will not help you. To be a Jain is to accept Mahavira as a role model. But there has never been anyone like Mahavira, and there never can be. By following Mahavira you will become a false entity. You will lose reality, you will lose all sincerity, you will no longer be true to yourself. You will become artificial, unnatural, and to be artificial, unnatural is the path of mediocrity, a fool, a fool.
Buddha defines wisdom as living in the light of one's own consciousness, and stupidity as following others, imitating others, becoming the shadow of someone else.
A true master creates masters, not followers. A true master throws you back to yourself. His whole effort is to make you independent of him, because you have been dependent for centuries and it has taken you nowhere. You still continue to stumble in the dark night of the soul.
Only your inner light can become the dawn. The false master convinces you to follow him, to imitate him, to be copied from him. A true master will not allow you to be a reprint, he wants you to be the original. He loves you! How can he force you to imitate? He feels compassion for you, he wants you to be extremely free - free from all external dependencies.
But the ordinary human being does not want to be free. It wants to be dependent. It wants someone to lead it. Why? - because then a person can shift all responsibility onto the shoulders of someone else. And the more responsibility you place on other people’s shoulders, the less likely it is that you will ever become free. It is responsibility, the challenge of responsibility, that generates wisdom.
A person must accept life - with all its problems. A person must go through life unprotected; he must find his way through research. Life is an opportunity, a challenge to find yourself. But the fool does not want to take the difficult path; the fool chooses to cut the corner. He says to himself, “Buddha has achieved—why should I care about this? I'll just watch how he behaves and imitate him. Jesus has reached, why should I seek and search? I may become just a shadow of Jesus. I can just follow him wherever he leads.”
But by following someone else, how are you going to become intelligent? You won't give your mind even the slightest chance to blossom. For intelligence to emerge, it takes a life of challenge, a life of adventure, a life that can take risks and move into the unknown. And only the mind can save you—no one else. Your own mind, keep in mind, your own awareness can become your nirvana.
Be a light to yourself and you will be wise; allow others to be your leaders, your guides, and you will remain stupid and constantly miss all the treasures of life - which could be yours.
🍀 Osho
September 3, 2026 95
