Osho
... STRENGTHENING ONE'S OWN EGO, AND HOW DOES IT LEAD TO THE TRANSCENDENTAL TRUTH, THE THAT? MAN IS born with a Self, but not with an ego. Ego is a social construct, a later growth. Ego cannot exist without relationship. You can exist, the Self can exist, but the ego cannot exist in itself. It is a by-product of being related to others. So ego exists between "I and thou". It is a relata. The child is...
... born with a Self but not with an ego. The child develops the ego. As he becomes more and more social and related, ego develops. This ego is just on your periphery where you are related with others - just on the boundary of your being. So ego is the periphery of your being, and Self is the center. The child is born with a Self, but unaware. He is a Self, but he is not conscious of the Self. The first...
... awareness of the child comes with his ego. He becomes aware of the "I", not of the Self. Really, he becomes aware first of the "thou". The child becomes aware first of his mother. Then, reflectively, he becomes aware of himself. First he becomes aware of objects around him. Then, by and by, he begins to feel that he is separate. This feeling of separation gives the feeling of ego, and...
... because the child first becomes aware of the ego, ego becomes a covering on the Self. Then ego goes on growing, because the society needs you as an ego, not as a Self. The Self is irrelevant for the society; your periphery is meaningful. And there are many problems. The ego can be taught and the ego can be made docile and the ego can be forced to be obedient. The ego can be made to adjust, but not the...
... Self. The Self cannot be taught, the Self cannot be forced. The Self is intrinsically rebellious, individual. It cannot be made a part of society. So the society is not interested in your Self. The society is interested in your ego - because something can be done with the ego, and nothing can be done with the Self. So the society helps to strengthen the ego, and you go on living around your ego. The...
... more you grow, the more you become social, educated, cultured, civilized, the more polished an ego you have. Then you begin to function from the ego, not from the Self, because you are not aware of it at all. So your essence goes on into the unconscious, into inner darkness, and a false construct, a social construct - the ego - becomes your center. Now you identify yourself with your ego - with your...
... name, with your education, with your family, with your religion, with your country. These are all just part of your ego, not of your Self, because the Self doesn't belong to your parents, the Self doesn't belong to your country, the Self doesn't belong to any religion, the Self doesn't even belong to your self. It doesn't belong! The Self is a freedom. It is total freedom! It exists in its own right...
.... It doesn't belong to anything else, it doesn't depend on anything else. It is! But the ego belongs. It exists in a pattern. So if you are left alone for a long period, your ego will, by and by, subside. By and by, you will feel that your ego is being starved - because the ego needs constant help from others. It needs a constant energy, food from others. That's why love gives you a very heightened...
... feeling of ego - because in love the other gives you significance, meaning. You become, for the first time, important. And in love, lovers help each other mutually. Love is a very subtle food for ego. The ultimate vitamin for the ego is love. That's why Mahavir and Buddha and Mohammed and Christ, they all escaped from society. It was not really escaping from society: they all escaped into loneliness. It...
... was not against society. Basically, it was to know whether their egos could exist outside society. And Mahavir, continUously for twelve years, was in loneliness just to dissolve this ego, this social construct. He chose to be without a center for the time being so that a real center, the authentic center, could come up. One has to be in a gap. Mm? That gap is bound to be a chaos, because you are...
... centered in the ego and the real center is hidden behind. Unless you dissolve this false center you cannot reach to the real center - because there is no need. The ego goes on substituting for it. The ego is enough as far as the world is concerned, society is concerned, relationship is concerned - the ego is enough. If you go on a lonely retreat in non-relationship, this ego cannot exist because it is a...
... bridge between I and thou. If the thou is not there, the bridge cannot exist on one bank. It needs two banks to be there. That's why this retreating into loneliness became a deep sadhana. But you can deceive yourself. If you go into loneliness and then begin to talk with God, then again you will create your ego. You have created the thou, the other, again. So if you retreat into loneliness and then...
... pray to God and begin to talk with God, then you have created an imaginary thou. Now the ego can exist again. So to be in loneliness means to be without thou - no thou - to be totally alone. Then this ego Cannot exist. It will wither away, and you will be thrown into chaos because you will be, for a certain period, without any center. This chaos has to be faced. Unless you face it you cannot be...
... years; Mohammed was in it only for thirty days. It depends on many things. I feel Mahavir had to wait for twelve years because he was the son of a great king. He must have been deeply rooted in a false ego - more than Mohammed. He-was no ordinary man. His ego was greater than Mohammed's. Mohammed was just a poor man with no developed ego, uneducated, really nobody. He was nobody! But Mahavir was...
... somebody. He belonged to a great family. He had a great heritage, a very polished ego, well educated, cultured. In every way he had a very crystallized ego. Twelve years were needed to dissolve it. Jesus was in loneliness for only forty days. He was also a poor man with nothing to help his ego. The more civilization progresses, the more difficult it is - because every progressive civilization is bound to...
... have a solidifying effect on the egos that constitute that civilization. This passing through a chaos without any center, being a chaos, ultimately throws you down to the center, the real center, to the Self. There are many methods for how to go through this chaos and how to destroy this ego. But this is a foundational thing: to have the courage to be without a center for a certain period of time...
.... You can do it by surrender. You can surrender yourself to someone, to the teacher. If the surrendering is total, then you will be without ego. You can be a Self, but not an ego; that's why surrender is so difficult. And the more egoistic an age, the more difficult surrender becomes. In surrender you give up yourself, you become a shadow, you just follow the instructions. You don't think about them...
... - you are no more. But whenever surrender is to be contemplated, one begins to think: "If I surrender, then I will not be an individual." This is absolutely incorrect. If you surrender, only then can you be an individual, because the ego is not your individuality. It is false, it is just a facade. If you surrender the false, then you are bound to explode into the real. And this is the beauty...
... of surrender: you cannot surrender the Self - mm? - that is impossible; you can only surrender the ego. You can give up only that which has been given tb you. You cannot give up your Self; that is impossible. There is no possibility. How can you give up your Self? You can give up something which has been put into you, which is a social penetration. Really, you can give only that which doesn't...
... will happen to you. It is the surrendering that is meaningful. So one way, one basic way, is surrender. Another is absolute will. Don't surrender, but then be absolutely yourself. I said that when you surrender, the Self cannot be surrendered. Whatsoever you surrender is bound to be the ego, the false, the PERSONA - not the essence. Another basic path is to be yourself totally, don't surrender - but...
... then be a will. Again, the ego has no will; it cannot have. The ego is absolutely will-less because a false entity cannot have the quality of will. Will belongs to the real. You are absolutely will-less. In the morning you decide something; in the afternoon you yourself cancel it. When you are deciding, at that very moment some part of you is cancelling it. You say, "I love." Go deep, and...
... somewhere in the corner hate is hiding - in that very moment. You decide, "I am going to do this," and in that very moment the contrary is there. Will means nothing contrary in the mind. Will means one - no duality. Ego cannot have any will. Ego means many contradictory wills simultaneously. You are a crowd as far as ego is concerned, and it is bound to be. It is natural, because as I said, ego...
... is created by relationships. It is a by-product. You have many relationships, so your ego is a construct of many relationships. It cannot be one; it is a crowd. Really, look at it in this way: you have a part of your ego which was created with your mother - a fragment of your ego was created by you in relationship with your mother. Another part of your ego was created by you in relationship with...
... your father; another was created in relationship with your wife. Now the fragment that was created by your wife cannot be the same as that which was created by your mother. They will be antagonistic. They will fight inside you. It is not only that your wife and your mother will fight outside. The ego part which is in you will also fight. It is not only that your father and your mother will fight...
... outside. They have created fragments of your ego and they will fight inside. So you have many fragments, you have a crowd in the name of the ego - a crowd. A constant fight, a conflict, is going on. You cannot will anything. Gurdjieff used to say, "You cannot will because you are not." Man is not because man is not one. You are a crowd, and a crowd without any real unity. You have many faces...
... master, and nothing can be decided because the master is asleep or has gone somewhere else. These servant-masters can decide something, but they cannot complete it. They can Promise something, but they cannot fulfill it. They are not the masters at all. This is the situation of the ego. It cannot will. So the second path is to create a will. If you create a will, then the ego will disappear - because...
... only the Self can will. So if you begin to will, if you insist on willing, then by and by you will go in. The ego cannot will; and if you insist on willing, the ego will disappear. Surrender is one basic path - the path of the bhaktas. tap, will, is the second basic path - the path of the warriors, fighters. Each path has many techniques, but the essential thing is this. Gurdjieff used the second...
... path - the path of will. He called it crystallization. He said, "If you will, then by and by you will crystallize into your center." The ego cannot exist with a willing consciousness - it cannot exist. So Gurdjieff used very deep methods for inner integration. He would say, for example, "Don't sleep for seven days. Whatsoever happens, don't sleep." You can remain without food for...
... cannot bring it; you cannot force yourself into sleep. You can force yourself not to take food or to take more food; that is a voluntary thing. But sleep is a non-voluntary phenomenon. You cannot force yourself. And when sleep comes you will not be able, with your ego, to be awake. But you can insist. You can say, "Whatsoever happens, I will not sleep. I am ready to die, but not to sleep."...
... sleep, you can fight with food, you can fight with sex, you can fight with anything - but then no compromise! Then no surrender! Then be absolute in it! But ego cannot be absolute in anything. And if you insist on being absolute, ego will disappear and suddenly you will become aware of a different center in yourself. The ego cannot will, so if you will the ego cannot exist. So either surrender totally...
... or win totally. Then you will understand that these seemingly contradictory parts are not really contradictory, not so contradictory, because one thing is common: totality - total surrender or total will. The ego can never be total in anything. It is always fragmentary, divided. So be total, in any way, and the ego evaporates. And when there is no ego, for the first time you become aware of your...
.... It looks impossible, it appears impossible; it is impossible for the ego - not for you. It is impossible for the ego because ego cannot attain it. Rather, in attaining it ego will die. The old yoga scriptures say, "Hear whatsoever the Teacher says and follow it - because he is your Self. Whatsoever he is saying, it is your own inner voice." So they say the real Teacher, the real Guru...
... will. And decide which is your way, because, as I know, there are many people who just go on thinking: sometimes they think of surrender; sometimes they think of will - rather, this is their way. Whenever you talk to them about surrender, they think about will. If you talk to them about will, they will think about surrender. This is how the fragments of the ego work. If I say to you, "Surrender...
... difficult." And both these teachings can have counterparts in your ego. And then you can go on wavering. That wavering will never help you to come to your center. Decide either this or that, and then follow it - and then follow it absolutely, totally, because that totality ultimately helps to destroy the false structure of the ego. And when the false center is no more, you will come to know the real...
... and you can go on thinking that you have become centered or that you are crystallized - only because you have a crystallized ego. So what is the difference? How can you judge whether you are centered in the ego or centered in the Self? Three things to be remembered: one, if you are existing in the ego you can never be in silence - never. Then you are in a crowd, in the marketplace. Your ego is a...
... market production. You can never be in silence. Secondly, you can never find even an iota of happiness, because happiness happens only to the real center, silence happens only to the real center. They are qualities of the real center. You need not make any effort for them; they are just there. So if you are in the ego, your happiness will always be in the future - never attained. always to be attained...
.... And, thirdly, your life motivation will be fear when you are in the ego. Whatsoever you do, your motivation will be fear-oriented, you will be fear-oriented. If you love, you will love because of fear. If you pray, you will pray because of fear. If you think of God, you will think because of fear. If you accumulate wealth, you will accumulate because of fear. If you make friends... whatsoever you do...
..., your basic motive will be fear-oriented. These three things. No silence will be possible because there is a crowd, a conflicting crowd of tensions and tensions and conflicts. anxiety and anguish, but no silence, no happiness - because happiness belongs to the center, not to the ego. And there will be fearorientation because ego is constantly afraid of death - because ego is just a construct. It is...
... all our slaveries, all our bondages. Our imprisonment is because of our fear. So remember these three things. And once you have known your real center, you are not the same. The old man has died and a new one is born. It is a new birth! When the child is born, only a body is born. Then the ego is given by the society. You go on living with an ego and a body - with no Self. Unless you dissolve this...
... ego and find the Self, your life is wasted. The body is given by your parents and the ego is given by your society. Who are you? The body belongs to your parents, to heredity, to a long series, and the ego belongs to the society. Who are you? Gurdjieff used to say that you are not. You are just a construct. Unless you find out something which has not come through the parents, not come through the...
... born with a Self but not with an ego. The child develops the ego. As he becomes more and more social and related, ego develops. This ego is just on your periphery where you are related with others - just on the boundary of your being. So ego is the periphery of your being, and Self is the center. The child is born with a Self, but unaware. He is a Self, but he is not conscious of the Self. The first...
... awareness of the child comes with his ego. He becomes aware of the "I", not of the Self. Really, he becomes aware first of the "thou". The child becomes aware first of his mother. Then, reflectively, he becomes aware of himself. First he becomes aware of objects around him. Then, by and by, he begins to feel that he is separate. This feeling of separation gives the feeling of ego, and...
... because the child first becomes aware of the ego, ego becomes a covering on the Self. Then ego goes on growing, because the society needs you as an ego, not as a Self. The Self is irrelevant for the society; your periphery is meaningful. And there are many problems. The ego can be taught and the ego can be made docile and the ego can be forced to be obedient. The ego can be made to adjust, but not the...
... Self. The Self cannot be taught, the Self cannot be forced. The Self is intrinsically rebellious, individual. It cannot be made a part of society. So the society is not interested in your Self. The society is interested in your ego - because something can be done with the ego, and nothing can be done with the Self. So the society helps to strengthen the ego, and you go on living around your ego. The...
