***Birth***

--"IN THE BEGINNING THERE IS NOT MUCH DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE COWARD AND THE COURAGEOUS PERSON. THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IS, THE COWARD LISTENS TO HIS FEARS AND FOLLOWS THEM, AND THE COURAGEOUS PERSON PUTS THEM ASIDE AND GOES AHEAD. THE COURAGEOUS PERSON GOES INTO THE UNKNOWN IN SPITE OF ALL THE FEARS".

*******

"The whole art for the new humanity will consist in the secret of listening to the heart consciously, alertly, attentively. And follow it, go wherever it takes you. Yes, sometimes it will take you into dangers--but remember, those dangers are needed to make you ripe. Sometimes it will take you astray--but remember again, those goings astray are part of growth. Many times you will fall--RISE UP AGAIN, because this is how one gathers strength, by falling and rising again. This is how one becomes integrated.

But don't follow rules imposed from the outside. No imposed rule can ever be right--because rules are invented by people who want to rule you! Yes, sometimes there have been great enlightened people in the world, too--a Buddha, a Jesus, a Krishna, a Mohammed. They have not given rules to the world--they have given their love. But sooner or later the disciples gather together and start making codes of conduct. Once the Master is gone, once the light is gone and they are in deep darkness, they start groping for certain rules to follow, because now the light in which they could have seen is no longer there. Now they will have to depend on rules.

What Jesus did was his own heart's whispering, and what Christians go on doing is not their own hearts' whispering. They are imitators--AND THE MOMENT YOU IMITATE YOU INSULT YOUR HUMANITY, YOU INSULT YOUR GOD.

Never be an imitator, be always original. Don't become a carbon copy. But that's what is happening all over the world--carbon copies and carbon copies.

Life is really a dance if you are an original--and you are meant to be an original. Just look how different Krishna is from Buddha. If Krishna had followed Buddha, we would have missed one of the most beautiful men of this earth. Or if Buddha had followed Krishna, he would have been just a poor specimen. Just think of Buddha playing the flute!--he would have disturbed many people's sleep, he was not a flute player. Just think of Buddha dancing; it looks so ridiculous, just absurd.

And the same is the case with Krishna. Sitting underneath a tree with no flute, with no crown of peacock feathers, with no beautiful clothes--just sitting like a beggar under a tree with closed eyes, nobody dancing around him, nothing of the dance, nothing of the song--and Krishna would look so poor, so impoverished. A Buddha is a Buddha, a Krishna is a Krishna, AND YOU ARE YOU. AND YOU ARE NOT IN ANY WAY LESS THAN ANYBODY ELSE. RESPECT YOURSELF, RESPECT YOUR OWN INNER VOICE AND FOLLOW IT."

--OSHO