The need to be special

That is a way to remain the same...that is a trick of the mind. Rather than understanding, the energy starts moving into condemnation...and the change comes through understanding, not through condemnation. So the mind is very cunning: the moment you start seeing some fact, the mind jumps upon it and starts condemning it. Now the whole energy becomes condemnation, so understanding is forgotten, put aside, and your energy is moving into condemnation...and condemnation cannot help.

It can make you depressed, it can make you angry, but depressed and angry, you never change. You remain the same and you move in the same vicious circle again and again.

Understanding is liberating, so when you see a certain fact there is no need to condemn, there is no need to be worried about it. The only need is to look into it deeply and to understand it.

If I say something and it hits you – and that’s my whole purpose: that it should hit you somewhere – then you have to look at why it hits and where it hits and what is the problem; you have to look into it. Looking into it, trying to move around it, looking at it from every angle...If you condemn, you cannot look, you cannot approach it from all the angles. You have already decided that it is bad; without giving it a chance you have already judged.

Listen to the fact, go into it, contemplate on it, sleep over it, and the more you are able to observe it, the more you will become capable of getting out of it. The ability to understand and the ability to get out of it, are just two names for the same phenomenon.

If I understand a certain thing, I am capable of getting out of it, going beyond it. If I don’t understand a certain thing, I cannot get out of it. So the mind goes on doing that to everybody; it is not only with you. Immediately you jump and you say, ‘This is wrong, this should not be in me. I am not worthy, my relationship is wrong and this is wrong and that is wrong,’ and you become guilty. Now the whole energy is moving into guilt, and my work here is to make you as unguilty as possible.

So whatsoever you see, don’t take it in a personal way. It has nothing to do with you particularly; it is just the way the mind functions. If there is jealousy, if there is possessiveness, if there is anger, this is how the mind works...everybody’s mind more or less; the differences are only of degrees.

The mind has another mechanism: either it wants to praise or it wants to condemn. It is never in the middle Through praise you become special and the ego is fulfilled; through condemnation also you become special. Look at the trick: both ways you become special! [She] is special: either she is a saint, a great saint, or she is the greatest sinner, but in every way the ego is fulfilled. Every way you say one thing – that you are special. The mind does not want to hear that it is just ordinary. The jealousy, this anger, these problems of relationship and being. They are ordinary, everyone is in them. They are as ordinary as hair. Maybe somebody has a few more, somebody has a few less, somebody has black and somebody has red, but that doesn’t matter much – they are ordinary, all problems are ordinary. All sins are ordinary and all virtues are ordinary, but the ego wants to feel special. It either says that you are the greatest or you are the worst.

So just look...these are all ordinary problems. What problems are there, tell me? What problems do you feel? Just name them.

I’ve got pain here, in my forehead.

It is paining because you are not trying to understand it – then it pains. You are condemning it; you are saying [to yourself] ‘You should not be depressed. This is not you this is not right for your image, this goes against your image, this becomes a blemish on you, and you are such a beautiful girl! Why are you depressed?’ – rather than understanding why you are depressed.

Depression means that somehow anger is in you in a negative state:

Depression is a negative state of anger.

The very word is meaningful – it says something is being pressed; that is the meaning of depressed. You are pressing something inside, and when anger is pressed too much it becomes sadness. Sadness is a negative way of being angry, the feminine way of being angry.

If you remove the pressure on it, it will become anger. You must have been angry about certain things from your childhood but you have not expressed them, hence the depression. Try to understand it! And the problem is that depression cannot be solved, because it is not the real problem. The real problem is anger – and you go on condemning depression, so you are fighting with shadows.

First look at why you are depressed...look deep into it and you will find anger. Great anger is in you...maybe towards your mother, towards your father, towards the world, towards yourself, that is not the point. You are very angry inside, and from the very childhood you have tried to be smiling, not to be angry. That is not good. You have been taught and you have learned it well. So on the surface you look happy, on the surface you go on smiling, and all those smiles are false. Deep down you are holding great rage. Now, you cannot express it so you are sitting upon it – that is what depression is; then you feel depressed.

Let it flow, let anger come. Once anger comes up your depression will go. Have you not watched and observed it? – that sometimes after real anger one feels so good, alive? Start doing something at home. Mm? do an anger meditation every day...twenty minutes will do. After the third day you will enjoy the exercise so much that it will be difficult for you to wait for it. It will give you such great release and you will see that your depression is disappearing. For the first time you will really smile...because with this depression you cannot smile, you pretend.

One cannot live without smiles so one has to pretend, but a pretended smile hurts very much... It does not make you happy; it simply reminds you of how unhappy you are.

But you have become aware of it – it is good. Whenever something hurts, it helps. Man is so ill that whenever something is helpful, it hurts, it touches some wound somewhere. But it has been good....

Osho, This Is It!