Personality is a farce, personality is pseudo, personality is that which is given to you by the society. Personality is imposed on you from the outside; it is a mask. Individuality is your very being. Individuality is that which you bring into the world, individuality is God's gift.
Personality is ugly because it is pseudo. And the more personality you have, the less is the possibility for individuality to grow. The personality starts occupying the whole of your space. It is like a cancerous growth. It goes on growing, it possesses you totally. It leaves no space for individuality to have even its own corner. The personality has to be dropped, so that the individuality can be.
Individuality is a non-egoistic phenomenon; it is pure am-ness, it has no 'I' in it. Personality is nothing but 'I': it has no am-ness in it. Personality is aggressive, violent, dominating, political. Individuality is silent, loving, compassionate; it is religious.
Individuality gives you mastery; it makes you very authentic, grounded, rooted. It gives you substance; you are no longer dream stuff. It gives you solidity, it gives you clarity, transparency, vision. It makes you aware of the beauty of existence, it makes you aware of the beauty of all.
The real danger in spiritual growth is from things which are diametrically opposite but look very alike. The real problem does not arise from things which are apparently opposite; the real problem arises with things which are not so apparently opposite, and yet they are opposite.
The real opposite of hate is not love, the real opposite of love is not hate — it is so apparent, who can be deceived by it? The real opposite of love is pseudo-love: love that pretends to be love, and is not. One has to be watchful there.
The real opposite of compassion is not anger. The real opposite of compassion is cultivated compassion: compassion that is not within you but is only in your character, compassion that you have painted on your circumference.
The real opposite of your smiles are not tears, but smiles which are painted, smiles which don't go any deeper than the lips, which are nothing but exercises of the lips. No heart collaborates with them, no feeling stands behind them. There is nobody behind the smile, the smile is just a learned trick. Tears are not opposite to smiles, they are only complementaries. But the false smile is the real opposite.
Remember it always, the false is the enemy of the true. If your smile is true and your tears are true, they are friends, they will help each other because they both will strengthen the truth of your being. If your tears are false and your smiles are false, then too, they are friends; they will strengthen your falsity, your personality, your mask.
The conflict is between the real and the unreal or pretended. Emptying oneself is of tremendous value, but effacing yourself is dangerous. Effacing yourself is a subtle way of the ego — the ego coming from the back door.
My message to you is, please don't efface yourself. Be yourself, look within yourself, and in that very seeing, the ego disappears. Even to say "disappears" is not right: the ego is not found, it has never been there. Its existence depended on your not looking within yourself. Seen, it is no longer there — it has never been there.
And then you are individuality, uniqueness, a unique expression of the divine. And then there is great rejoicing. You start blooming, the spring has come. You start dancing, you start singing. Great gratitude arises in you that God has made you a unique individual.
There has never been a person like you before, there is nobody else like you right now in the whole world, and there will never be anybody like you. Just see how much respect God has paid to you. You are a masterpiece — unrepeatable, incomparable, utterly unique. Even the hardest heart, the rocklike heart, will start melting in gratitude. Tears will start flowing, tears of bliss and joy, tears which laugh.
OSHO