“Many things have to be considered. One, to be authentic means to be totally factual.

“Ideologies, theories, isms, they distort you and they give you a false persona. You cultivate faces, then whatsoever you show you are not. The reality is missed and you are suddenly acting and acting. Your life becomes less alive and more a game in which you are enacting something – not your real soul, but the culture, the education, the society, the civilization.

Man can be cultivated – and the more you are cultivated, the less real you are.

“The reality is your uncultivated self, untouched by society. But that is dangerous. A child, if left to himself, will be just an animal. He will be authentic, but he will be an animal; he will not become a man. So that is not possible, that alternative is closed. We cannot leave a child to himself. We have to do something, and whatsoever we do will disturb the real self. It will give clothing, it will give faces and masks to the child. He will become a man, but then he will become an actor; he will not be real. If you leave him to himself he will be like an animal – authentic, real, but not a man. So it is a necessary evil that we have to teach him, we have to cultivate and condition him. Then he becomes a man, but unreal.

The third possibility opens with these techniques of meditation. All techniques of meditation are really “unconditionings”.

“Whatsoever society has given to you can be taken away again, and then you will not be an animal. Then you will be something more than man. You will be a superman – real, but not an animal.

“How does it happen? A child has to be given culture, education. There is no possibility of leaving him to himself. If you leave him to himself, he will never become a man; he will remain an animal. He will be real, but he will miss the world, the dimension of consciousness which opens with man. So we have to make him a man, and he becomes unreal.

“Why does he become unreal? Because this man is just imposed from without. Inside he remains the animal. From outside we impose humanity on him. He is divided; he is split in two. Now the animal goes on living within, and the man without. That is why whatsoever you do and say is a double bind. You have to maintain a face which has been given to you, and you continuously have to satisfy your animal also.

That creates problems, and everyone becomes dishonest. The more you are idealistic, the more you will have to be dishonest, because the ideal will say, ‘Do this,’ and the animal will be quite the contrary. He would like to do something else that is quite the opposite.

“Then what can one do? One can deceive others and oneself; one can maintain a face, a false face, and go on living the life of the animal. That is what is happening. You live a life of sex, but you never talk about it. You talk about brahmacharya – celibacy. Your sex life is just pushed into the dark – not only from society, not only from your family, but even from your own conscious mind. You push it into the dark as if it is not a part of your being. You go on doing things which you are against because your biology cannot change just by education.

“Remember, your inheritance – your biological cells, your structure – cannot be changed just by ideological education. No school, no ideology can change your inner animal.

Only a scientific technique can change the inner being. Just moral teachings will not help unless you have a scientific technique to change your total inner consciousness. Only then will you not be double: you will become single.

“The animal is single, unitary; the saint too is single and unitary. Man is double because man is just between the two, the animal and the saint – or, you can say between God and dog. Man is just in between. Inside he remains the dog; outside he pretends to be God. That creates a tension, anguish, and everything becomes false. You could fall down and become an animal; then you would be more authentic than man. But then you would miss much – you would miss the possibility to become God.

“The animal cannot become God because the animal has no problems to transcend. Remember, the animal cannot become God because there is nothing to be transformed. The animal is at ease with himself; there is no problem, no struggle, no need for transcendence. The animal is not even conscious, he is simply unconsciously authentic. But the animal IS authentic, although the authenticity is unconscious. No animal can lie; that is impossible. But it is not because animals maintain a morality, they cannot lie because they are not aware of the possibility that one can be false.

“They are bound to be true, but that truth is not their choice, it is their slavery. An animal is bound to be true, not because he has chosen to be true, but because he cannot choose the other alternative. There is no alternative for him; he can only be himself. There is no possibility to be false because he is unconscious of possibilities.

Man is conscious of possibilities. Only man can be untrue. That is growth! That is evolution!

“Man can be untrue and that is why he can be true. Man can choose. Animals are bound to be true; that is their slavery, not their freedom. If you are true, that is an achievement because you could always be untrue. The possibility is open, but you have not chosen it, you have chosen the other. It is a conscious choice.

“Of course, then man is always in difficulties. Choosing is always difficult, and the mind wants to choose something which is easy to do. The mind wants to have the thing with the least resistance. To lie is easy; to be false is easy. To appear loving is easy; to be loving is very difficult. To create a facade is easy; to create a being is difficult. So man chooses the simple, the easy, which can be done without any effort and without any sacrifice.

“With man freedom comes into existence. Animals are just slaves. With man, freedom comes into existence, choice comes into existence – then difficulties and anxieties. With man, the untrue, the false, enters. You can deceive. Up to this point it is a necessary evil.

“Man cannot be simple and pure in the same way as animals, but he can be more simple and pure, and he can be more impure and more complex. He can be more simple and more pure and more innocent, but he cannot be simple and pure and innocent just like animals. That innocence is unconscious, and man has become conscious. Now he can do two things: he may go on with his falsities, with his falseness, and constantly remain a divided being in conflict with himself. Or he may become conscious of the whole phenomenon of what has happened and what is happening to him, and he may decide not to be false. He may leave all that is false. He may sacrifice, he may choose to sacrifice whatsoever can be gained by being false. Then he becomes again authentic.

“But this authenticity is different, qualitatively different from the authenticity of an animal. The animal is unconscious. He cannot do anything – he is forced by nature to be authentic. When a man decides to be authentic, no one is forcing him; on the contrary, everything is forcing him to be inauthentic – the society, the culture, all that exists around him is forcing him to be inauthentic.

He decides to be authentic. This decision makes you a self, and this decision gives you a freedom which no animal can attain and no false man can attain.

“Remember, whenever you lie, deceive, are dishonest, you are forced to do that. That is not your choice, not a real choice. Why do you lie? Because of the consequences, because of the society: you will suffer if you say the truth. You lie and you escape suffering.

Really, the society has forced you to lie; it was not your choice. If you say the truth, it is your choice, no one is forcing you to say the truth. Everything is forcing you to say a lie, to be dishonest. That is more convenient, safe, secure. Now you are entering danger, insecurity, but this is your choice. With this choice, for the first time you attain a self.

To continue reading and see all available formats of this talk:
Osho, The Book of Secrets. Talk #18 – Remaining With the Facts