... more you grow, the more you become social, educated, cultured, civilized, the more polished an ego you have. Then you begin to function from the ego, not from the Self, because you are not aware of it at all. So your essence goes on into the unconscious, into inner darkness, and a false construct, a social construct - the ego - becomes your center. Now you identify yourself with your ego - with your...
... name, with your education, with your family, with your religion, with your country. These are all just part of your ego, not of your Self, because the Self doesn't belong to your parents, the Self doesn't belong to your country, the Self doesn't belong to any religion, the Self doesn't even belong to your self. It doesn't belong! The Self is a freedom. It is total freedom! It exists in its own right...
.... It doesn't belong to anything else, it doesn't depend on anything else. It is! But the ego belongs. It exists in a pattern. So if you are left alone for a long period, your ego will, by and by, subside. By and by, you will feel that your ego is being starved - because the ego needs constant help from others. It needs a constant energy, food from others. That's why love gives you a very heightened...
... feeling of ego - because in love the other gives you significance, meaning. You become, for the first time, important. And in love, lovers help each other mutually. Love is a very subtle food for ego. The ultimate vitamin for the ego is love. That's why Mahavir and Buddha and Mohammed and Christ, they all escaped from society. It was not really escaping from society: they all escaped into loneliness. It...
... was not against society. Basically, it was to know whether their egos could exist outside society. And Mahavir, continUously for twelve years, was in loneliness just to dissolve this ego, this social construct. He chose to be without a center for the time being so that a real center, the authentic center, could come up. One has to be in a gap. Mm? That gap is bound to be a chaos, because you are...
... centered in the ego and the real center is hidden behind. Unless you dissolve this false center you cannot reach to the real center - because there is no need. The ego goes on substituting for it. The ego is enough as far as the world is concerned, society is concerned, relationship is concerned - the ego is enough. If you go on a lonely retreat in non-relationship, this ego cannot exist because it is a...
... bridge between I and thou. If the thou is not there, the bridge cannot exist on one bank. It needs two banks to be there. That's why this retreating into loneliness became a deep sadhana. But you can deceive yourself. If you go into loneliness and then begin to talk with God, then again you will create your ego. You have created the thou, the other, again. So if you retreat into loneliness and then...
... pray to God and begin to talk with God, then you have created an imaginary thou. Now the ego can exist again. So to be in loneliness means to be without thou - no thou - to be totally alone. Then this ego Cannot exist. It will wither away, and you will be thrown into chaos because you will be, for a certain period, without any center. This chaos has to be faced. Unless you face it you cannot be...
... years; Mohammed was in it only for thirty days. It depends on many things. I feel Mahavir had to wait for twelve years because he was the son of a great king. He must have been deeply rooted in a false ego - more than Mohammed. He-was no ordinary man. His ego was greater than Mohammed's. Mohammed was just a poor man with no developed ego, uneducated, really nobody. He was nobody! But Mahavir was...
... somebody. He belonged to a great family. He had a great heritage, a very polished ego, well educated, cultured. In every way he had a very crystallized ego. Twelve years were needed to dissolve it. Jesus was in loneliness for only forty days. He was also a poor man with nothing to help his ego. The more civilization progresses, the more difficult it is - because every progressive civilization is bound to...
... have a solidifying effect on the egos that constitute that civilization. This passing through a chaos without any center, being a chaos, ultimately throws you down to the center, the real center, to the Self. There are many methods for how to go through this chaos and how to destroy this ego. But this is a foundational thing: to have the courage to be without a center for a certain period of time...
.... You can do it by surrender. You can surrender yourself to someone, to the teacher. If the surrendering is total, then you will be without ego. You can be a Self, but not an ego; that's why surrender is so difficult. And the more egoistic an age, the more difficult surrender becomes. In surrender you give up yourself, you become a shadow, you just follow the instructions. You don't think about them...
... - you are no more. But whenever surrender is to be contemplated, one begins to think: "If I surrender, then I will not be an individual." This is absolutely incorrect. If you surrender, only then can you be an individual, because the ego is not your individuality. It is false, it is just a facade. If you surrender the false, then you are bound to explode into the real. And this is the beauty...
... of surrender: you cannot surrender the Self - mm? - that is impossible; you can only surrender the ego. You can give up only that which has been given tb you. You cannot give up your Self; that is impossible. There is no possibility. How can you give up your Self? You can give up something which has been put into you, which is a social penetration. Really, you can give only that which doesn't...
... will happen to you. It is the surrendering that is meaningful. So one way, one basic way, is surrender. Another is absolute will. Don't surrender, but then be absolutely yourself. I said that when you surrender, the Self cannot be surrendered. Whatsoever you surrender is bound to be the ego, the false, the PERSONA - not the essence. Another basic path is to be yourself totally, don't surrender - but...
... then be a will. Again, the ego has no will; it cannot have. The ego is absolutely will-less because a false entity cannot have the quality of will. Will belongs to the real. You are absolutely will-less. In the morning you decide something; in the afternoon you yourself cancel it. When you are deciding, at that very moment some part of you is cancelling it. You say, "I love." Go deep, and...
... somewhere in the corner hate is hiding - in that very moment. You decide, "I am going to do this," and in that very moment the contrary is there. Will means nothing contrary in the mind. Will means one - no duality. Ego cannot have any will. Ego means many contradictory wills simultaneously. You are a crowd as far as ego is concerned, and it is bound to be. It is natural, because as I said, ego...
... is created by relationships. It is a by-product. You have many relationships, so your ego is a construct of many relationships. It cannot be one; it is a crowd. Really, look at it in this way: you have a part of your ego which was created with your mother - a fragment of your ego was created by you in relationship with your mother. Another part of your ego was created by you in relationship with...
... your father; another was created in relationship with your wife. Now the fragment that was created by your wife cannot be the same as that which was created by your mother. They will be antagonistic. They will fight inside you. It is not only that your wife and your mother will fight outside. The ego part which is in you will also fight. It is not only that your father and your mother will fight...
... outside. They have created fragments of your ego and they will fight inside. So you have many fragments, you have a crowd in the name of the ego - a crowd. A constant fight, a conflict, is going on. You cannot will anything. Gurdjieff used to say, "You cannot will because you are not." Man is not because man is not one. You are a crowd, and a crowd without any real unity. You have many faces...
... master, and nothing can be decided because the master is asleep or has gone somewhere else. These servant-masters can decide something, but they cannot complete it. They can Promise something, but they cannot fulfill it. They are not the masters at all. This is the situation of the ego. It cannot will. So the second path is to create a will. If you create a will, then the ego will disappear - because...
... only the Self can will. So if you begin to will, if you insist on willing, then by and by you will go in. The ego cannot will; and if you insist on willing, the ego will disappear. Surrender is one basic path - the path of the bhaktas. tap, will, is the second basic path - the path of the warriors, fighters. Each path has many techniques, but the essential thing is this. Gurdjieff used the second...
... path - the path of will. He called it crystallization. He said, "If you will, then by and by you will crystallize into your center." The ego cannot exist with a willing consciousness - it cannot exist. So Gurdjieff used very deep methods for inner integration. He would say, for example, "Don't sleep for seven days. Whatsoever happens, don't sleep." You can remain without food for...
... cannot bring it; you cannot force yourself into sleep. You can force yourself not to take food or to take more food; that is a voluntary thing. But sleep is a non-voluntary phenomenon. You cannot force yourself. And when sleep comes you will not be able, with your ego, to be awake. But you can insist. You can say, "Whatsoever happens, I will not sleep. I am ready to die, but not to sleep."...
... sleep, you can fight with food, you can fight with sex, you can fight with anything - but then no compromise! Then no surrender! Then be absolute in it! But ego cannot be absolute in anything. And if you insist on being absolute, ego will disappear and suddenly you will become aware of a different center in yourself. The ego cannot will, so if you will the ego cannot exist. So either surrender totally...
... or win totally. Then you will understand that these seemingly contradictory parts are not really contradictory, not so contradictory, because one thing is common: totality - total surrender or total will. The ego can never be total in anything. It is always fragmentary, divided. So be total, in any way, and the ego evaporates. And when there is no ego, for the first time you become aware of your...
.... It looks impossible, it appears impossible; it is impossible for the ego - not for you. It is impossible for the ego because ego cannot attain it. Rather, in attaining it ego will die. The old yoga scriptures say, "Hear whatsoever the Teacher says and follow it - because he is your Self. Whatsoever he is saying, it is your own inner voice." So they say the real Teacher, the real Guru...
... will. And decide which is your way, because, as I know, there are many people who just go on thinking: sometimes they think of surrender; sometimes they think of will - rather, this is their way. Whenever you talk to them about surrender, they think about will. If you talk to them about will, they will think about surrender. This is how the fragments of the ego work. If I say to you, "Surrender...
... difficult." And both these teachings can have counterparts in your ego. And then you can go on wavering. That wavering will never help you to come to your center. Decide either this or that, and then follow it - and then follow it absolutely, totally, because that totality ultimately helps to destroy the false structure of the ego. And when the false center is no more, you will come to know the real...
... and you can go on thinking that you have become centered or that you are crystallized - only because you have a crystallized ego. So what is the difference? How can you judge whether you are centered in the ego or centered in the Self? Three things to be remembered: one, if you are existing in the ego you can never be in silence - never. Then you are in a crowd, in the marketplace. Your ego is a...
... market production. You can never be in silence. Secondly, you can never find even an iota of happiness, because happiness happens only to the real center, silence happens only to the real center. They are qualities of the real center. You need not make any effort for them; they are just there. So if you are in the ego, your happiness will always be in the future - never attained. always to be attained...
.... And, thirdly, your life motivation will be fear when you are in the ego. Whatsoever you do, your motivation will be fear-oriented, you will be fear-oriented. If you love, you will love because of fear. If you pray, you will pray because of fear. If you think of God, you will think because of fear. If you accumulate wealth, you will accumulate because of fear. If you make friends... whatsoever you do...
..., your basic motive will be fear-oriented. These three things. No silence will be possible because there is a crowd, a conflicting crowd of tensions and tensions and conflicts. anxiety and anguish, but no silence, no happiness - because happiness belongs to the center, not to the ego. And there will be fearorientation because ego is constantly afraid of death - because ego is just a construct. It is...
... all our slaveries, all our bondages. Our imprisonment is because of our fear. So remember these three things. And once you have known your real center, you are not the same. The old man has died and a new one is born. It is a new birth! When the child is born, only a body is born. Then the ego is given by the society. You go on living with an ego and a body - with no Self. Unless you dissolve this...
... ego and find the Self, your life is wasted. The body is given by your parents and the ego is given by your society. Who are you? The body belongs to your parents, to heredity, to a long series, and the ego belongs to the society. Who are you? Gurdjieff used to say that you are not. You are just a construct. Unless you find out something which has not come through the parents, not come through the...
... should be completely absent. Self-remembrance becomes a hindrance
in the development of existence. As the child develops within the
mother's womb, nature keeps it asleep so that the child does not become ego-conscious.
As soon as this thought comes within the child, the development begins
to be hindered. The 'I' becomes a burden on existence. As ego develops, sleep becomes less and less till in old age...
...'. For as long as he forgets the ego, life becomes light, weightless. Then all the processes of life can work unhindered. If a man cannot sleep when he is ill, his sleeplessness is more dangerous than his malady for anxiety will surround him all the twenty four hours. You feel fresh and cheerful after your eight hours' sleep in the night. The reason is only this, that you were free from your ego for...
... eight hours. If man has taken pleasure out of intoxicating drugs, the reason was only this: he needs must forget himself at times for with so much anxiety and so much ego, it is impossible to live otherwise. Alcohol and drugs cannot be banished from the world until such time as the whole world becomes ready for meditation. There are only two ways of being rid of the ego. Either you drown yourself in...
... meditation, so much so, Lao Tzu says that you stop living for yourself, or you forcefully make yourself unconscious by chemical drugs, the 'I' cannot be annihilated by intoxicants. It can only be forgotten for some time. As long as it is forgotten, you feel nice but as soon as the effect fades away, the ego stands up with double vigour. It will take its revenge for being suppressed so long. As man's ego...
... sky! And if a person forgets his ego completely, he is unaffected by the gravitations of life. He has no roots in the soil, now he can fly, a free bird, in the skies. Such people have been called free, liberated, in the East, whose lives are not egocentric. I told you that sleep makes you feel light. This is because you forget your ego for that much time. I also said sleep does not come in old age...
.... This is because, the ego is so dense, so crystallized, that it does not allow sleep to come. The mind is so weighed down that relaxation becomes impossible. We however, know about quite another type of person, who does not feel the need to sleep! Krishna has said in his GITA; "Such an awakened person, is awake even in his sleep." Buddha has also said: "Now I sleep, but this sleep...
... pertains to the body only and not myself." Mahavira has said, "As long as sleep remains, know you have had no experience of the Atman." There is another kind of awakening when there is no need within for sleep, for there is no ego within that makes sleep necessary. When there is no ego within, there is no tension within. When there is no tension, there is no need for sleep. The body tires...
... who identifies it in its first stage, is rid of sex. All arrangements of life, like for instance our own life, is all based on a trance. We live in a trance; and the centre of this unconsciousness, is our ego. Lao Tzu says, "Nature is eternal for it lives not for itself." He who has no thought about himself, will not live for himself. We all live for our own selves. There is an astonishing...
... gratified my desires, obeyed all my commands, nourished my ego, he was an extension of my ego and I professed to live only for him. If I say, "I live for my wife". I can only do so when she satisfies my desires; when she is an instrument for the gratification of my passions, my very shadow. Let not this delude you though. I only live for her as long as she is useful to me. The day she is no...
