allowed, it is all that the society has forced inside your being and locked in there. It comes only in your dreams, it comes only in metaphors, it comes only when you are drunk, it comes only when you are no more in control. Otherwise it remains far away from you. And it is more authentic, it is not phony….

“This second 'you' is far more valuable than the first. That is where I am against all the religions, that is where I am against all the priests, because they cling to the first, the most superficial. Go to the second. But the second is not the end – that is where Freud falls short. And that is where humanistic psychology also falls short – it goes a little deeper than Freud but still does not go deep enough to find the third.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: “This Very Body the Buddha”

Can you talk about this “third”?

“There is a third 'you' – ‘you number three.’ The real you, the original face, which is beyond you number one and you number two, both. The transcendental. The buddhahood. It is undivided pure consciousness. The first you is social, the second you is natural, the third you is divine….

“And remember, I am not saying that the first is not at all useful. If the third exists, then the first can be used beautifully. If the third exists, the second can be used beautifully. But only if the third exists. If the center functions well then the periphery too is okay, then the circumference too is okay. But without the center, only the circumference, is a kind of death.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: “This Very Body the Buddha”

How do we find that center?

“Meditation is the death of the mind, meditation is the death of the ego. Meditation is the death of your personality and the birth and the resurrection of your essential being. And to know that essential being is to know all.”

To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: “Awareness Leads You beyond the Mind”