“Accept Yourself As You Are” – Osho

You say, “Accept yourself as you are,” and “Unless you are reborn you cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Please comment on this apparent contradiction.

Divakar, all contradictions are apparent. If you meditate a little bit, you will see that there is no contradiction. I say, “Accept yourself as you are.” And I also say, “Unless you are reborn you cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

Now, you are creating the contradiction by not meditating on it.

The way to be reborn is to accept yourself as you are: this is how one is reborn. You live in a kind of rejection; you don’t accept yourself as you are. It is very rare to find a person who accepts himself – because the moment he accepts himself, he is reborn, he is enlightened.

You don’t accept yourself, you go on rejecting yourself. You are constantly in search of ways…