We have lost touch with who we are and how we want to live. It started at birth. From birth we are molded according to the beliefs and ideals of others, and our own potential is ignored. It needs immense courage to go your own way, leaving the crowd behind. The moment you do it you are taking responsibility for your life in your own hands. Osho reminds us that it is a step worth taking.

Every child has been conditioned not to love himself but to love others. That is impossible. Only a very deeply selfish person can be unselfish. Being self-centered is basic. A self-centered person seeks to maximize his happiness. The happier you become, the more you will seek to share that happiness with others. That is the only way to be happy.

The message of Tantra endorses Osho's understanding that only through total acceptance of ourselves can we grow. Osho speaks on Tantra meditation techniques (let go and surrender), and tantric love and spirituality in sex. Here the Tantra message - don't live a repressed life, otherwise you don't live at all - is made accessible and understandable to modern man, who will learn to live a life of expression, creativity, and joy.

Osho responds to questions and speaks about psychological concepts as presented by Freud, Jung, Adler and Assagioli and others, comparing their theories with the Eastern practice of meditation. While psychologist and physicians approach the body and the mind separately as illness, Osho exams the wider human condition and the underlying issue which he calls a "spiritual illness". He points out that every individual longs for freedom and is surrounded by restrictive systems that deny this fundamental right.

Mut bedeutet nicht, frei zu sein von Angst, sondern vielmehr, sich im vollen Bewußtsein seiner Ängste mit ihnen zu konfrontieren. Mut ist die Bereitschaft, der fundamentalen Unsicherheit des Lebens zu begegnen und sie als das grundlegende Mysterium unserer Existenz zu achten. Osho fordert dazu auf, jeden Augenblick des Lebens in all seiner Schönheit und Freude wie auch in seinem Schrecken und Schmerz bewußt zu erfahren - denn es gibt nichts zu fürchten!

This life is a gift from existence, to be lived and enjoyed. But with the seemingly impossible and conflicting demands of society, morality, and culture, people struggle with feelings of unfulfilled potential, frustration, and guilt rather than living full lives. The world of tantra has no division between higher and lower. The simple, ordinary things of life are transformed into great things when we enter into them totally - be it car fixing, floor cleaning or lovemaking. Osho shows how, by living this vision, new heights of consciousness and freedom are realized.

Osho describes how our goal orientation can never be satisfied. After power and sex, fame and fortune we can move on to enlightenment, finding God, whatever. How can we get out of the trap of desire and enjoy being alive?

Here Osho reminds us that the world is a cosmos not a chaos. Then why do we experience it as chaotic? Because we experience the world through our mind, and the mind is by its very nature chaotic. The way out of this chaotic mess is through meditation. It is through meditation that you can experience life in all its mystery without the filters if the mind. Through cathartic meditation techniques in particular you can dissolve the chaos and create space for more celebration.

Ordinarily when we read a title or headline “The Nature of Fear”, we don’t move into a space of love – but instead think of moments in our life when we experienced fear. Yet in this talk Osho describes love as the most potent remedy to fear as he takes us on a journey through the multidimensional layers of love, the antidote of antidotes.

Being loose and natural will give you a spontaneous awareness, rather than making an effort to reach a certain goal. No effort is going to succeed because the cause of all misery is the doer, the ego, our idea of self. Osho only teaches awareness. Suppression is not the way to buddhahood. Simply relax and be whatsoever you are - and awareness will come by itself.

The longing to be who we really are…. Osho explains how we became alienated from our own essence, what it means to live in that disconnect, and how to rediscover our authenticity. Osho delivers a lot in one small talk!

Every morning when you wake up, you become aware and your dreams disappear. You can do the same thing with the endless dreaming of your mind - the dreams that nourish your ego. This capacity to be aware, to witness, is already yours. It is nourished by celebration. Celebration helps you become more sensitive and more alert to life. Don't invest in misery, invest in celebration.

Humans have an inbuilt drive to search for their inner power and potentiality. This search is the search for life itself. We are here, we have life - but we don't know what life really is. We can feel our energy but don't know where this energy comes from and to what goal this energy is going. We are that energy; we have glimpses of its true source and our connection to it, and those glimpses keep us going even when it seems we will never find what we are seeking - but still we do not know what that energy is.

Here Osho deals with the difference between the intellectual, logical mind and the more encompassing realm of spirit or intuition. Mind knows reality through logic while intuition is how the spirit experiences reality. Osho describes the three different levels of the ladder of consciousness: the lowest and the first is instinct; the second, the middle, is intellect; and the third, the highest and most subtle, intuition.

The Magic of Self-Respect is the second volume in a series titled Authentic Living. So much of the experience of everyday life, says Osho in this insightful guide, is shaped by religious and social conditioning - and we are not even aware of the fact.