"Your question is beautiful. You say, "I am a sinner."Everybody is! To be born in this world means to be a sinner. But remember my emphasis: it means to forget oneself.

"That’s the whole purpose of the world: to give you an opportunity to forget yourself. Why? So that you can remember. But you will ask – and your question will look logical – "If we already remembered before, why the unnecessary torture that we have to forget ourselves and then remember again? What is the point of this whole exercise? It seems to be an exercise of utter futility!"It is not; there is great significance in it.

"The fish in the ocean is born in the ocean, lives in the ocean, but knows nothing about the ocean – unless you take the fish out of the ocean. Then, suddenly, recognition arises in the fish. Only when you lose something do you remember. Only in that contrast does remembering happen. Then let the fish go back to the ocean. It is the same fish, it is the same ocean, the same situation – yet everything is different. Now the fish knows that the ocean is her life, her very being. Before, she was in the ocean but unaware. Now, she is in the ocean but aware. That’s the great difference, the difference that makes the difference.

"We have lived in godliness, we all come from the original source of existence, but we have to be thrown out into the world so that we can start searching for godliness again, searching for the ocean – thirsty, hungry, starving, longing. The day we find it again there is great rejoicing. And it is not anything new.

"The day Buddha became enlightened he laughed and he said to himself, ’This is very strange! What I have gained is not an achievement at all, it is only a recognition. I had it always, but I was unaware of it.’

"The only difference between a sinner and a sage is that the sinner is full of forgetfulness, and the sage is full of remembering. Between these two is that hocus-pocus being called the saint. He does not know anything, he does not remember anything. He has heard other sages or may have read the scriptures, and he repeats those scriptures like a parrot – not only repeats but practices also. He tries to behave like a sage. But any effort to behave like a sage shows only one thing: that you are not a sage yet.

"The sage lives simply, spontaneously: there is no question of effort at all. He lives life just as you breathe. He is very ordinary; there is nothing special about a sage. But the saint is very special because he is trying to do something. And of course he is making a great effort because it is not his own understanding. So he is continuously torturing himself to behave rightly, violently forcing himself to behave rightly. Naturally, he expects much respect from you. He can go on doing all this masochism, this self-torture, if you give him respect. Just think: if the so-called respect given to the saints disappears, out of one hundred of your saints, ninety-nine point nine percent will immediately disappear. They are living only for the ego.

"It is good that you realize you are a sinner. This is the beginning of something tremendously significant." Osho