... longer useful, she becomes redundant for my ego. I will then throw her out as we throw away articles that have outlived their use. She becomes so much trash for me. But we swear we live for others. As long as there is even a vestige of the ego within us, we cannot live for others. Then no matter how much we proclaim, we live for ourselves alone. One person says, "I live for my country, I shall die...
... for my country." This is absolutely false. No man lives or dies for a country. He dies for 'my country'. In that too, is the fulfillment of his own ego. If I am a Hindu, I can die for the Hindu religion. But supposing in the last moments before I am executed, I am told I am not a Hindu and that I was actually a Muslim brought up in a Hindu family, all sacrifice on my part becomes useless. That...
... very moment my whole attitude will change. I was not going to the gallows for the sake of Hinduism, but because I was under the illusion that I was a Hindu, my ego was Hindu, and in dying for Hinduism, I was only gratifying my ego. Now today, this gratification is gone. The matter finishes. Now I shall curse myself for my foolishness. As long as ego persists, whatever we do, ego will be the master...
.... Try to understand this well: We do many things, thinking the ego has nothing to do with it. But as long as there is ego within us, whatever we do will be related to the ego. We can implant humility on ourselves. It will only become an ornament for our ego and remain as such. I may fall at your feet and feel myself to be the dust on your feet. The ego within however, will keep reminding me that there...
... is no one more humble than myself. My ego will exploit this humility and strengthen itself on it. Ego can even renounce. It can renounce everything but it will always save itself. It never dies. A man like Lao Tzu says, "Life eternal can only be attained when you begin to live for others". But I can live for others only when there is no 'I' within me; or when I begin to see my own self in...
... cannot live for others; till then I live only for myself. The very feeling of the other being the other, is a feeling of the ego within me. Or else, how will I know the other to be the other? Only when the other does not feel as the other to me, can I live for him. We can express it this way also: I should spread out so, that everything and everybody becomes my own self. If I live in this manner, my...
... existence becomes free, without anxiety, it is without any burden; it is an existence of freedom in which our bonds with the eternal are cemented. Till then all our relationships are with the temporal. There is nothing more transitory than the ego and hence all its connections are with the momentary. Ego is somewhat like this: If we take the explanation of Buddha - Buddha has given the same meaning to ego...
... and atman. Buddha says, "The ego and the atman are like this: we burn a lamp at night and we put it off in the morning. We think we are putting off the same flame that we had lighted the night before. This is wrong. The flame dies every moment and is reborn every moment. It is only that we do not see the gap in between. One flame turns into smoke and goes upwards into space and another takes...
... its place. Then this one burns off and is replaced by a third. This continues in a series and it happens so fast, our eyes cannot catch the gap in between. A series of flames keep burning and fading the whole night. The flame we put off in the morning is one of the flames in the series; and this was not there at all in the evening." Buddha says that the ego also, is a series. This series also...
... works at such speed that the ego looks one whole. It is just like a movie film. When the film is shown in slow motion, we can see the action in detail. If a man is shown lifting his hand, it takes a thousand different pictures in series to show that motion. Then these are projected with such speed that we see the hand going up. The pictures taken in a motion picture are all static. these static...
... difficult to envisage what it is all about. We cannot see the intermittent gaps and hence we can see the hand. Ego is a film moving at great speed. Ego is born every minute just like the flame of the lamp. Therefore you do not always have the same ego. It changes a thousand times in twenty-four hours and takes a thousand forms. If you concentrate just a little and slow down the speed of the projector of...
... your mind, you will be able to see this. You are sitting in a room, your boss enters the room. Is your ego now in the same state as it was when your servant entered the room in the morning? The truth is you hardly notice the movements of the servant. If he is new, you may notice him but if he is an old servant and you are used to him, you do not notice when he comes and goes. It is good in a way or...
... would now smile. Your ego takes a different form altogether in the presence of your boss. Before the servant it takes a different form and before a friend, yet another form; with a stranger it will take another form and yet another form with an enemy. Your ego has to change all the twenty-four hours but it changes so fast that you cannot notice the change. It changes in a split second. The ego is not...
... an object. It is a continuous happening that takes place between relationships. It is an event and not a thing. If you are left alone in a jungle, your ego does not remain the same as it is in a town for the conditions that produce the ego in the town are not the same as in the jungle. If you are left in the solitude of a jungle, you are not the same person you were amidst the bustle of a town...
.... This is why people feel a sense of comfort and relaxation and peace in a jungle. This peace does not belong to the jungle. It is because the conditions around you are different from the conditions in a town. If a man can create conditions to escape the ego, he can be outside his ego even at Chowpatty in Bombay. But you have to go to the jungles, to the Himalayas for it is only then that you are away...
... from the conditions of a crowd. The fuel that your ego received in the town, is not available here. But then, how long can this last? You are the same old person. If ego is your habit, you will create new egos. The convict in a jail, begins talking to himself. He divides himself into two and answers his own questions. There have been cases where captives talk to lizards and spiders; give them names...
... too and talk on their behalf! You may laugh but you do not know that you too would do the same for it is difficult to save the ego in solitude. Then you take the help of even a spider. It is not that the ego can be propped up with the help of a palace only. The oil of a loin-cloth is enough to burn the lamp of the ego. If required the ego can make use of your loin-cloth and feel just as much at home...
... gifts but never has such a gift come to the hands of a Brahmin as I have received." This is a historical fact. In the end Akbar begged him to tell him the truth. "I thought I had given you a false coin. What is it that you got?" The king asked. The Brahmin replied, "If the ego is skilful, it can raise a kingdom even on a false coin. That I have done. The doubt I created in your...
... mind made even you envious of me though you knew very well it is a false coin you gave me." The ego is clever. It can raise a kingdom on a false coin. We have nothing to stand our ego by - not even a counterfeit coin; and yet we raise kingdoms on it! If we cut ourselves off from all our relationships. we feel the emptiness for a few days. This is what happens when we go to the mountains and...
... quiet places. But within a few days, the mind begins to establish new relationships. It will collect fresh oil and the flame will burn once again. One thing you must remember however, the ego has to be created all the twenty-four hours. It is not a thing that is. It is like a man who pedals a bicycle. As long as he pedals, the cycle goes; as soon as he stops pedalling, the cycle stops. It may run for...
... a while with the momentum or if it is on a slope but ultimately it will fall. The ego works only if you keep working on it all the twenty-four hours. You have to do nothing to destroy it. Stop working the ego and that is enough. Generally people ask how to destroy the ego. If you think in terms of destroying, you will start pedalling again - devising methods and ways. This does not destroy it. But...
... teachers all over the world say, "Destroy the ego!" for they read people like Lao Tzu. It is easy to read but difficult to understand. On reading only one thought comes to mind - If the ego. is destroyed, life becomes eternal and we attain immortality. Greed catches hold of our mind. Greed - not Knowledge. Greed - how to attain the nectar of immortality. How to attain that life where there is...
... no death, no darkness. How to attain the eternal consciousness? Greed catches hold of us. It is this greed that tells us, "Lao Tzu says there should be no ego". Then this greed asks, "How is the ego destroyed?" Then we begin fresh endeavours to destroy the ego. One person leaves the house, another leaves his wife; yet another renounces wealth, another casts off his clothes...
..., casts away his friends and relations. Then we begin to cast off everything and run away thinking perhaps this way the ego will be destroyed. The illusion of renunciation comes from our belief that we should cast off all that which enhances the ego. When I pass a hut, my ego swells for I own a palace. So foolish people advise, "Leave the palace and the ego will leave you." These fools do not...
... know that now when you pass the hut the ego that stands behind you is even greater. Now you look upon the hut-dweller as a sinner who will rot in hell for he cannot even let go of his miserable hut! And here I am - I have left a palace. This man who renounces the palace, collects fresh fuel to light his flame. It makes no difference. No one's ego is because of the palace. Albeit, palaces are raised...
... on the ego. Ego can stand on any prop. So the real problem is how to stop the ego that forms every moment. Ego has no substantial existence that can be done away with once for all. It is formed every moment. We feed it every hour, we water its roots and thus strengthen them. It gives out fresh leaves every day. This is the result of our effort. When we sleep at night we feel light and fresh in the...
... morning for we do not feed the ego in our sleep. The pedal stops working for the night and we feel the lightness in our being in the morning. It is a different man who gets up in the morning; even his face is different. If any favour is to be asked of him this is the best time of the day. By afternoon, everything becomes confused and disorderly. That is why beggars come for alms in the mornings - never...
... in the evenings. They know the psychology: if you have slept well at night, you may be in a benevolent mood in the morning! There is no hope from you in the evening for by then you will have pedalled so much that your ego stands firm and strong. Invariably people come to blows by evening. They either go to sleep fighting with their wives or with someone else. This is a kind of disquietude...
.... Throughout the day, the ego gathers strength. It burns sharply and creates a lot of smoke around it. If this smoke is too much, sleep may become difficult due to the acute tension. This tension will penetrate within and prevent the muscles from relaxing. The more a person gets civilized the greater his ego becomes and the lesser he is able to sleep. There is nothing substantial about the ego. According to...
... are finding ways and means of nourishing the ego. We are forever finding fresh fuel for its flame; and to this end we apply many means. The most outstanding is: in what way can I attract the attention of others? This is the most effective fuel for the ego - that people should look at me; that I should be the cynosure of all eyes. This is why politics is so powerful. The world is fast becoming more...
... give him? When a thousand eyes look at you, your ego gets fresh fuel. The attention of others becomes the food for your ego. There is a very subtle intoxication in the eyes of others and when these eyes look at you, your ego derives a strange pleasure from it and it gains fresh momentum. If ego has to be annihilated there is a different method: Concentrate on the other. When you concentrate on the...
... in dirt and filth - so much so that even Nixon is constrained to pay attention to him. Whatever the youth is doing, is merely to gain attention. Ego demands attention. If it does not come by right methods, it will employ wrong ones. You must remember one thing, whenever you demand attention, you are pedalling your ego. This needs must be remembered. When you enter your house and your son forgets to...
... attention from others, creates the momentary ego. But then its existence is momentary. When Lao Tzu says, "Live for others", he means that you focus your attention on others. As soon as you centre your attention on the other, a transformation begins to take place in your life. Then you can laugh for the foolishness of others becomes apparent to you. When you centre your attention on the other...
... you see his ego kindle and burn. This is what was happening to you also, till late. But now you can have pity on him. As your attention on the other becomes deeper and deeper, you find you have become extinct to the same extent. As emptiness spreads within you - as the attention centres on the other, a person becomes empty within - you realize for the first time what the condition of tensionlessness...
... is no more; where he is, that also is no more! As soon as the mind gets concentrated on anything, the ego is cut off. This is why great scientists became egoless, Great painters, great dancers, became egoless, whereas great renunciates find it difficult to be. The renunciate's whole attention is on himself. He is always worried about what he should eat, what he should not eat; what he should wear...
..., where he should sleep, what he should do. All his attention is on himself. He calls himself a renunciate but he is very much ego-conscious. I shall do this, I shall not do this; all his attention is centred around himself. Therefore very often the tragedy happens that renunciate cannot be freed of his ego. More often than not, ordinary persons whom we look upon as pleasure seeking people are freed...
... from their egos easily. The secret however is one only. If your is less on your own self, your ego is starved to that extent. the more your attention goes outside of you the more egoless you become. Therefore Lao Tzu has said, "HEAVEN AND EARTH ARE ETERNAL". There immortality is due to the fact that they do not live for themselves. Therefore they are ever-abiding. Their extinction is not...
... necessary. Ego alone becomes extinct. There is only one thing that is mortal in this world and that is the ego. This is a little difficult to understand. In this world neither is matter ever destroyed nor the Spirit, only ego is destroyed. The body is never destroyed. This body of mine was, even when I was not. Every particle of this body was present. There is nothing new in it. When I die, not a single...
... also does not die - then what dies? Death happens. Only the connection between the body and the soul breaks. And in between this connection there is the ego, which I create through the meeting of the body and the soul and which I create every day - this ego breaks. Once I come to know that I am not the ego, then there is nothing within me that can die. As long as I know myself to be the ego, I have...
... no knowledge of the nectar within me. I cannot possibly know - there is no way of knowing for I am completely identified with my ego. Then nothing except death can happen to me for the thing with which I have identified myself, is the only thing that dies. This seems to be an astonishing statement. In the whole universe, only one thing is capable of death and that is the ego. Nothing else dies for...
... nothing besides the ego is born. All other things are. Ego alone is born, it is a bi-phenomena. Just as for example: I am walking on the road. The sun has come out. When I was not walking on the road, the sun still was in the sky. It is midday and the sun is right above and the road below. I sit in my house; I am and so is the sun. Then when I come out into the light of the sun, a new phenomena takes...
... shrinks and becomes small. Those who know, know also in youth that the shadow is merely a shadow and not himself. In just the same manner, there is a shadow within which is the ego. The ego is the inner shadow. The various relationships of life cast a shadow within which is called the ego. and I measure myself with the yardstick of the ego. I decide who I am according to my ego and every day I have to...
... is the waxing moon, his end is near." The Sultan showered him with gifts. The king of India had also showered him with gifts. In one place he flattered the ego by addressing him as the full moon. In the other he flattered the ego by calling him the moon of the second night. Man is so feeble he can be deceived by either. We are always ready to be flattered. The most ordinary looking woman will...
... their charm is unabated. Why? The inner-shadow of the ego is gratified by it. We have to be alert and awake towards this inner shadow. So Lao Tzu says, "He who is awake and alert towards this inner-shadow establishes his relationship with the reality of Truth; and he who remains bound to this inner-shadow, his relationships remain with all that is mortal and momentary." This sutra has been...
... nothing that carries more dignity, there is no attainment greater than this. He who has lost his ego, there is no way of bringing him back even to a second position. He is always first, without making any effort to be first! Now he will have to stand first. If Mahavira and Buddha gave up their kingdom it was not that this would lead them to egolessness; rather it is that he whose ego is annihilated has...
