Start trusting yourself -- that is the fundamental lesson, the first lesson. Start loving yourself. If you don't love yourself, who else is going to love you? But remember, if you only love yourself, your love will be very poor.

-Rajneesh

There is an intrinsic quality in human consciousness to trust and to be trusted. Everybody enjoys being trusted, it is respect from the other person; and when you trust a stranger it is more so. There is no reason to trust him, and still you trust him. You raise the man to such a high pedestal, you value the man so much, it is almost impossible for him to fall from that height. And if he falls he will never be able to forgive himself, he will have to carry the weight of guilt his whole life.

A man who trusts himself comes to know the beauty of it -- comes to know that the more you trust yourself, the more you bloom; the more you are in a state of letgo and relaxation, the more you are settled and serene, the more you are calm, cool and quiet.

And it is so beautiful that you start trusting more and more people, because the more you trust, the more your calmness deepens, your coolness goes deeper and deeper to the very core of your being. And the more you trust, the more you soar high. A man who can trust will sooner or later know the logic of trust. And then one day he is bound to try to trust the unknown.

-Rajneesh

Society condemns self-love. It says it is selfishness, it says it is narcissistic. Yes, self-love can become narcissistic but it is not necessarily so. It can become narcissistic if it never moves beyond itself, it can become a kind of selfishness if it becomes confined to yourself. Otherwise, self-love is the beginning of all other loves.

A person who loves himself sooner or later starts overflowing with love. A person who trusts himself cannot distrust anybody, even those who are going to deceive him, even those who have already deceived him. Yes, he cannot even distrust them, because now he knows trust is far more valuable than anything else.

You can cheat a person -- but in what can you cheat him? You can take some money or something else from him. But the man who knows the beauty of trust will not be distracted by these small things. He will still love you, he will still trust you. And then a miracle happens: if a man really trusts you, it is impossible to cheat him, almost impossible.

-Rajneesh

This society is a power-oriented society. This society is still utterly primitive, utterly barbarian. A few people -- politicians, priests, professors -- a few people are dominating millions. And this society is run in such a way that no child is allowed to have intelligence. It is a sheer accident that once in a while a Buddha arrives on the earth -- a sheer accident.

Somehow, once in a while, a person escapes from the clutches of the society. Once in a while a person remains unpoisoned by the society. That must be because of some error, some mistake of the society. Otherwise the society succeeds in destroying your roots, in destroying your trust in yourself. And once that is done, you will never be able to trust anybody.

Once you are incapable of loving yourself, you will never be able to love anybody. That is an absolute truth, there are no exceptions to it. You can love others only if you are able to love yourself.

-Rajneesh