„That is the highest value in Confucian ethics: the gentleman. And who is a gentleman? – a phony person. Who is a gentleman? – a hypocrite. Who is a gentleman? – one who is masked in manners, etiquette, character; a man who is conventional, traditional. A gentleman is not an individual; he is just a member of a society. He does not exist on his own; he has no life of his own. He exists only as a part of a society, so whatsoever the society allows is his life, and whatsoever the society does not allow he denies himself. He chooses society instead of nature. 

That is what a gentleman does: he chooses man-made law against God-made law. A gentleman is one who has betrayed God, a gentleman is one who has chosen society. Society is neurotic, and society is ill, and society is not normal at all. No normal society has yet existed on the earth. Only rarely have a few individuals been normal. Society is abnormal – a great crowd of mad people. A gentleman is one who follows this crowd. A gentleman has no soul. Of course, society respects him tremendously; society has to respect this man; society calls him a mahatma, a saint, a sage. 

Society respects him because the gentleman has sacrificed his life for society.

A real man is rebellious, a real man does not bother about respectability, a real man lives his life naturally. He does not bother about what society says or does not say. Society is not a consideration for a real man. If you want to be phony, then society has to be considered at each step: what to say, how to say it, when to say it, when not to say it; how to live, how not to live. Society has determined everything. You have just to fit in; you have just to be a cog in the wheel. A real man can never be a cog in the wheel. A real man is not respected. How can the society respect the real man? Hence Jesus was crucified; hence Buddha was stoned; hence Socrates was poisoned.

Society accepts these people only when they are dead. Then there is no problem because a dead Jesus cannot be rebellious; a dead Socrates cannot be rebellious; a dead Buddha becomes an avatar. An alive Buddha is dangerous, but a dead Buddha can be worshipped in a temple. Remember, whenever these great real people die, only then do people worship them. When they are alive, people are very much against them. The same people who crucified Jesus have become Christians – the same people. The people are all the same. 

Jesus was intolerable, but a dead Jesus is perfectly okay – what can he do? A dead Jesus is in your hands: you interpret him; you put theories around him. He cannot have his own say, you speak through him. It always happens.

If you really want to be an authentic person, never bother too much about what society says about you. I am not saying to go specifically against society, no – that is not rebellion, that is reaction. You go according to your nature. If it fits with the society, perfectly good, there is no need to go against it. If it does not fit with society, perfectly good, there is no need to follow society.

There is a difference between the rebellious person and the reactionary. The reactionary is one who will go against society whatever the case may be; he has decided to go against the society even if the society is right. Sometimes society is right because society cannot be absolutely wrong all of the time, even a mad person is sometimes right.

It happened…

A great political leader was addressing the inmates of an asylum, and he had spoken for only five, seven minutes when a madman stood up and said, “Stop this fool! He is mad! He does not know what he is talking about.”

Of course the politician was very angry and he said to the superintendent, “Throw this man out!”

The superintendent said, “For the first time in seven years, he has said something significant, something meaningful. I cannot throw him out. For seven years he has been uttering nonsense, and now, for the first time, he said something which is not nonsense! I cannot throw him out. But don’t be worried. The doctors say that this man can say only one thing in seven years which will be right. So don’t be worried, he will not disturb you again. In seven years, only for a single moment does he become sane; otherwise he remains insane.”

Even mad people sometime say right things. Even this mad society is sometimes right, otherwise it would not exist. To exist, at least something must be right, otherwise life would become impossible. A reactionary is just the same traditional person who has moved to the other extreme. The traditional person follows the society right or wrong. “Right or wrong this is my country. Right or wrong this is my religion. Right or wrong this is my priest. Right or wrong this is my scripture.” That is the traditional man. Then one day somebody turns to the other extreme. He says, “Right or wrong I am not going to follow society.” This is the reactionary. They are both the same person, no difference.

Who is a rebellious person? The rebellious person is one who does not bother about the society at all – he simply lives through his innermost core. He follows his Tao. If society fits with his inner Tao, good, he goes with society; he is not reactionary. If society does not fit with his inner Tao, he goes alone. He is not a traditional, conventional person. His constant criterion is his inner soul.

Gentleman means one who has been persuaded by society to sell his authentic being and to borrow from society a false mask.

“Great is death! The gentleman finds rest in it…” Now what has a gentleman to do with rest and death? A gentleman cannot find rest even in life; a gentleman is very repressed. A gentleman must not allow his whole being free play; he denies a thousand and one things, and those boil within him – how can he find rest? If you cannot find rest in life, how are you going to find it in death? Then don’t befool yourself, this is opium. Your hope that something will happen in death which has never happened in life is a drug.

