Selfishness for Selflessness

I have been accused of being selfish.
I have been praised for being selfless.
I'd like to think that I'm both, and that the first has inspired the latter, which is why I rejoiced this afternoon when I started reading chapter 3 in Oshos book "Love, Freedom, and Aloneness". He writes...

*The Virtues of Selfishness*

If you are not selfish you will not be altruistic, remember. If you are not selfish you will not be unselfish, remember. ONLY A VERY DEEPLY SELFISH PERSON CAN BE UNSELFISH. But this has to be understood because it looks like a paradox.

...the more you seek your happiness the more you will help others to be happy. Because that is the only way to be happy in the world. If everybody else around you is unhappy, you cannot be happy, because man is not an island. He is part of a vast continent.

You are not a stone, you are a very delicate being very sensitive. Misery is as infectious as any disease. Blissful ness is also infectious as any disease. If you help others to be happy, in the end you help yourself to be happy. A person who is deeply interested in his happiness is always interested in others happiness also. If in the world everybody was taught to be selfish, the whole world would be happy.

Teach everybody to be selfish - unselfishness grows out of it.

When you have happiness you can share it; when you don't have it, how can you share it? To share, in the first place one must have it. That's why the new generation all over the world is a great danger to the establishment. They are interested only in being happy. They are interested in love, they are interested in meditation, they are interested in music, dance....The new generation is not interested in politics-- they don't belong to any ~ism. A HAPPY PEREON BELONGS TO HIMSELF. Why should he belong to any organization? That is the way of an unhappy person: to belong to some organization, to belong to some crowd. Because he has no roots within himself, he does not belong-- and that gives him a very, very deep anxiety: He should belong..... One should be rooted in oneself because the way from oneself moves deep down into existence.

You are just here for a few years to be. Enjoy, delight, be happy, dance, and love; and out of your love and dancing out of your deep selfishness will start an overflowing of energy. You will be able to share with others.