Awakening to Your Own Awareness

So much of the experience of everyday life, says Osho in this insightful guide, is shaped by religious and social conditioning — and we are not even aware of the fact. We are constantly being pulled away from the unique nature that is our birthright. In place of that original and unique self, a false self called the “ego” is constructed that eventually gains control of our creativity, our ideas about what it means to be successful, our relationships, and our very experience of who we are.

Over-commercialised ‘Valentine’s Day’

Now, after the over-commercialized “Valentine’s Day” is over, it is time to come back to the real love, the love we can give to ourselves, we can find in ourselves. While the whole world is looking for love – always outside, always with a focus on “the other”, Osho speaks about self-love, self-respect as a starting point. This series of talks from his time in the USA gives a taste of this rebellious and provocative spirit. The chapter “The Magic of Self-Respect” gave the title to this audiobook.

LOVE YOURSELF AND WATCH

We begin with one of the most profound sutras of Gautama the Buddha: 
Love yourself and watch — today, tomorrow, always.

“Love Yourself”…

Love is the nourishment for the soul. Just as food is to the body, so love is to the soul. Without food the body is weak, without love the soul is weak. And no state, no church and no vested interest has ever wanted people to have strong souls, because a person with spiritual energy is bound to be rebellious.
Love makes you rebellious, revolutionary. Love gives you wings to soar high. Love gives you insight into things, so that nobody can deceive you, exploit you, oppress you. And the priests and the politicians survive only on your blood – they survive only on exploitation. They are parasites, all the priests and all the politicians.

What has not been taught to you: Love Yourself

To make you spiritually weak they have found a sure method, one hundred percent guaranteed, and that is to teach you not to love yourself – because if a man cannot love himself he cannot love anybody else either. The teaching is very tricky. They say: Love others – because they know if you cannot love yourself you cannot love at all. But they go on saying: Love others, love humanity, love God, love nature, love your wife, your husband, your children and your parents, but don’t love yourself, because to love oneself is selfish according to them.

Awakening to your Own Awareness Nederlands

Het boek ‘The Magic of self-respect’ heeft een DVD bijgesloten. Awakening to your own Awareness. Er was een dag dat we onszelf echt kenden. Voordat we deel werden van een maatschappij, cultuur, een beschaving, was dat het geval. Dat is de reden dat mensen denken dat hun kindertijd de mooiste tijd van hun leven was. Als je terug-kijkt, dat wil zeggen: opnieuw kijkt, zul je de plek vinden waar je jezelf kwijtraakte. Dat moment is een moment van verlichting.

Het boek The Magic of self-respect is verkrijgbaar bij de Boekhandel.

Impressie van The Magic of self-respect

So much of the experience of everyday life, says Osho in this insightful guide, is shaped by religious and social conditioning — and we are not even aware of the fact. We are constantly being pulled away from the unique nature that is our birthright. In place of that original and unique self, a false self called the “ego” is constructed that eventually gains control of our creativity, our ideas about what it means to be successful, our relationships, and our very experience of who we are.
At the same time, he argues, the collection of egos known as “society” shapes our political, educational, and religious institutions, which in turn combine to force the same old patterns onto new generations. In this book, Osho shows how to discard these old patterns in favor of a new and nurturing trinity of watchfulness, awareness, and alertness. The bundled DVD lets readers directly experience the insights of this important modern mystic.

The Magic Of Self Respect

“You don’t find an objective self, you find a subjectivity, and finding it is such a blessing, such an ecstasy that you will not care a bit about paradise. And you will not be bothered any more about surrendering because there is nothing to surrender. You have discarded all that was phony, that was only pretension.
“You have been told you are this, you are that, and you have accepted it. You have started playing the game of being this and being that, and nobody has told you – nobody can tell you – who you are. It is only you who can discover it. In discovering it, the ego evaporates it is not surrendered, because it is a non-existential, a shadowy thing, it has no substance in it.” Osho