A gentleman has never loved as he wanted to love, a gentleman has never been angry, he has never hated anybody – not that he has not hated, he has just not shown it. All that a gentleman can do is change his expressions; the inner being is never changed. Anger arises in him, but he does not show it – he represses it. So he goes on and on accumulating a thousand and one things inside him which create chaos, which are boiling inside. He can burst any moment – a gentleman is a dangerous person to live with. Never live with a gentleman, or with a lady. A woman is beautiful, a lady is ugly. A woman is natural, a lady is fabricated.

One bum arrived at the office of a psychiatrist, very beggarly, hungry, dirty, and the psychiatrist said, “I can see that you will not even have enough to pay the fee, but I feel sorry for you. What do you do for your living?”

And the bum said, “I have fabricated three million houses.”

And the psychiatrist shouted, “This is a lie!”

And the bum laughed and said, “Didn’t I say they were all fabricated?”

Fabricated – the gentleman, the lady, are fabricated people, just cultivated, painted, not true, not honest. When they feel anger, they smile; when they hate you, they embrace you. You can never depend on them; you can never decide when they are really smiling and when they are pretending. In fact, after long practice, even they cannot decide whether they were really laughing or pretending to laugh, whether they really loved this woman or they were just pretending.

Many people come to me, and they say, “We cannot decide whether there is really love or not.” One has lived in lies so long, maybe for so many lives, that one has lost track. One cannot even feel what is right and what is wrong, and what is true and what is untrue. It happens every day: somebody comes and says, “I am in love with this woman, but I cannot decide whether I really love her.” What does it show? You have lost all contact with your own being; you have become alienated from yourself. You have become a stranger to yourself. 

This should be a simple thing. It is as if somebody says, “I cannot decide whether this rose is a real rose or just painted. I cannot decide.” What does it mean? “I cannot decide whether these trees are green or somebody has just thrown green paint on them.” But these trees are outside you. Maybe sometimes you can be deceived – maybe the tree is false, is made of plastic – but you cannot decide about your own inner feelings. What does it show? It simply shows that you have forgotten the language of truth. You have lied for so long, so long, that lies have almost become your truth.

A gentleman is an inauthentic person. Never be a gentleman, never be a lady. Those are roles, acting. Be human beings. Be true – it is your life. Be authentic so that you can grow because all growth happens only when you are true and authentic. Maybe this will cost you much – one has to pay; maybe there will be pain – all growth is through pain; maybe you will always be in difficulties, but there is nothing to be worried about – they are worth it.

Socrates died, was poisoned, don’t you ever feel jealous of him? You are alive; wouldn’t you like to exchange your life for Socrates’ death? His death was truer than your life. Jesus was crucified. He was only thirty-three; he had not known much of life but wouldn’t you like to exchange… Wouldn’t you be on that cross instead of living your bogus life? At least he was true – on the cross, but true.

You are untrue. An untrue life is worse than a true death: a true death is better. An untrue happiness is worse than a true unhappiness – let this be remembered always. True tears are better than false smiles because growth comes through being true. Growth never comes through falsity, and the ideal of the gentleman is the ideal of the false man.

“Great is death! The gentleman finds rest in it, the mean man submits to it!” Remember this too: Confucius is always comparative. He always creates this distinction between the gentleman and the mean man, the superior and the inferior, the extraordinary and the ordinary. Tao says that nobody is superior and nobody is inferior. Nobody is great and nobody is mean because we belong to one reality, to one Tao. How can we be mean or superior or inferior? That is impossible – we are made of the same stuff. It is God that pulsates in you; it is God that pulsates in me; it is God that pulsates in the trees and in the rocks. Nobody is superior and nobody is inferior. The very idea is egoistic, but the Confucian philosophy is centered on the ego.

Now Tzu Kung says: “Great is death! The gentleman finds rest in it, the mean man submits to it!” Now he is enjoying that he is a great man, a gentleman, so he is persuaded by Confucius through his ego: “You are a great man, a gentleman, a superior being. You will find rest in death. You are not mean, so don’t be worried – only mean persons don’t find rest in death. And don’t hanker for rest in life,” because that too is meanness according to Confucius. Rest is not possible, rest is escapism.“

Osho, Tao The Pathless Path, Vol 1, 07

„The gentleman has sacrificed his life for society. A real man is rebellious. A real man does not bother about respectability... Society is not a consideration for a real man. If you want to be phony, then society has to be considered at each step.“ ~ Osho (text in description)