Being in Love & Sharing The Treasures

I am teaching you

to be selfish.

Let me repeat it, because the word

"selfishness"

has been condemned so much

that there is every possibility

you will misunderstand me.

But

the word

is really beautiful.

To be selfish simply means

to be yourself.

I say to you:

don't consider anybody else in the world,

just consider yourself;

and in that very consideration

you will have considered the whole world.

In being selfish

you will find

all the altruism

that you have been seeking and seeking

and not finding,

because

the whole thing

was upside down.

You are told

to love your neighbor --

but you have never loved yourself.

And a person

who has not loved himself,

how can he love the neighbor?

From where

can he get

love?

First you have to

have it.

You are loving the neighbor --

you who knows nothing of love

because you have never loved yourself.

The neighbor is loving you --

he has never loved himself.

Such insanity is happening in the world:

people are loving each other who know nothing of love.

It is like beggars

begging from each other,

thinking

as if the other is the emperor.

Both are thinking in the same way:

the other is the emperor.

Both are beggars.

Sooner or later

the reality

manifests itself;

then there is

misery,

suffering.

Then you think you have been cheated,

this beggar has been

trying to prove himself an emperor.

Now this is absolutely absurd --

you were thinking of him

as an emperor.

The same is the situation from the other side:

the other person thinks you

have been cheating him,

pretending to be an emperor

and you are just a beggar.

When both beggars find

that they are beggars,

what else can they do

other than

be angry,

enraged,

violent to each other,

hating

each other as deeply as possible.

And the love ...?

It was nothing;

they don't know what love is.

To know anything,

you have to begin with yourself.

You have been told

to sacrifice yourself

for some

idiotic ideal.

I want you to be

simply selfish.

And you will be surprised

that if you are selfish

you discover so many

treasures within yourself

that soon you start

sharing them --

because finding a treasure is a lesser joy

than sharing it.

And the treasures that are within you

don't follow the ordinary economics

and its laws.

They are just

the very opposite,

diametrically opposite

to the ordinary economic

structure.

In the ordinary economics

if you give something,

you will have less.

If you go on giving,

soon you will be a beggar.

In the ordinary economic world

you have to snatch as much

from everybody as possible

then you have

more

and more and more.

The treasures I am talking about to you,

follow

a different law:

if you cling to them

they shrink,

if you cling too much

you can even kill them.

If you

want to destroy them

then close all the windows and doors,

become a grave

so nothing can escape

outside you --

but you will be a dead man,

with all your treasures also dead with you;

your truth, your freedom,

your love,your joy.

Everything will be dead with you --

securely dead,

well-insured.

But if you want

to grow your treasures,

share them,

share to all and sundry --

don't bother

whether this is a friend or a foe.

When you are sharing,

the question is of sharing,

it is not with whom.

Whomever it may concern,

you simply give.

Don't be concerned about the address,

you simply go on sending love letters.

Somebody will receive them somewhere.

And

the more you go on sharing,

the more

goes on

entering you from unknown sources.

A man is just like a well ....

Source: 'From Darkness to Light # 22' Copyright © Osho International Foundation, Switzerland. OSHO is a registered TM.

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