... forefront remain at the back. There is no way for him to come in front. There is no cause and causality here. It is only a consequence. Remember this or else you will err. This appeals to the mind. The ego urges you saying this is very good - to be in front without doing anything! This is not so. To be right at the back means, you have no wish, no ambition to be in the front. Therefore the second sentence...
... paradoxical words that have ever been spoken in this world and at the same time, they are the most valuable. Each word spoken here can become a Bible. Lao Tzu says, "Since they have no self-interest all their interests are satisfied " What he means to say is that the supreme bliss of life is the very interest of life. He who renounces the ego, attains the supreme bliss. Fear ends when a man...
... renounces his ego, for with ego there is fear - fear of extinction, fear of defeat, of failure. All these fears are, now no more; and where there is no fear, there is complete security. We do the opposite. The more security we arrange for ourselves, the more insecure we become. The more we try to save ourselves. the more fearful we become. The more we try to save ourselves the more we find we are losing...
...'. For as long as he forgets the ego, life becomes light, weightless. Then all the processes of life can work unhindered. If a man cannot sleep when he is ill, his sleeplessness is more dangerous than his malady for anxiety will surround him all the twenty four hours. You feel fresh and cheerful after your eight hours' sleep in the night. The reason is only this, that you were free from your ego for...
... eight hours. If man has taken pleasure out of intoxicating drugs, the reason was only this: he needs must forget himself at times for with so much anxiety and so much ego, it is impossible to live otherwise. Alcohol and drugs cannot be banished from the world until such time as the whole world becomes ready for meditation. There are only two ways of being rid of the ego. Either you drown yourself in...
... meditation, so much so, Lao Tzu says that you stop living for yourself, or you forcefully make yourself unconscious by chemical drugs, the 'I' cannot be annihilated by intoxicants. It can only be forgotten for some time. As long as it is forgotten, you feel nice but as soon as the effect fades away, the ego stands up with double vigour. It will take its revenge for being suppressed so long. As man's ego...
... sky! And if a person forgets his ego completely, he is unaffected by the gravitations of life. He has no roots in the soil, now he can fly, a free bird, in the skies. Such people have been called free, liberated, in the East, whose lives are not egocentric. I told you that sleep makes you feel light. This is because you forget your ego for that much time. I also said sleep does not come in old age...
.... This is because, the ego is so dense, so crystallized, that it does not allow sleep to come. The mind is so weighed down that relaxation becomes impossible. We however, know about quite another type of person, who does not feel the need to sleep! Krishna has said in his GITA; "Such an awakened person, is awake even in his sleep." Buddha has also said: "Now I sleep, but this sleep...
... pertains to the body only and not myself." Mahavira has said, "As long as sleep remains, know you have had no experience of the Atman." There is another kind of awakening when there is no need within for sleep, for there is no ego within that makes sleep necessary. When there is no ego within, there is no tension within. When there is no tension, there is no need for sleep. The body tires...
... who identifies it in its first stage, is rid of sex. All arrangements of life, like for instance our own life, is all based on a trance. We live in a trance; and the centre of this unconsciousness, is our ego. Lao Tzu says, "Nature is eternal for it lives not for itself." He who has no thought about himself, will not live for himself. We all live for our own selves. There is an astonishing...
... gratified my desires, obeyed all my commands, nourished my ego, he was an extension of my ego and I professed to live only for him. If I say, "I live for my wife". I can only do so when she satisfies my desires; when she is an instrument for the gratification of my passions, my very shadow. Let not this delude you though. I only live for her as long as she is useful to me. The day she is no...
... longer useful, she becomes redundant for my ego. I will then throw her out as we throw away articles that have outlived their use. She becomes so much trash for me. But we swear we live for others. As long as there is even a vestige of the ego within us, we cannot live for others. Then no matter how much we proclaim, we live for ourselves alone. One person says, "I live for my country, I shall die...
... for my country." This is absolutely false. No man lives or dies for a country. He dies for 'my country'. In that too, is the fulfillment of his own ego. If I am a Hindu, I can die for the Hindu religion. But supposing in the last moments before I am executed, I am told I am not a Hindu and that I was actually a Muslim brought up in a Hindu family, all sacrifice on my part becomes useless. That...
... very moment my whole attitude will change. I was not going to the gallows for the sake of Hinduism, but because I was under the illusion that I was a Hindu, my ego was Hindu, and in dying for Hinduism, I was only gratifying my ego. Now today, this gratification is gone. The matter finishes. Now I shall curse myself for my foolishness. As long as ego persists, whatever we do, ego will be the master...
.... Try to understand this well: We do many things, thinking the ego has nothing to do with it. But as long as there is ego within us, whatever we do will be related to the ego. We can implant humility on ourselves. It will only become an ornament for our ego and remain as such. I may fall at your feet and feel myself to be the dust on your feet. The ego within however, will keep reminding me that there...
... is no one more humble than myself. My ego will exploit this humility and strengthen itself on it. Ego can even renounce. It can renounce everything but it will always save itself. It never dies. A man like Lao Tzu says, "Life eternal can only be attained when you begin to live for others". But I can live for others only when there is no 'I' within me; or when I begin to see my own self in...
... cannot live for others; till then I live only for myself. The very feeling of the other being the other, is a feeling of the ego within me. Or else, how will I know the other to be the other? Only when the other does not feel as the other to me, can I live for him. We can express it this way also: I should spread out so, that everything and everybody becomes my own self. If I live in this manner, my...
... existence becomes free, without anxiety, it is without any burden; it is an existence of freedom in which our bonds with the eternal are cemented. Till then all our relationships are with the temporal. There is nothing more transitory than the ego and hence all its connections are with the momentary. Ego is somewhat like this: If we take the explanation of Buddha - Buddha has given the same meaning to ego...
... and atman. Buddha says, "The ego and the atman are like this: we burn a lamp at night and we put it off in the morning. We think we are putting off the same flame that we had lighted the night before. This is wrong. The flame dies every moment and is reborn every moment. It is only that we do not see the gap in between. One flame turns into smoke and goes upwards into space and another takes...
... its place. Then this one burns off and is replaced by a third. This continues in a series and it happens so fast, our eyes cannot catch the gap in between. A series of flames keep burning and fading the whole night. The flame we put off in the morning is one of the flames in the series; and this was not there at all in the evening." Buddha says that the ego also, is a series. This series also...
... works at such speed that the ego looks one whole. It is just like a movie film. When the film is shown in slow motion, we can see the action in detail. If a man is shown lifting his hand, it takes a thousand different pictures in series to show that motion. Then these are projected with such speed that we see the hand going up. The pictures taken in a motion picture are all static. these static...
... difficult to envisage what it is all about. We cannot see the intermittent gaps and hence we can see the hand. Ego is a film moving at great speed. Ego is born every minute just like the flame of the lamp. Therefore you do not always have the same ego. It changes a thousand times in twenty-four hours and takes a thousand forms. If you concentrate just a little and slow down the speed of the projector of...
... your mind, you will be able to see this. You are sitting in a room, your boss enters the room. Is your ego now in the same state as it was when your servant entered the room in the morning? The truth is you hardly notice the movements of the servant. If he is new, you may notice him but if he is an old servant and you are used to him, you do not notice when he comes and goes. It is good in a way or...
... would now smile. Your ego takes a different form altogether in the presence of your boss. Before the servant it takes a different form and before a friend, yet another form; with a stranger it will take another form and yet another form with an enemy. Your ego has to change all the twenty-four hours but it changes so fast that you cannot notice the change. It changes in a split second. The ego is not...
... an object. It is a continuous happening that takes place between relationships. It is an event and not a thing. If you are left alone in a jungle, your ego does not remain the same as it is in a town for the conditions that produce the ego in the town are not the same as in the jungle. If you are left in the solitude of a jungle, you are not the same person you were amidst the bustle of a town...
.... This is why people feel a sense of comfort and relaxation and peace in a jungle. This peace does not belong to the jungle. It is because the conditions around you are different from the conditions in a town. If a man can create conditions to escape the ego, he can be outside his ego even at Chowpatty in Bombay. But you have to go to the jungles, to the Himalayas for it is only then that you are away...
... from the conditions of a crowd. The fuel that your ego received in the town, is not available here. But then, how long can this last? You are the same old person. If ego is your habit, you will create new egos. The convict in a jail, begins talking to himself. He divides himself into two and answers his own questions. There have been cases where captives talk to lizards and spiders; give them names...
... too and talk on their behalf! You may laugh but you do not know that you too would do the same for it is difficult to save the ego in solitude. Then you take the help of even a spider. It is not that the ego can be propped up with the help of a palace only. The oil of a loin-cloth is enough to burn the lamp of the ego. If required the ego can make use of your loin-cloth and feel just as much at home...
... gifts but never has such a gift come to the hands of a Brahmin as I have received." This is a historical fact. In the end Akbar begged him to tell him the truth. "I thought I had given you a false coin. What is it that you got?" The king asked. The Brahmin replied, "If the ego is skilful, it can raise a kingdom even on a false coin. That I have done. The doubt I created in your...
... mind made even you envious of me though you knew very well it is a false coin you gave me." The ego is clever. It can raise a kingdom on a false coin. We have nothing to stand our ego by - not even a counterfeit coin; and yet we raise kingdoms on it! If we cut ourselves off from all our relationships. we feel the emptiness for a few days. This is what happens when we go to the mountains and...
... quiet places. But within a few days, the mind begins to establish new relationships. It will collect fresh oil and the flame will burn once again. One thing you must remember however, the ego has to be created all the twenty-four hours. It is not a thing that is. It is like a man who pedals a bicycle. As long as he pedals, the cycle goes; as soon as he stops pedalling, the cycle stops. It may run for...
... a while with the momentum or if it is on a slope but ultimately it will fall. The ego works only if you keep working on it all the twenty-four hours. You have to do nothing to destroy it. Stop working the ego and that is enough. Generally people ask how to destroy the ego. If you think in terms of destroying, you will start pedalling again - devising methods and ways. This does not destroy it. But...
... teachers all over the world say, "Destroy the ego!" for they read people like Lao Tzu. It is easy to read but difficult to understand. On reading only one thought comes to mind - If the ego. is destroyed, life becomes eternal and we attain immortality. Greed catches hold of our mind. Greed - not Knowledge. Greed - how to attain the nectar of immortality. How to attain that life where there is...
... no death, no darkness. How to attain the eternal consciousness? Greed catches hold of us. It is this greed that tells us, "Lao Tzu says there should be no ego". Then this greed asks, "How is the ego destroyed?" Then we begin fresh endeavours to destroy the ego. One person leaves the house, another leaves his wife; yet another renounces wealth, another casts off his clothes...
..., casts away his friends and relations. Then we begin to cast off everything and run away thinking perhaps this way the ego will be destroyed. The illusion of renunciation comes from our belief that we should cast off all that which enhances the ego. When I pass a hut, my ego swells for I own a palace. So foolish people advise, "Leave the palace and the ego will leave you." These fools do not...
... know that now when you pass the hut the ego that stands behind you is even greater. Now you look upon the hut-dweller as a sinner who will rot in hell for he cannot even let go of his miserable hut! And here I am - I have left a palace. This man who renounces the palace, collects fresh fuel to light his flame. It makes no difference. No one's ego is because of the palace. Albeit, palaces are raised...
... on the ego. Ego can stand on any prop. So the real problem is how to stop the ego that forms every moment. Ego has no substantial existence that can be done away with once for all. It is formed every moment. We feed it every hour, we water its roots and thus strengthen them. It gives out fresh leaves every day. This is the result of our effort. When we sleep at night we feel light and fresh in the...
... morning for we do not feed the ego in our sleep. The pedal stops working for the night and we feel the lightness in our being in the morning. It is a different man who gets up in the morning; even his face is different. If any favour is to be asked of him this is the best time of the day. By afternoon, everything becomes confused and disorderly. That is why beggars come for alms in the mornings - never...
... in the evenings. They know the psychology: if you have slept well at night, you may be in a benevolent mood in the morning! There is no hope from you in the evening for by then you will have pedalled so much that your ego stands firm and strong. Invariably people come to blows by evening. They either go to sleep fighting with their wives or with someone else. This is a kind of disquietude...
.... Throughout the day, the ego gathers strength. It burns sharply and creates a lot of smoke around it. If this smoke is too much, sleep may become difficult due to the acute tension. This tension will penetrate within and prevent the muscles from relaxing. The more a person gets civilized the greater his ego becomes and the lesser he is able to sleep. There is nothing substantial about the ego. According to...
... are finding ways and means of nourishing the ego. We are forever finding fresh fuel for its flame; and to this end we apply many means. The most outstanding is: in what way can I attract the attention of others? This is the most effective fuel for the ego - that people should look at me; that I should be the cynosure of all eyes. This is why politics is so powerful. The world is fast becoming more...
... give him? When a thousand eyes look at you, your ego gets fresh fuel. The attention of others becomes the food for your ego. There is a very subtle intoxication in the eyes of others and when these eyes look at you, your ego derives a strange pleasure from it and it gains fresh momentum. If ego has to be annihilated there is a different method: Concentrate on the other. When you concentrate on the...
... in dirt and filth - so much so that even Nixon is constrained to pay attention to him. Whatever the youth is doing, is merely to gain attention. Ego demands attention. If it does not come by right methods, it will employ wrong ones. You must remember one thing, whenever you demand attention, you are pedalling your ego. This needs must be remembered. When you enter your house and your son forgets to...
... attention from others, creates the momentary ego. But then its existence is momentary. When Lao Tzu says, "Live for others", he means that you focus your attention on others. As soon as you centre your attention on the other, a transformation begins to take place in your life. Then you can laugh for the foolishness of others becomes apparent to you. When you centre your attention on the other...
