Comparison is a disease, one of the greatest diseases.

Comparison is a disease, one of the greatest diseases. And we are taught from the very beginning to compare. Your mother starts comparing you with other children, your father starts comparing you with other children. The teacher compares you: ”Look at Johnny, how well he is doing, and you are no good at all! Look at others..." From the very beginning you are being told to compare yourself with others. This is the greatest disease; it is like a cancer that goes on destroying your very soul — because each individual is unique, and comparison is not possible. I am just myself and you are just yourself. There is nobody else in the world you can be compared with.

Do you compare a marigold with a roseflower? You don’t compare. Do you compare a mango with an apple? You don’t compare. You know they are different! Comparison is not possible.

And man is not a species because each man is unique. There has never been any individual like you before and there will never be again. You are utterly unique. This is your privilege, your prerogative, God’s blessing, that He has made you unique. Don’t compare. Comparison will bring trouble.

If you fall victim to this disease of comparison, naturally you will either become very egoistic or you will become very bitter; it depends on whom you compare yourself with. If you compare yourself with those who seem to be bigger than you, higher than you, greater than you, you will become bitter. You will become a complaint against God, an anger: ”Why am I not greater than I am? Why am I not like that person? Why am I not physically so beautiful, so strong? Why am I not intelligent? Why am I not this, not that?” And there are millions of things in the world....

If you compare yourself with the people who are greater in some way than you, you will become bitter, very bitter. Your life will become poisoned by the comparison. You will remain always in a state of depression, as if God has deceived you, betrayed you, as if you have been let down.

Or if you compare yourself with people who are smaller than you, in some way lesser than you, then you will become very egoistic. This is one of the reasons why politicians are always surrounded by people smaller than themselves. They collect them; that is their joy. They collect smaller people around themselves so that they can look bigger than they are by comparison. It is stupid, but one cannot expect anything more from a politician.

Rich people are always surrounded by those who are smaller. They feel good, very good, great in comparison to those people.

But ordinarily people always look at others’ houses, their successes, their achievements, and feel very bitter against God. In the world, religion cannot prosper because people cannot pray to a god who has betrayed them from the very beginning, who has made them so small, so ugly. How can they be thankful towards him? Impossible. And without thankfulness there is no prayer, and without prayer there is no religion.

But a man who understands the uniqueness of everybody can be religious, can only be religious, because he feels immense gratitude for whatsoever God has given to him. If you don’ t compare, then you are neither bigger nor smaller, neither ugly nor beautiful, neither intelligent nor stupid. If you don’t compare, you are simply yourself And in that state of simply being yourself, spring comes, flowers come, because a deep acceptance of life and a deep gratitude towards God helps to bring
the spring.

— Osho