"I have given you freedom, and I have given you individuality, and I have given you just a little taste of something that is always yours. You just have to claim it."

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. We are constantly being pulled away from the unique nature that is our birthright. In place of that original and unique self, a false self, called the "ego", is constructed, and it eventually gains control of our creativity, our ideas about what it means to be successful, our relationships, and our very experience of who we are. At the same time, he argues, the collection of egos known as "society" shapes our political, educational, and religious institutions, which in turn combine to force the same old patterns onto new generations.

In this series Osho shows how to discard these old patterns in favor of a new and nurturing trinity of watchfulness, awareness, and alertness. The talks that are published in this Authentic Living series were given by Osho in the United States as the beginning of a new phase of his work.