... you see his ego kindle and burn. This is what was happening to you also, till late. But now you can have pity on him. As your attention on the other becomes deeper and deeper, you find you have become extinct to the same extent. As emptiness spreads within you - as the attention centres on the other, a person becomes empty within - you realize for the first time what the condition of tensionlessness...
... is no more; where he is, that also is no more! As soon as the mind gets concentrated on anything, the ego is cut off. This is why great scientists became egoless, Great painters, great dancers, became egoless, whereas great renunciates find it difficult to be. The renunciate's whole attention is on himself. He is always worried about what he should eat, what he should not eat; what he should wear...
..., where he should sleep, what he should do. All his attention is on himself. He calls himself a renunciate but he is very much ego-conscious. I shall do this, I shall not do this; all his attention is centred around himself. Therefore very often the tragedy happens that renunciate cannot be freed of his ego. More often than not, ordinary persons whom we look upon as pleasure seeking people are freed...
... from their egos easily. The secret however is one only. If your is less on your own self, your ego is starved to that extent. the more your attention goes outside of you the more egoless you become. Therefore Lao Tzu has said, "HEAVEN AND EARTH ARE ETERNAL". There immortality is due to the fact that they do not live for themselves. Therefore they are ever-abiding. Their extinction is not...
... necessary. Ego alone becomes extinct. There is only one thing that is mortal in this world and that is the ego. This is a little difficult to understand. In this world neither is matter ever destroyed nor the Spirit, only ego is destroyed. The body is never destroyed. This body of mine was, even when I was not. Every particle of this body was present. There is nothing new in it. When I die, not a single...
... also does not die - then what dies? Death happens. Only the connection between the body and the soul breaks. And in between this connection there is the ego, which I create through the meeting of the body and the soul and which I create every day - this ego breaks. Once I come to know that I am not the ego, then there is nothing within me that can die. As long as I know myself to be the ego, I have...
... no knowledge of the nectar within me. I cannot possibly know - there is no way of knowing for I am completely identified with my ego. Then nothing except death can happen to me for the thing with which I have identified myself, is the only thing that dies. This seems to be an astonishing statement. In the whole universe, only one thing is capable of death and that is the ego. Nothing else dies for...
... nothing besides the ego is born. All other things are. Ego alone is born, it is a bi-phenomena. Just as for example: I am walking on the road. The sun has come out. When I was not walking on the road, the sun still was in the sky. It is midday and the sun is right above and the road below. I sit in my house; I am and so is the sun. Then when I come out into the light of the sun, a new phenomena takes...
... shrinks and becomes small. Those who know, know also in youth that the shadow is merely a shadow and not himself. In just the same manner, there is a shadow within which is the ego. The ego is the inner shadow. The various relationships of life cast a shadow within which is called the ego. and I measure myself with the yardstick of the ego. I decide who I am according to my ego and every day I have to...
... is the waxing moon, his end is near." The Sultan showered him with gifts. The king of India had also showered him with gifts. In one place he flattered the ego by addressing him as the full moon. In the other he flattered the ego by calling him the moon of the second night. Man is so feeble he can be deceived by either. We are always ready to be flattered. The most ordinary looking woman will...
... their charm is unabated. Why? The inner-shadow of the ego is gratified by it. We have to be alert and awake towards this inner shadow. So Lao Tzu says, "He who is awake and alert towards this inner-shadow establishes his relationship with the reality of Truth; and he who remains bound to this inner-shadow, his relationships remain with all that is mortal and momentary." This sutra has been...
... nothing that carries more dignity, there is no attainment greater than this. He who has lost his ego, there is no way of bringing him back even to a second position. He is always first, without making any effort to be first! Now he will have to stand first. If Mahavira and Buddha gave up their kingdom it was not that this would lead them to egolessness; rather it is that he whose ego is annihilated has...
... forefront remain at the back. There is no way for him to come in front. There is no cause and causality here. It is only a consequence. Remember this or else you will err. This appeals to the mind. The ego urges you saying this is very good - to be in front without doing anything! This is not so. To be right at the back means, you have no wish, no ambition to be in the front. Therefore the second sentence...
... paradoxical words that have ever been spoken in this world and at the same time, they are the most valuable. Each word spoken here can become a Bible. Lao Tzu says, "Since they have no self-interest all their interests are satisfied " What he means to say is that the supreme bliss of life is the very interest of life. He who renounces the ego, attains the supreme bliss. Fear ends when a man...
... renounces his ego, for with ego there is fear - fear of extinction, fear of defeat, of failure. All these fears are, now no more; and where there is no fear, there is complete security. We do the opposite. The more security we arrange for ourselves, the more insecure we become. The more we try to save ourselves. the more fearful we become. The more we try to save ourselves the more we find we are losing...
... you sit near, and worship, manifest nature. So you see this sutra
of the Upanishad is very significant. It says, they enter darkness who
are absorbed in the worship of the manifest, the visible. It also says
something else - that they enter greater darkness who are absorbed in
the worship of the ego. The worship of the sense organs is natural. It is a kind of worship practiced even by animals; but...
... no animal is absorbed in the worship of karma upasana - that is, in the satisfaction of ego. It is necessary to understand this a bit. The worship of karma upasana is a faculty unique to man. Suppose a man is seeking prestige. There is no direct possibility of satisfying any particular sense organ by obtaining a certain professional position. By acquiring a certain status a man may make it easier...
... for himself to indirectly satisfy certain sense organs, but there is no direct possibility of satisfaction. The sense organs have no direct link with status. The interest or desire to seek status does not belong to the sense organs, it pertains to ego - to "I am somebody." It is true that to be a somebody will offer greater facilities for satisfying the sense organs than one has if one is...
... a nobody, but "I am somebody" has its own absorption and pleasure. It is this interest - the satisfying of one's ego - that is meant by karma upasana. The Upanishads say such a person goes into greater darkness. He enters greater darkness than that of animals because the interest which animals take is natural and physical. A person takes interest in eating: it is animal-like. In a sense...
..., he is an animal. But suppose a person takes an interest in politics and goes on seeking position after position; such a person is worse than an animal. His interest is not natural at all, it is perverted. The interest derived from holding a particular post does not satisfy any sense organ, any natural organ. It is a very unnatural growth. The knot, the tumor, of ego within goes on increasing and...
... gives him the pleasure of feeling, "I am somebody and the other is nobody." It is the interest in domination, the pleasure of power over others. It is the interest in crushing others in one's fist. It is the pleasure of crushing the necks of others. Therefore the meaning of the worship of karma prakriti lies in the various ways and means designed to satisfy ego. They may be directed towards...
... from our desire to satisfy our ego - our feeling of being somebody. Be aware how much less disturbance or chaos there is in the lives of animals than in the world of man, because animals are all ardent worshippers of manifest nature. They are firm devotees and cannot be drawn to any other form of worship. They want food, they want protection, they want to satisfy their sexual desires, they want sleep...
... desire and worship of karma prakriti is less sophisticated among primitive people, so there is not much tension in their lives. To a large extent in primitive societies there are only the demands of the sense organs, as there are among animals. Worship of karma prakriti does not exist. As man goes on becoming more and more civilized, the satisfaction of ego instead of sense organs becomes highly valued...
.... We give great honor to the person who sacrifices the demands of his sense organs in order to satisfy his ego. We call him a great and self-denying person who gives up worrying about food, his wife and his children in his race for position. He is pursuing status, he is pursuing prestige, and we say, "Look at this man! - how indifferent he is to his food, to his clothes, to his home affairs...
...!" But when you look behind his activities, you will find that he is sacrificing the demands of his sense organs to satisfy his ego. The Upanishads say such an individual goes into great darkness. He who is absorbed only in the sense organs is in a better situation than that individual. His web, his network, is not so deep and subtle because the demands of the sense organs are not many. Endless...
... are the demands of ego. The beautiful thing about the demands of the sense organs is that all of them have few, very few, demands, they are limited. They are repetitive, but they are not limitless. Bear this difference in mind and understand it. Those demands are repeated but are not limitless. No demand of any of the sense organs is limitless. It never happens that you carry on eating and yet your...
... hunger remains unsatisfied. When you have satisfied your sexual desire today, it will appear again tomorrow - but also when your desire for sexual pleasure is satisfied today, all of a sudden you are completely free of that desire. Sexual desire also is not limitless. It is certainly repetitive, but it is also limited. Ego is limitless. It does not require repetition; it requires more and more. However...
... much you may fill it and satisfy it, it is never filled, it is never satisfied. Ego is insatiable, it cannot be satisfied. If it acquires one position, it immediately begins a campaign for a better position. No sooner does it get one position than it makes preparations for a superior position. If you tell a person, "You have been made a minister," then he immediately - that very night...
... - begins to have dreams of becoming the chief minister. He says, "It is all right, one desire is fulfilled." Then his ego sets out immediately on its next journey. Ego is not repetitive. Desires, passions are repeated, but because their demands have limits they become quiet when they are fulfilled. When they are awakened again, they repeat the demands. That is why animals are not inclined to...
... be his dinner gather round him and eat the remnants of his food. But then he is not ready to kill them. When he becomes hungry the next day he will be ready to hunt and to kill, but until then the matter of killing is over. The hunger of man's ego is never over; on the contrary, it goes on increasing as you go on satisfying it. Understand this distinction between sense organs and ego. Satisfy the...
... sense organs and they are soon full. They will be empty again and can then be filled again. But the ego is never filled, it is never satisfied. As you go on filling it, it goes on increasing. When you throw fat in the fire to extinguish it, the fire increases instead of being extinguished; similarly all the things thrown in to satisfy the ego help to increase it. It suddenly sends up a burst of flame...
... and goes higher and higher. So whatever is offered to ego only helps it to grow. Hence, from the moment a person is caught in the grip of ego he is more entangled than animals can ever be in uneasiness, cares, tensions and worries. A great movement to return to nature is going on today in the West. The young men and women whom we call hippies or beatniks or dropouts are today carrying on this great...
... mankind, when people have said, "We are willingly giving up the karma prakriti to return to that nature born of sense organs, the manifest nature of sense organs, desires and passions. This is enough for us, more than this we do not desire." This shows that the network of ego-motivated activities has become so dangerous that man wants to be free from it and is willing to be like the animals...
.... Even so, man cannot be free from ego by becoming like an animal. He can be free from ego only by becoming divine. By absorbing himself in the pursuit of the enjoyment of sense organs he will get some relief, but that network of activities will appear again. Man was living in his sense organs two thousand years ago, but ego arose from those circumstances. If we regress again today, ego will surely...
... return tomorrow. This sutra says they who are absorbed in the worship of manifest nature wander in darkness, and they wander in greater darkness who are absorbed in satisfying their egos. Then who can go beyond darkness? Who are they? Two types of worship are observed. There are the worshippers of sense organs, and the worshippers of ego, and generally the ego-worshippers are against worshipping the...
... sense organs. Suppose a person is into renunciation. Now if we can explore his mental condition thoroughly, if we can perform an exploratory operation on his mind, we will see that the secret of his renunciation is that it satisfies his ego. He has observed a fast for thirty days, so he is honored with great acclaim by the people of the town; a great reception is arranged for him. He has been able to...
... endure fasting for thirty days. We declare it to be an act of great self-denial; it is no small matter to remain hungry for thirty days! No, it is not a small matter. But it would certainly be a small matter if the ego were satisfied. If his ego derived satisfaction from it a man would remain hungry not merely for thirty days but for thirty years! Ego will persuade any sense organ to go into self...
...-denial. We have long known this secret - this trick - so if we want renunciation from someone, we start to stroke his ego. Mankind is very familiar with this device. That is why we have honored the self-denying person. Nobody will be ready for self-denial if he is not to be honored. The truly self-denying person does not expect any respect and honor for his renunciation. If you withdraw your honoring...
..., if you stop honoring, you will see: ninety-nine out of a hundred self-denying people will drop out. If you want to know the truth about this practice, just withdraw your honor from such people. See what happens. A person takes only one meal a day, so people touch his feet and bow down to him. They have given that much food to his ego, and that is enough for him. He can easily let go his second meal...
.... He will suffer in body but will fatten his ego. Thus people can be induced to do anything for the sake of this ego-worship, and almost everything has been tried to induce people to renounce in order to satisfy their egos. In the long history of mankind we find thousands of devices inducing man to do anything for the sake of satisfying his ego. In the Middle Ages in Europe there was a great movement...
... on foot as much as you like: after all, the animals go on foot! No, but the ones who honor a sadhu for walking are those who can no longer do something so natural. The car owner bows down to the man who goes on foot. He feels himself insignificant confronted by this man who walks everywhere, this man who destroys his car owning, car driving ego completely. You may drive a car, but you have to touch...
... the feet of this one who always goes on foot! This walking sadhu may not be able to buy a car, it is quite a difficult thing for him to obtain; but he can walk. There were two ways open to him to hit your ego. He can either buy a more expensive car than yours, which is out of the question for him, or he can walk, which is so easy. So he hits at your ego by walking. This way he keeps up his ego. But...
... the physical comforts of their sense organs. I call this man a self-denying person who liberates himself from attachment to his sense organs and has no interest in satisfying his ego. That is real renunciation; otherwise there is no meaning in all those exhibitionist activities. The Upanishads are talking about people who renounce both these things. Such people are absorbed neither in the worship of...
... manifest nature nor in that of ego. The Upanishads are talking about people who are interested in neither. Bear in mind, the worship of the sense organs is quite obvious, but that of ego is very subtle so it is often difficult to detect the worship of ego. When a person takes great interest in food, it is obvious. But what is the interest of a person who puts on fine clothes and goes out on a trip around...
