Osho speaks about George Gurdjieff, one of the most significant masters of this age. He used to say, "You are in prison." If you wish to get out of prison - the first thing you must do is realize that you are in prison...or you are the prison. Osho emphasizes this as something to be always remembered as one of the first principles for any seeker of truth.

Service to the poor is embraced by charities all over the world and here Osho exposes this model as one that makes the givers feel good – if not less guilty - about themselves while giving only a temporary respite to the poor and downtrodden.

Happiness, pleasure, joy, bliss are addressed here by Osho and we learn the different levels of development: "Let us start from the lowest because that will be easier to understand, that’s where man biologically is born. Pleasure is physical"....

Osho speaks in response to a question about the right way to help children to grow without interfering in their natural potentiality.

Every morning when you wake up, you become aware and your dreams disappear. You can do the same thing with the endless dreaming of your mind - the dreams that nourish your ego. This capacity to be aware, to witness, is already yours. It is nourished by celebration. Celebration helps you become more sensitive and more alert to life. Don't invest in misery, invest in celebration.

Responses to a question on how to explore the higher states of consciousness. According to Osho there are not many ways to explore higher levels of consciousness, there is but one: the way of awareness. "Man is almost unconscious. I say “almost” - there are moments, situations where he becomes conscious, but they are momentary."

Osho uses Sufi anecdotes as a jumping board into the various aspects of this talk.

According to Osho striving for perfection is the root cause of all neurosis. We try to be perfect, we want our partner and our children to be perfect our pets and our projects all to be perfect and in so doing we create life-long inner tension. Here Osho explains a natural way of being, a way of being in tune with nature’s imperfection.

When he is asked how to be happy, Osho responds by questioning the very logic of the question. How can wanting to be happy ever lead to happiness? Osho springs back and forth between exploring the neurotic American dream of happiness, and describing what it actually takes to be happy.

Looking around, following the world news, what do you see? Austerity, unemployment, asylum seekers, refugee camps, police brutality.... Everywhere there is misery and suffering. Why? Osho offers his insight and his solution.

We all feel sometimes like a stranger to ourselves, with uncomfortable feelings of having lost direction in life, feeling insecure and missing a kind of authenticity and centeredness in life. In a society where ideals of eternal happiness and beauty are dominating our life around the clock and being sad looks like failure.

Political revolutions have never resulted in the changes they promised. Real change can according to Osho only come from a personal rebellion, a rebellion based on "yes" - yes to existence, yes to nature, yes to yourself. Humanity has been guided by traditions which are all life-negative - the results of endless wars, a planet in danger and a humanity losing direction are obvious results of these traditions.

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.

Only once in the history of human consciousness, says Osho, has a thing like Zen come into being. In Zen: Its History and Teachings, the noted mystic explains that Zen has no rituals, no chanting, no mantras, no scriptures - only short, evocative parables and teachings that make it ideal for the modern man. Using his characteristic humorous, encouraging style, Osho guides through the origins and development of this seminal spiritual tradition that is neither religion nor dogma nor creed.

Every child has been conditioned not to love himself but to love others. That is impossible. Only a very deeply selfish person can be unselfish. Being self-centered is basic. A self-centered person seeks to maximize his happiness. The happier you become, the more you will seek to share that happiness with others. That is the only way to be happy.