Acceptance — The Revolutionary Challenge of Transformation

Osho,
Can you tell me about acceptance and how to learn to accept, because I feel a part in me that is so stupid?

“The first thing is to understand what acceptance means. You say: Can you tell me about acceptance and how to learn to accept, because I feel a part in me that doesn’t want to accept. Accept that part also, otherwise you have not understood. A part in you goes on rejecting — accept that rejecting part also, otherwise you have not understood. Don’t try to reject that part, accept it, that is what total acceptance is.

“You have to accept that also which rejects.

“You say you would like to know who that part of you is, that is so stupid. The moment you call it stupid you have rejected it. Why do you call it stupid? Who are you to call it stupid? It is your part. Why are you dividing yourself into two? You are a whole. All these tricks that you have learned about division have to be dropped. You have learned to divide yourself into the godly part and the devilish part, the good and the bad, the high and the low. Drop all divisions — that is what acceptance means….

“In fact whatsoever you have got, everything is needed — maybe in a different arrangement, that’s all. But nothing is to be denied, rejected; don’t call anything stupid in yourself.”

Osho, Living Tao, Talk #4 — Nothing Fails Like Success

Why do we find it difficult to accept ourselves?

“It is difficult for everybody, because we have been taught not to accept ourselves; it has become an ingrained habit. No child is loved for his own being. Hence the child starts learning one thing, that ‘I am not acceptable as I am; I have to earn acceptance. I have to do this and I have to do that, then I will be loved, but I cannot be loved simply, just by being myself.’

“And that is being done all over the world, in every country, in every culture, more or less. Every child is poisoned by this. It is good that you are aware of the fact, because it can be dropped through awareness. It is just a hangover, a hangover from your parents, teachers, priests. They are all teaching one thing continuously, from every nook and corner they are conditioning everybody that ‘You are…