... naked will bring the same self-satisfying pleasure derived from the mink coat, and far more easily - no need to earn a couple of thousand dollars. The worship of the sense organs is simple, not subtle, so it is visible and obvious, while that of ego goes on becoming subtler and subtler. But be sure about yourself. Don't worry about what another person does, or why he acts so. If a person is standing...
... the material means to be somebody. So it is almost impossible for a person like Mahavira to gratify his ego by standing naked. But we cannot judge even this action of Mahavira by outward appearances; it is best left to Mahavira to decide. If your neighbor is standing naked, you cannot know why he is standing naked. It should be left to him to find out. Let him seek the cause, because this is a very...
... subtle and deep phenomenon. We have to go outward if we wish to satisfy the demands of the sense organs. It is not necessary to go outward if we wish to satisfy our ego. It can be satisfied from within also. I have heard that a hermit was living alone in a very remote forest. He did not initiate anyone. A traveling monk passing by his dwelling, saw him and said, "You are very humble and modest...
... any kind of ego, so I do not nurture the ego of becoming a guru. I am absolutely egoless." The traveler said to him, "I have also seen another monk as egoless as you." On hearing this, the face of the monk changed and his smile immediately vanished. He saw a competitor in front of him and his ego began to make him uneasy. In the beginning he was pleased because his ego was not...
... challenged by the first monk about whom the traveler was talking. On the contrary, his ego was swelling with satisfaction. But the statement, "I have seen another monk as egoless as you," made him uneasy; he was upset. The mind becomes very unhappy on hearing, "Someone else like you also exists." That hermit was nurturing his ego even in that solitary place, feeding it on this feeling...
... that, "I live a secluded life and have not accepted anyone as my disciple." One feeds his ego with the feeling, "I have many disciples," while the other nourishes it through his pride in having none. One says, "No one is greater than I," and the other says, "I am a poor, humble person, only as good as the dust under your feet." What he means is, "There is...
... no greater dust than me! Do not talk of dust superior to me - I am the last and the best!" It makes no difference which way you choose to feed the ego. But to understand these workings of the mind, you will have to enter deep within yourself. So, declares the sage, he alone enters light who liberates himself from both kinds of worship - of the senses and of the ego. He has to liberate himself...
... from the worship of manifest nature as well as from that of subtle ego. The Upanishads speak on a very deep matter when they say that the worship of the senses does not lead you into deep darkness, because the ultimate fact is that the sense organs are given to you. They are nature, you have not created them. But ego is your invention, ego is a manufactured thing. You brought your sense organs with...
... your needs. Remove the unnecessary; remove the nonessential. Sense organs, then, accompany you to the end of your life; your life runs on the wheels of the sense organs. But ego is not an essential thing. It is our creation, and we can without doubt live without it - egoless. Ego leads us into greater darkness because it is created by man. It is absolutely nonessential. There is something necessary...
... in sense organs to which we add something nonessential, and that is our trouble. Sense organs lead us into darkness due to the effect of the nonessential part, while ego is totally nonessential so it leads us into greater darkness. The truth is that the less the ego the deeper one lives; the bigger the ego the more petty and superficial life one lives, because ego does not allow one to go deep...
... within. It keeps you on the surface. Why? This also needs to be understood properly. The simple fact is that ego gets its pleasure from the eyes of others. If you are left alone in a forest, your ego will lose all its pleasure. Then to put on a diamond necklace will be meaningless: and if you do put it on, the animals will laugh at you! Even if it is of diamonds you will feel it as a burden around your...
... neck which you will gladly remove. What can you do to your ego in a jungle? No, the total interest of ego is in the reflections created in the eyes of others and, like all reflections, they happen on the surface. These reflections surround us on all sides. Ego is like ornate fencing round a building. It may be enjoyable, it may be beautiful, but it is created by the eyes of others. Ego can never be...
... created without the presence of the other - it depends on the other. That is why we always remain afraid of the other, because the satisfaction of our ego is in the hands of the other and he may withdraw his hands at any time. Suppose A greets B this morning, and does not do so the next morning. B's wall of ego falls down, his ego is hurt. His mind becomes agitated and he is preoccupied with what he...
... in outer coverings and garments. He alone can enter the depths of life who enters the soul, and he alone can enter the soul who forgets ego. He has to forget the eyes of others and begin to walk within his own eyes. Let him see himself. He has to cease worrying about how others look at him. Let him give up thinking about the opinions others have of him and what they say about him. He has to bear in...
... me. God will see me for what I am, so let me worry about myself." In fact, ego is always worrying what others say about you. It is so anxious about the evaluations of others. And soul is the experience of 'what I am'. It has no concern with what others say. Others may be wrong or they may be right - that is their business. To give up the worship of sense organs is to stop at the point of...
... necessity, and to give up the worship of ego is to come to the zero point. If these two conditions are fulfilled, then the individual is sitting near neither the sense organs nor the ego. He sits near the soul - the atman. Then a new sitting- near starts - sitting near God. Really it is not correct to speak of being near God, because to be near God means to be one with God. Then we lose our identity. We...
... cannot be 'the other' with God. As long as we are absorbed in the worship of these two - sense organs and ego - we are far away from God. Nothing else at all is to be done to be near him, to be one with him. No sooner do you give up these two religions than you are one with him. It is like this: if a person, before taking a jump, asks, "I am about to jump to the ground, but what should I do to...
... reach the ground?" then we will tell him, "You simply jump! The rest will be done by the ground - you don't have to do anything else." It will be enough if a person takes a jump from the roof of sense organs and ego; the rest will be done by God. Then you are not going near him; you are going in him. His gravitational pull is very powerful. In our country we have named Krishna the...
... and the ego. Such a person enters light. Enough for today. Generated by PreciseInfo ™ ...
... no animal is absorbed in the worship of karma upasana - that is, in the satisfaction of ego. It is necessary to understand this a bit. The worship of karma upasana is a faculty unique to man. Suppose a man is seeking prestige. There is no direct possibility of satisfying any particular sense organ by obtaining a certain professional position. By acquiring a certain status a man may make it easier...
... for himself to indirectly satisfy certain sense organs, but there is no direct possibility of satisfaction. The sense organs have no direct link with status. The interest or desire to seek status does not belong to the sense organs, it pertains to ego - to "I am somebody." It is true that to be a somebody will offer greater facilities for satisfying the sense organs than one has if one is...
... a nobody, but "I am somebody" has its own absorption and pleasure. It is this interest - the satisfying of one's ego - that is meant by karma upasana. The Upanishads say such a person goes into greater darkness. He enters greater darkness than that of animals because the interest which animals take is natural and physical. A person takes interest in eating: it is animal-like. In a sense...
..., he is an animal. But suppose a person takes an interest in politics and goes on seeking position after position; such a person is worse than an animal. His interest is not natural at all, it is perverted. The interest derived from holding a particular post does not satisfy any sense organ, any natural organ. It is a very unnatural growth. The knot, the tumor, of ego within goes on increasing and...
... gives him the pleasure of feeling, "I am somebody and the other is nobody." It is the interest in domination, the pleasure of power over others. It is the interest in crushing others in one's fist. It is the pleasure of crushing the necks of others. Therefore the meaning of the worship of karma prakriti lies in the various ways and means designed to satisfy ego. They may be directed towards...
... from our desire to satisfy our ego - our feeling of being somebody. Be aware how much less disturbance or chaos there is in the lives of animals than in the world of man, because animals are all ardent worshippers of manifest nature. They are firm devotees and cannot be drawn to any other form of worship. They want food, they want protection, they want to satisfy their sexual desires, they want sleep...
... desire and worship of karma prakriti is less sophisticated among primitive people, so there is not much tension in their lives. To a large extent in primitive societies there are only the demands of the sense organs, as there are among animals. Worship of karma prakriti does not exist. As man goes on becoming more and more civilized, the satisfaction of ego instead of sense organs becomes highly valued...
.... We give great honor to the person who sacrifices the demands of his sense organs in order to satisfy his ego. We call him a great and self-denying person who gives up worrying about food, his wife and his children in his race for position. He is pursuing status, he is pursuing prestige, and we say, "Look at this man! - how indifferent he is to his food, to his clothes, to his home affairs...
...!" But when you look behind his activities, you will find that he is sacrificing the demands of his sense organs to satisfy his ego. The Upanishads say such an individual goes into great darkness. He who is absorbed only in the sense organs is in a better situation than that individual. His web, his network, is not so deep and subtle because the demands of the sense organs are not many. Endless...
... are the demands of ego. The beautiful thing about the demands of the sense organs is that all of them have few, very few, demands, they are limited. They are repetitive, but they are not limitless. Bear this difference in mind and understand it. Those demands are repeated but are not limitless. No demand of any of the sense organs is limitless. It never happens that you carry on eating and yet your...
... hunger remains unsatisfied. When you have satisfied your sexual desire today, it will appear again tomorrow - but also when your desire for sexual pleasure is satisfied today, all of a sudden you are completely free of that desire. Sexual desire also is not limitless. It is certainly repetitive, but it is also limited. Ego is limitless. It does not require repetition; it requires more and more. However...
... much you may fill it and satisfy it, it is never filled, it is never satisfied. Ego is insatiable, it cannot be satisfied. If it acquires one position, it immediately begins a campaign for a better position. No sooner does it get one position than it makes preparations for a superior position. If you tell a person, "You have been made a minister," then he immediately - that very night...
... - begins to have dreams of becoming the chief minister. He says, "It is all right, one desire is fulfilled." Then his ego sets out immediately on its next journey. Ego is not repetitive. Desires, passions are repeated, but because their demands have limits they become quiet when they are fulfilled. When they are awakened again, they repeat the demands. That is why animals are not inclined to...
... be his dinner gather round him and eat the remnants of his food. But then he is not ready to kill them. When he becomes hungry the next day he will be ready to hunt and to kill, but until then the matter of killing is over. The hunger of man's ego is never over; on the contrary, it goes on increasing as you go on satisfying it. Understand this distinction between sense organs and ego. Satisfy the...
... sense organs and they are soon full. They will be empty again and can then be filled again. But the ego is never filled, it is never satisfied. As you go on filling it, it goes on increasing. When you throw fat in the fire to extinguish it, the fire increases instead of being extinguished; similarly all the things thrown in to satisfy the ego help to increase it. It suddenly sends up a burst of flame...
... and goes higher and higher. So whatever is offered to ego only helps it to grow. Hence, from the moment a person is caught in the grip of ego he is more entangled than animals can ever be in uneasiness, cares, tensions and worries. A great movement to return to nature is going on today in the West. The young men and women whom we call hippies or beatniks or dropouts are today carrying on this great...
... mankind, when people have said, "We are willingly giving up the karma prakriti to return to that nature born of sense organs, the manifest nature of sense organs, desires and passions. This is enough for us, more than this we do not desire." This shows that the network of ego-motivated activities has become so dangerous that man wants to be free from it and is willing to be like the animals...
.... Even so, man cannot be free from ego by becoming like an animal. He can be free from ego only by becoming divine. By absorbing himself in the pursuit of the enjoyment of sense organs he will get some relief, but that network of activities will appear again. Man was living in his sense organs two thousand years ago, but ego arose from those circumstances. If we regress again today, ego will surely...
... return tomorrow. This sutra says they who are absorbed in the worship of manifest nature wander in darkness, and they wander in greater darkness who are absorbed in satisfying their egos. Then who can go beyond darkness? Who are they? Two types of worship are observed. There are the worshippers of sense organs, and the worshippers of ego, and generally the ego-worshippers are against worshipping the...
... sense organs. Suppose a person is into renunciation. Now if we can explore his mental condition thoroughly, if we can perform an exploratory operation on his mind, we will see that the secret of his renunciation is that it satisfies his ego. He has observed a fast for thirty days, so he is honored with great acclaim by the people of the town; a great reception is arranged for him. He has been able to...
... endure fasting for thirty days. We declare it to be an act of great self-denial; it is no small matter to remain hungry for thirty days! No, it is not a small matter. But it would certainly be a small matter if the ego were satisfied. If his ego derived satisfaction from it a man would remain hungry not merely for thirty days but for thirty years! Ego will persuade any sense organ to go into self...
...-denial. We have long known this secret - this trick - so if we want renunciation from someone, we start to stroke his ego. Mankind is very familiar with this device. That is why we have honored the self-denying person. Nobody will be ready for self-denial if he is not to be honored. The truly self-denying person does not expect any respect and honor for his renunciation. If you withdraw your honoring...
..., if you stop honoring, you will see: ninety-nine out of a hundred self-denying people will drop out. If you want to know the truth about this practice, just withdraw your honor from such people. See what happens. A person takes only one meal a day, so people touch his feet and bow down to him. They have given that much food to his ego, and that is enough for him. He can easily let go his second meal...
.... He will suffer in body but will fatten his ego. Thus people can be induced to do anything for the sake of this ego-worship, and almost everything has been tried to induce people to renounce in order to satisfy their egos. In the long history of mankind we find thousands of devices inducing man to do anything for the sake of satisfying his ego. In the Middle Ages in Europe there was a great movement...
... on foot as much as you like: after all, the animals go on foot! No, but the ones who honor a sadhu for walking are those who can no longer do something so natural. The car owner bows down to the man who goes on foot. He feels himself insignificant confronted by this man who walks everywhere, this man who destroys his car owning, car driving ego completely. You may drive a car, but you have to touch...
... the feet of this one who always goes on foot! This walking sadhu may not be able to buy a car, it is quite a difficult thing for him to obtain; but he can walk. There were two ways open to him to hit your ego. He can either buy a more expensive car than yours, which is out of the question for him, or he can walk, which is so easy. So he hits at your ego by walking. This way he keeps up his ego. But...
