Osho Quotes on Imitation

• Don't imitate: imitation creates falsity, pseudo-ness, inauthenticity. Just feel your own way and don't bother about what others say. It is nobody else's business. Don't bother about what churches say, organizations say -- listen to your own heart.
   

• Imitation has to be avoided. Understanding should be the only law, never imitation.
   

• The real religion is not imitation of anybody else, it is a search to find out your own authentic self, who you are.
   

• Don't imitate. If you want to know who you are, please avoid imitation, that's a way of avoiding knowing yourself.
   

• Imitation is very easy, and the whole culture and society depends on imitation. Everybody is telling you how to behave, and whatsoever they are teaching you is nothing but imitation. Religious people -- the so-called religious people, the priests, the theologians -- they are also teaching you, "Be like Jesus, be like Buddha, be like Krishna." Nobody ever tells you, "Just be yourself" -- nobody. Everybody is against you, it seems. Nobody allows you to be yourself, nobody gives you any freedom. You can be in this world, but you must imitate somebody.
   

• Never imitate. The mind is an imitator, because imitation is very easy. To be someone is very difficult. To become someone is very easy -- all that you need is to be a hypocrite, which is not much of a problem. Deep down you remain the same, but on the surface you go on painting yourself according to some image.
   

• You have to be just yourself and nobody else. And in fact that's what buddhahood means: to be yourself. That is what christ-consciousness means: just to be yourself. Buddha was not an imitation of somebody else. Don't you think there were many many great men who had preceded him? He must have been told, "Be a Krishna! Be a Parshvanath! Be an Adinatha!" He must have heard beautiful stories, mythologies. He must have read the PURANAS, ancient stories about the great men, Rama, Krishna, Parasuram. He must have heard all that, he must have received the heritage. But he never tried to be somebody. He wanted to be himself, he wanted to know who he is. He never became an imitator; that's why one day he became awakened.
   

• If you try to become a buddha, one thing is certain -- you will not be able to become yourself. One thing only is certain -- that you will not be yourself. And then follows the next thing: you can never be a buddha, because you are you and a buddha is buddha. If you try to become a buddha, you cannot be a buddha; at the most you can be an imitation -- a plastic flower, not a real rose.
   

• People are imitative and imitation is bound to be unintelligent. They want to do exactly the things which others are doing. That destroys their freshness. Do things in your own style; live your life according to your own light. And even if the same situation arises, be alert to find a new response. It is only a question of a little alertness, and once you have started enjoying... and it is really a great joy to respond to old situations always in a new way, because that newness keeps you young, keeps you conscious, keeps you non-mechanical, keeps you alive.
   

• Don't be imitators. The mind is an imitator, because it is easier to play the game of imitation than to become authentically true. Many ideas have been given to you: become like a Buddha, become like Jesus. become like Krishna -- as if you have to become everybody else EXCEPT yourself. As if God is only against you. He's for Krishna, for Christ, for Mahavir, for Buddha -- only against you. Then why does He create you? Then He seems simply foolish. Why does He go on creating you? If He's interested in Buddha, Hc can create Buddhas. Why you?
   

• Imitation is a substitute for understanding, and a very poor substitute. If understanding is there, there is no question of imitating or of following: you will follow understanding. Keep this very clear: if you follow your understanding, you will be following me. By and by you will see that your path and my path are running parallel. By and by you will see that you are following me if you follow your understanding. If you follow me and forget your understanding sooner or later you will see that I am gone and you are left in darkness. The real way to follow me is not to follow me but to follow your understanding -- then even when I am gone you will be following me. It looks paradoxical but Zen is paradoxical.
   

• The characteristic of the first sort of religion is imitation. It insists on imitation: imitate Buddha, imitate Christ, imitate Mahavir, but imitate. Imitate somebody. Don't be yourself, be somebody else. And if you are very stubborn you can force yourself to be somebody else. You will never be somebody else. Deep down you cannot be. You will remain yourself, but you can force so much that you almost start looking like somebody else.
   

• If you live with alertness, you live rightly.
  If you live in imitation, you live wrongly.
  To me there is only one sin:
  And that is not to be yourself.
  And to me there is only one virtue:
  And that is to know yourself.
   

• Each individual's way is going to be different. Never follow anybody. That is the greatest calamity that can happen to a man. Once you start following somebody else, you become a carbon copy. You become an imitation.
   

• Each man is born with a unique individuality, and each man has a destiny of his own. Imitation is crime, it is criminal. If you try to become a Buddha, you may become an imitation Buddha. You may look like Buddha, you may walk like Buddha, you may talk like Buddha, but you will miss. You will miss all that life was ready to deliver to you. Because Buddha happens only once. It is not in the nature of things to repeat. God is so creative that He never repeats anything. You cannot find another human being in the present, in the past, or in the future, who is going to resemble you exactly. It has never happened. Man is not a mechanism. He is not like Ford cars on an assembly line; you can produce millions alike, exactly alike. Man is a soul, is individual. Imitation is poisonous. Never imitate anybody, otherwise you will be a victim of the first sort of religion, which is not religion at all.
   

• People are continuously living their lives of imitation, competition, jealousy... Who is bothered about his original face -- and what is one going to do with the original face? But the only people who have known anything worthwhile, who have lived in the authentic sense of living, are the people who have searched for their original face. Certainly you have to get out of this rut of jealousy, competition, imitation, otherwise they won't leave you any time. Somebody is doing something, somebody else is doing something else, and your whole business is to imitate everybody -- they have better clothes, somebody has a better house, somebody has a better garden. People say the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, and it is true; it looks greener.