How to Simply Be Yourself:

Book: Tao Te Ching (LAO TZU)

Chapter 20 

   Stop thinking, and end your problems.
What difference between yes and no?
What difference between success and failure?
Must you value what others value,
avoid what others avoid?
How ridiculous!

Other people are excited,
as though they were at a parade.
I alone don’t care,
I alone am expressionless,
like an infant before it can smile.

Other people have what they need;
I alone possess nothing.
I alone drift about,
like someone without a home.
I am like an idiot, my mind is so empty.

Other people are bright;
I alone am dark.
Other people are sharp;
I alone am dull.
Other people have a purpose;
I alone don’t know.
I drift like a wave on the ocean,
I blow as aimless as the wind.

I am different from ordinary people.
I drink from the Great Mother’s breasts.

Analysis of How to Simply Be Yourself:

So from the above quote I think the following 3 aspects stand out and point you in the direction of how you can be yourself.

1. Be Simple:

As you move deeper into spirituality, you will find a very strange thing.  The evolution is not a process of adding, but it is a process of subtracting.  When you get rid of all the garbage, you find that everything was already perfect and that there was never anything lacking in the first place.  Your job is not to add anything, but simply to throw out all the false that has been added to you. 

This is what is meant by emptying the mind and stopping thinking.  Get rid of all the brain washing that has been done, all the conditioning that has been imposed and just be simple and innocent.  We have become much too clever, mental and deceptive for our own good.  So the first step to becoming yourself again is to be simple and live simply.

2. Be Spontaneous:

Being simple allows you to be spontaneous.  As Lao-tzu says, he is adrift, going where the waves and winds carry him.  He goes with the flow, instead of trying to control things and be result oriented.  He is just doing what needs to be done and letting go of the rest. 

This allows you to be at ease with your natural self and natural responses.  Trust them, trust yourself and trust the Universe.

3. Be Original:

Don’t be afraid to be different and don’t be afraid to be yourself.  No one is greater than you, holier than you or has the right to tell you how to live.  Have confidence in yourself and your ability to find your way out of this mess, find your way back to the Source. 

Just being able to stand alone and reject all others, will give you great power.  And this power is not the egotistical kind, it is the power of knowing that you are approaching, exploring and touching life directly with your own mind and heart.  Then your questions will be your own and your own intuitive nature will be activated and become your guidance system.  Also, you will go from being just an imitation to being your own unique self.

That is enlightenment.  Just being your natural self.  That is why it is said that you are already enlightened, because at the end nothing is gained, you simply return to your original nature.