... the physical comforts of their sense organs. I call this man a self-denying person who liberates himself from attachment to his sense organs and has no interest in satisfying his ego. That is real renunciation; otherwise there is no meaning in all those exhibitionist activities. The Upanishads are talking about people who renounce both these things. Such people are absorbed neither in the worship of...
... manifest nature nor in that of ego. The Upanishads are talking about people who are interested in neither. Bear in mind, the worship of the sense organs is quite obvious, but that of ego is very subtle so it is often difficult to detect the worship of ego. When a person takes great interest in food, it is obvious. But what is the interest of a person who puts on fine clothes and goes out on a trip around...
... naked will bring the same self-satisfying pleasure derived from the mink coat, and far more easily - no need to earn a couple of thousand dollars. The worship of the sense organs is simple, not subtle, so it is visible and obvious, while that of ego goes on becoming subtler and subtler. But be sure about yourself. Don't worry about what another person does, or why he acts so. If a person is standing...
... the material means to be somebody. So it is almost impossible for a person like Mahavira to gratify his ego by standing naked. But we cannot judge even this action of Mahavira by outward appearances; it is best left to Mahavira to decide. If your neighbor is standing naked, you cannot know why he is standing naked. It should be left to him to find out. Let him seek the cause, because this is a very...
... subtle and deep phenomenon. We have to go outward if we wish to satisfy the demands of the sense organs. It is not necessary to go outward if we wish to satisfy our ego. It can be satisfied from within also. I have heard that a hermit was living alone in a very remote forest. He did not initiate anyone. A traveling monk passing by his dwelling, saw him and said, "You are very humble and modest...
... any kind of ego, so I do not nurture the ego of becoming a guru. I am absolutely egoless." The traveler said to him, "I have also seen another monk as egoless as you." On hearing this, the face of the monk changed and his smile immediately vanished. He saw a competitor in front of him and his ego began to make him uneasy. In the beginning he was pleased because his ego was not...
... challenged by the first monk about whom the traveler was talking. On the contrary, his ego was swelling with satisfaction. But the statement, "I have seen another monk as egoless as you," made him uneasy; he was upset. The mind becomes very unhappy on hearing, "Someone else like you also exists." That hermit was nurturing his ego even in that solitary place, feeding it on this feeling...
... that, "I live a secluded life and have not accepted anyone as my disciple." One feeds his ego with the feeling, "I have many disciples," while the other nourishes it through his pride in having none. One says, "No one is greater than I," and the other says, "I am a poor, humble person, only as good as the dust under your feet." What he means is, "There is...
... no greater dust than me! Do not talk of dust superior to me - I am the last and the best!" It makes no difference which way you choose to feed the ego. But to understand these workings of the mind, you will have to enter deep within yourself. So, declares the sage, he alone enters light who liberates himself from both kinds of worship - of the senses and of the ego. He has to liberate himself...
... from the worship of manifest nature as well as from that of subtle ego. The Upanishads speak on a very deep matter when they say that the worship of the senses does not lead you into deep darkness, because the ultimate fact is that the sense organs are given to you. They are nature, you have not created them. But ego is your invention, ego is a manufactured thing. You brought your sense organs with...
... your needs. Remove the unnecessary; remove the nonessential. Sense organs, then, accompany you to the end of your life; your life runs on the wheels of the sense organs. But ego is not an essential thing. It is our creation, and we can without doubt live without it - egoless. Ego leads us into greater darkness because it is created by man. It is absolutely nonessential. There is something necessary...
... in sense organs to which we add something nonessential, and that is our trouble. Sense organs lead us into darkness due to the effect of the nonessential part, while ego is totally nonessential so it leads us into greater darkness. The truth is that the less the ego the deeper one lives; the bigger the ego the more petty and superficial life one lives, because ego does not allow one to go deep...
... within. It keeps you on the surface. Why? This also needs to be understood properly. The simple fact is that ego gets its pleasure from the eyes of others. If you are left alone in a forest, your ego will lose all its pleasure. Then to put on a diamond necklace will be meaningless: and if you do put it on, the animals will laugh at you! Even if it is of diamonds you will feel it as a burden around your...
... neck which you will gladly remove. What can you do to your ego in a jungle? No, the total interest of ego is in the reflections created in the eyes of others and, like all reflections, they happen on the surface. These reflections surround us on all sides. Ego is like ornate fencing round a building. It may be enjoyable, it may be beautiful, but it is created by the eyes of others. Ego can never be...
... created without the presence of the other - it depends on the other. That is why we always remain afraid of the other, because the satisfaction of our ego is in the hands of the other and he may withdraw his hands at any time. Suppose A greets B this morning, and does not do so the next morning. B's wall of ego falls down, his ego is hurt. His mind becomes agitated and he is preoccupied with what he...
... in outer coverings and garments. He alone can enter the depths of life who enters the soul, and he alone can enter the soul who forgets ego. He has to forget the eyes of others and begin to walk within his own eyes. Let him see himself. He has to cease worrying about how others look at him. Let him give up thinking about the opinions others have of him and what they say about him. He has to bear in...
... me. God will see me for what I am, so let me worry about myself." In fact, ego is always worrying what others say about you. It is so anxious about the evaluations of others. And soul is the experience of 'what I am'. It has no concern with what others say. Others may be wrong or they may be right - that is their business. To give up the worship of sense organs is to stop at the point of...
... necessity, and to give up the worship of ego is to come to the zero point. If these two conditions are fulfilled, then the individual is sitting near neither the sense organs nor the ego. He sits near the soul - the atman. Then a new sitting- near starts - sitting near God. Really it is not correct to speak of being near God, because to be near God means to be one with God. Then we lose our identity. We...
... cannot be 'the other' with God. As long as we are absorbed in the worship of these two - sense organs and ego - we are far away from God. Nothing else at all is to be done to be near him, to be one with him. No sooner do you give up these two religions than you are one with him. It is like this: if a person, before taking a jump, asks, "I am about to jump to the ground, but what should I do to...
... reach the ground?" then we will tell him, "You simply jump! The rest will be done by the ground - you don't have to do anything else." It will be enough if a person takes a jump from the roof of sense organs and ego; the rest will be done by God. Then you are not going near him; you are going in him. His gravitational pull is very powerful. In our country we have named Krishna the...
... and the ego. Such a person enters light. Enough for today. Generated by PreciseInfo ™ ...
... become empty and then the unknown enters. You are empty, and the
unknown has entered. There is not a single moment's gap. The emptiness
and the unknown are one. In the beginning it appears to you as
emptiness; that is only appearance, because you have always been filled
by the ego. Really, you are feeling the absence of the ego; that's why you feel empty. First the ego disappears - but the feeling that...
... the ego is no more creates the feeling of emptiness. Just the absence... something was there, and now it is not there. The ego has gone, but the absence of the ego is felt. First the ego will disappear, and then the absence of the ego will disappear. Only then will you be really empty. And to be really empty is to be really filled. That inner space which is created by the absence of the ego is the...
... divine. The divine is not to come from somewhere else; you are already that. Because you are filled with the ego you cannot realize it, you cannot see it, you cannot touch it. A filmy barrier of the ego prevents you. When the ego has dropped, the barrier has dropped. The curtain is no more there. Nothing is to come; whatsoever is to come is already there. Remember this: that nothing new is going to...
... love it. It is ecstatic. It is the most beautiful experience possible to mind, to man, to consciousness. You will not ask how to live with emptiness. You are asking that as if emptiness is something like a misery. It appears so to the ego. The ego is always afraid of emptiness, so you ask how to live with it as if it is some enemy. Emptiness is your innermost center. All the activity is on the...
... ask to fill it you will create more and more ego - ego is the effort to fill the emptiness. And even this desire that now something must descend upon you - a god, a divinity, a divine power, some unknown energy - this is again a thought. Whatsoever you can think about God is not going to be God; it is simply going to be a thought. When you say the unknown, you have made it the known. What do you...
... MAN'S MIND, OF MAN'S UNCONSCIOUS INTO SUPERCONSCIOUS, AND YOU HAVE SAID THAT SPIRITUALITY IS AN EXISTENTIAL EXPERIMENTATION. BUT LAST NIGHT YOU SAID THAT THE EGO IS A FALSE ENTITY AND IT HAS NO SUBSTANCE AND REALITY TO IT. THEN DOES IT MEAN THAT THE WHOLE SPIRITUAL EXPERIMENTATION IS AN EXISTENTIAL TRANSFORMATION OF THE EGO WHICH IS NON-EXISTENTIAL? No. The spiritual transformation is not the...
... transformation of the ego; it is the dissolution of it. You are not going to transform the ego, because howsoever transformed, the ego will remain the ego. It may become superior, more refined, more cultured, but the ego will remain the ego. And more cultured; it becomes more poisonous. The more subtle, the more you will be in its grip, because you will not be able to be aware of it. You are not even aware of...
... such a gross ego. When it becomes subtle you will not be aware of it; there will be no possibility. There are ways to refine the ego, but those ways are not of spirituality. Morality exists on those methods. And that is the difference between morality and religion. Morality exists on methods of refining the ego; morality exists on respectability. So we say to a person, 'Don't do this. If you do this...
..., your respect is at stake. Don't do this. What will others think about you? Don't do this. You will not be honored. Do this and everyone will honor you.' The whole morality depends on your ego, a subtle ego. Religion is not a transformation of the ego, it is a transcendence. You simply leave the ego. And it is not that you leave it because it is wrong. Remember this distinction. Morality always says...
..., 'Leave that which is wrong, and do that which is right,' Religion says, 'Leave that which is false - not wrong, but false. Leave that which is unreal, and enter the real.' With spirituality, truth is the value, not right. Because right may itself be false, and in a false world we need false rights to oppose wrongs. Spirituality is not a transformation of the ego, it is a transcendence. You go beyond...
... the ego. And this going beyond is really an awakening; it is a deep alertness to see whether the ego exists or not. If it exists, if it is a part, a real part of your being, you cannot go beyond it. If it is false, only then is transcendence possible. You can awaken out of a dream. You cannot awaken out of reality, or can you? You can transcend a dream, but you cannot transcend reality. The ego is a...
... false entity. And what do we mean when we say that the ego is a false entity? We mean that it exists only because you have not encountered it. If you encounter it, it will not exist. It exists in your ignorance; because you are not aware, it is there. If you become aware, it will not be there. If you become aware and some entity disappears just by your becoming aware, it means it was false. The real...
... will be revealed in awareness and the false will disappear. So really this too is not right to say - leave your ego - because whenever it is said to leave your ego, it gives a sense that the ego is something and you can leave it. You can even start struggling to throw this ego. The whole effort will be absurd. You cannot throw it, because only a reality can be thrown. You cannot fight with it. How...
... powerful, but because the shadow is not. You are fighting with your own self, wasting your energy. Then you will be exhausted and you will fall down. And you will think that the shadow has won and you are defeated - and the shadow has not been there at all. If you fight with the ego you will be defeated. Rather, enter and try to find out where it is. It is said that the Emperor of China asked Bodhidharma...
... written in his autobiography, 'This man is miraculous, magical. Not doing anything he silenced my mind. And I also didn't do anything. I just entered myself and tried to find where it is. Of course he was right: first locate it, where it is. And just the effort to locate it, and it was not found there.' You will not find the ego. If you go in, if you search for it, you will not find it there. It has...
... never existed. It is just a false substitute. It has some utility, that's why you have invented it. Because you don't know your real being, the real center, and without a center it is difficult to function, you have created a fiction, a fictitious center, and you function through it. The real center is hidden. You have created a false center - the ego is a false center, a substitute center. Without a...
... mind is giving you substitutes just to protect your sanity; otherwise you will be scattered in fragments. Unless the real center is known, the ego has to function. Once the real center is known, there is no need to dream about water. When you have got the real water you can drink it. There is no need to dream about it. Meditation brings you to the real center. And with that very happening, the...
... utility for the false disappears. But this must be kept in consciousness - that the ego is not your real center. Only then can you start a search for the real. And spirituality is not a transformation of it. It cannot be transformed. It is unreal, it is simply not. You cannot do anything with it. If you are aware, alert, if you watch it within yourself, it disappears. Just the flame of your awareness...
... and it is not there. Spirituality is a transcendence. Question 3: IF THE EGO IS UNREAL, THEN DOES IT NOT MEAN THAT THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND, THE ACCUMULATION OF MEMORIES IN THE BRAIN CELLS, AND THE PROCESS OF TRANSFORMATION THAT IS THE SUBJECT MATTER OF SPIRITUALITY, IS ALSO UNREAL, A DREAM PROCESS? No. Ego is unreal; brain cells are not unreal. Ego is unreal; memories are not unreal. Ego is unreal...
...; thought process is not unreal. Thought process is a reality. Memories are real, brain cells are real, your body is real. Your body is real, your soul is real. These are two realities. But when your soul gets identified with the body, the ego is formed - that is unreality. It is just like this. I am standing before a mirror: I am real, the mirror is real, but the reflection in the mirror is not real. I...
... am real, the mirror is also real, but the reflection in the mirror is a reflection, it is not a reality. Brain cells are real, consciousness is real, but when consciousness gets involved, attached, identified with the brain cells, the ego is formed. That ego is unreal. So when you have awakened, when you have become enlightened, your memory is not going to disappear. The memory will be there...
.... Really, it will be more crystal-clear. Then it will function more accurately because there will be no disturbance from the false ego. Your thought process will not disappear. Rather, for the first time you will be capable of thinking. Before that you were simply borrowing things. Then you will really be able to think. But then you, not the thought process, will be the master. Before, the thought...
... remembers. He has memory, his brain cells function beautifully. But Buddha has said, 'I walk, but no one walks in me. I talk, but no one talks in me. I eat, but no one eats in me.' The inner consciousness is no more the ego. So when Buddha feels hungry, he cannot feel like you. You feel, 'I am hungry.' When Buddha feels hungry, he feels, 'The body is hungry. I am just the knower.' And that knower is...
... without any feeling of I. The ego is the false entity, the only false entity - everything else is real. Two realities can meet, and in their meeting, a third epi-phenomenon can be created. When two realities meet, something false can happen. But the false can happen only if there is consciousness. If there is no consciousness, the false cannot happen. Oxygen and hydrogen meet: a false water cannot...
.... Those bacteria can live eternally - because there is no birth, so there is no death. And the reverse process also happens. If food is not available, two bacteria will come nearer and nearer and they will become one, their bodies will become one. No birth, no death. With sex entered birth; with birth entered death; with birth entered individuality; with individuality entered ego. Every growth has its...
... AN EGO-TRIP, BUT IS AN AUTHENTIC RELIGIOUS SEARCH? If you don't know, if you are confused, then know well that this is an ego-trip. If you are not confused, if you know well that this is authentic, if there is no confusion at all, then it is authentic. And it is not a question of deceiving someone else. It is a question of deceiving or not deceiving oneself. If you are confused, in doubt, it is an...
... ego-trip, because the moment the authentic search is there, there is no doubt. Faith happens. Let me put it in some other way. Whenever you phrase such problems, the very confusion exactly shows that you are on the wrong path. Someone comes to me and he says, 'Tell me. I don't know whether my meditation is going deep or not.' So I say, 'If it is going deep, there is no need to come and ask me. The...
... depth is such an experience, you will know it. And if you cannot know your depth, who is going to know about it? You have come to ask me only because you are not feeling the depth. Now you want someone else to certify you. If I say, "Yes, your meditation is going very deep," you will feel very good - this is an ego-trip.' When you are ill, you know that you are ill. It may sometimes happen...
... your health, who is going to feel it? For your ill-health there may be experts to tell you what type of disease you have; there is no expert to tell you about your health. There is no need. But if you ask whether you are healthy or nor, you are unhealthy; that much is certain. This very confusion shows it. So when you are on a spiritual search, you can know whether it is an ego-trip or an authentic...
... search. And the very confusion shows that this is not an authentic search; this is a sort of ego-trip. What is the ego-trip? You are less concerned with the real phenomenon; you are more concerned with possessing it. People come to me and they say, 1You know, and you can know about us. Tell us whether our kundalini has arisen or not.' They are not concerned with kundalini, not concerned really; they...
... again sad. He is not really concerned with any awakening; he is simply concerned with feeling good: now his kundalini has awakened, now he can feel superior to others. And this is how many so-called gurus go on exploiting, because you are for your ego. They can give you certificates, they can tell you, 'Yes, you are already awakened. You have become a Buddha.' And you are not going to deny. If I say...
... this to ten persons, out of ten, nine are not going to deny it. They will just feel happy. They were in search of such a guru who would say that they are awakened. False gurus exist because of your need, because no authentic guru is going to say this to you, or give you any certificate - because any certificate is a demand from the ego. No certificate is needed. If you are experiencing it, you are...
... experiencing it. If the whole world denies it, let them deny. It makes no difference. If the real experience is there, what does it matter who says that you have achieved and who says you have not achieved? It is irrelevant. But it is not irrelevant, because your basic search is the ego. You want to believe that you have achieved all. And this happens many times: when you become a failure in the world, when...
... interested. But there are false teachers who will say, 'Yes, this is the method.' And you will feel very happy. An ego-trip means that you are not interested in really transforming yourself; you are only interested in claiming. And the claim is easy, you can purchase it cheaply. And it is a mutual thing. When a guru, a so-called guru, says that you are an awakened man, of course he has made you awakened...
... there because whenever you start changing your pattern, all that is old has to be dropped. And all your investments are in the old. You will have to suffer. When you start looking inwards for your ego and you don't find it, what will happen to your image that you have lived with? You have always thought you were a very good man, moral, this and that - what will happen to that? When you find that you...
... are nowhere to be found, where is that good man? Your ego implies all that you have thought about yourself. Everything is implied in it. It is not something that you can throw easily. It is you, your whole past. When you drop it you become like a zero, as if you never existed before. For the first time you are born; no experience, no knowledge, no past - just like an innocent child. Daring is needed...
..., courage is needed. Authentic search is arduous. Ego-trip is very easy. And it can be fulfilled very easily, because nothing is really fulfilled. You start believing; you start believing that something has happened to you. You are simply wasting time and energy and life. So if you are really with a master, he will constantly pull you back from your trip. He will have to watch that you don't become mad...
.... And disciples almost always go against their masters, because they are on their ego-trips and the master is trying to bring them out of that. And these disciples create false masters. They have a need, such a great need, that anyone who fulfills their need will become their master. And it is easy to help your ego grow, because you are for it. It is very difficult to help your ego to disappear...
.... Remember well, and check every day and every moment that your search is not an ego-trip. Go on checking it. It is subtle, and the ways of the ego are very very very cunning. They are not on the surface. The ego manipulates you from within; deep down from the unconscious. But if you are alert, the ego cannot deceive you. If you are alert, you will come to know its language, you will come to know its...
... feeling, because it is always going after experience. This is the key word. The ego is always looking for the experience - sexual or spiritual, it makes no difference. The ego is greedy to experience this and to experience that: to experience kundalini and to experience the seventh body. The ego is always after experiences. The real search is not a greed for any experience, because any experience is...
... going to frustrate you, is bound to frustrate you - because any experience is going to be repetitive. Then you will get fed up with it; then you will again demand some new experience. The search for the new will remain with the ego. You will meditate, and if you are only meditating just to get a new thrill, because your life has become boring - you are fed up with your ordinary routine life, so you...
... want to get some thrill.... You may get it, because man gets whatsoever he tries to find. That is the misery - whatsoever you desire, you will find. And then you will repent. You will get the thrill. Then what? Then you get fed up with it also. Then you want to take LSD or something else. Then you go on moving from this master to that, from this ashram to that, just in search of a new thrill. The ego...
... will stop meditating. If nothing is going to happen there, what is the use? - that shows you are on an ego-trip. If I say nothing happens there, and you will say, 'Okay, I have known many happenings and I have known many experiences, and every experience proved to be frustrating....' You pass through it and then you know it was nothing. And then an urge to repeat, and then repetition also becomes a...
... for the ego to arise. Generated by PreciseInfo ™ ...
... the ego is no more creates the feeling of emptiness. Just the absence... something was there, and now it is not there. The ego has gone, but the absence of the ego is felt. First the ego will disappear, and then the absence of the ego will disappear. Only then will you be really empty. And to be really empty is to be really filled. That inner space which is created by the absence of the ego is the...
... divine. The divine is not to come from somewhere else; you are already that. Because you are filled with the ego you cannot realize it, you cannot see it, you cannot touch it. A filmy barrier of the ego prevents you. When the ego has dropped, the barrier has dropped. The curtain is no more there. Nothing is to come; whatsoever is to come is already there. Remember this: that nothing new is going to...
... love it. It is ecstatic. It is the most beautiful experience possible to mind, to man, to consciousness. You will not ask how to live with emptiness. You are asking that as if emptiness is something like a misery. It appears so to the ego. The ego is always afraid of emptiness, so you ask how to live with it as if it is some enemy. Emptiness is your innermost center. All the activity is on the...
... ask to fill it you will create more and more ego - ego is the effort to fill the emptiness. And even this desire that now something must descend upon you - a god, a divinity, a divine power, some unknown energy - this is again a thought. Whatsoever you can think about God is not going to be God; it is simply going to be a thought. When you say the unknown, you have made it the known. What do you...
... MAN'S MIND, OF MAN'S UNCONSCIOUS INTO SUPERCONSCIOUS, AND YOU HAVE SAID THAT SPIRITUALITY IS AN EXISTENTIAL EXPERIMENTATION. BUT LAST NIGHT YOU SAID THAT THE EGO IS A FALSE ENTITY AND IT HAS NO SUBSTANCE AND REALITY TO IT. THEN DOES IT MEAN THAT THE WHOLE SPIRITUAL EXPERIMENTATION IS AN EXISTENTIAL TRANSFORMATION OF THE EGO WHICH IS NON-EXISTENTIAL? No. The spiritual transformation is not the...
... transformation of the ego; it is the dissolution of it. You are not going to transform the ego, because howsoever transformed, the ego will remain the ego. It may become superior, more refined, more cultured, but the ego will remain the ego. And more cultured; it becomes more poisonous. The more subtle, the more you will be in its grip, because you will not be able to be aware of it. You are not even aware of...
... such a gross ego. When it becomes subtle you will not be aware of it; there will be no possibility. There are ways to refine the ego, but those ways are not of spirituality. Morality exists on those methods. And that is the difference between morality and religion. Morality exists on methods of refining the ego; morality exists on respectability. So we say to a person, 'Don't do this. If you do this...
..., your respect is at stake. Don't do this. What will others think about you? Don't do this. You will not be honored. Do this and everyone will honor you.' The whole morality depends on your ego, a subtle ego. Religion is not a transformation of the ego, it is a transcendence. You simply leave the ego. And it is not that you leave it because it is wrong. Remember this distinction. Morality always says...
..., 'Leave that which is wrong, and do that which is right,' Religion says, 'Leave that which is false - not wrong, but false. Leave that which is unreal, and enter the real.' With spirituality, truth is the value, not right. Because right may itself be false, and in a false world we need false rights to oppose wrongs. Spirituality is not a transformation of the ego, it is a transcendence. You go beyond...
... the ego. And this going beyond is really an awakening; it is a deep alertness to see whether the ego exists or not. If it exists, if it is a part, a real part of your being, you cannot go beyond it. If it is false, only then is transcendence possible. You can awaken out of a dream. You cannot awaken out of reality, or can you? You can transcend a dream, but you cannot transcend reality. The ego is a...
... false entity. And what do we mean when we say that the ego is a false entity? We mean that it exists only because you have not encountered it. If you encounter it, it will not exist. It exists in your ignorance; because you are not aware, it is there. If you become aware, it will not be there. If you become aware and some entity disappears just by your becoming aware, it means it was false. The real...
... will be revealed in awareness and the false will disappear. So really this too is not right to say - leave your ego - because whenever it is said to leave your ego, it gives a sense that the ego is something and you can leave it. You can even start struggling to throw this ego. The whole effort will be absurd. You cannot throw it, because only a reality can be thrown. You cannot fight with it. How...
... powerful, but because the shadow is not. You are fighting with your own self, wasting your energy. Then you will be exhausted and you will fall down. And you will think that the shadow has won and you are defeated - and the shadow has not been there at all. If you fight with the ego you will be defeated. Rather, enter and try to find out where it is. It is said that the Emperor of China asked Bodhidharma...
... written in his autobiography, 'This man is miraculous, magical. Not doing anything he silenced my mind. And I also didn't do anything. I just entered myself and tried to find where it is. Of course he was right: first locate it, where it is. And just the effort to locate it, and it was not found there.' You will not find the ego. If you go in, if you search for it, you will not find it there. It has...
... never existed. It is just a false substitute. It has some utility, that's why you have invented it. Because you don't know your real being, the real center, and without a center it is difficult to function, you have created a fiction, a fictitious center, and you function through it. The real center is hidden. You have created a false center - the ego is a false center, a substitute center. Without a...
... mind is giving you substitutes just to protect your sanity; otherwise you will be scattered in fragments. Unless the real center is known, the ego has to function. Once the real center is known, there is no need to dream about water. When you have got the real water you can drink it. There is no need to dream about it. Meditation brings you to the real center. And with that very happening, the...
... utility for the false disappears. But this must be kept in consciousness - that the ego is not your real center. Only then can you start a search for the real. And spirituality is not a transformation of it. It cannot be transformed. It is unreal, it is simply not. You cannot do anything with it. If you are aware, alert, if you watch it within yourself, it disappears. Just the flame of your awareness...
... and it is not there. Spirituality is a transcendence. Question 3: IF THE EGO IS UNREAL, THEN DOES IT NOT MEAN THAT THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND, THE ACCUMULATION OF MEMORIES IN THE BRAIN CELLS, AND THE PROCESS OF TRANSFORMATION THAT IS THE SUBJECT MATTER OF SPIRITUALITY, IS ALSO UNREAL, A DREAM PROCESS? No. Ego is unreal; brain cells are not unreal. Ego is unreal; memories are not unreal. Ego is unreal...
...; thought process is not unreal. Thought process is a reality. Memories are real, brain cells are real, your body is real. Your body is real, your soul is real. These are two realities. But when your soul gets identified with the body, the ego is formed - that is unreality. It is just like this. I am standing before a mirror: I am real, the mirror is real, but the reflection in the mirror is not real. I...
... am real, the mirror is also real, but the reflection in the mirror is a reflection, it is not a reality. Brain cells are real, consciousness is real, but when consciousness gets involved, attached, identified with the brain cells, the ego is formed. That ego is unreal. So when you have awakened, when you have become enlightened, your memory is not going to disappear. The memory will be there...
.... Really, it will be more crystal-clear. Then it will function more accurately because there will be no disturbance from the false ego. Your thought process will not disappear. Rather, for the first time you will be capable of thinking. Before that you were simply borrowing things. Then you will really be able to think. But then you, not the thought process, will be the master. Before, the thought...
... remembers. He has memory, his brain cells function beautifully. But Buddha has said, 'I walk, but no one walks in me. I talk, but no one talks in me. I eat, but no one eats in me.' The inner consciousness is no more the ego. So when Buddha feels hungry, he cannot feel like you. You feel, 'I am hungry.' When Buddha feels hungry, he feels, 'The body is hungry. I am just the knower.' And that knower is...
... without any feeling of I. The ego is the false entity, the only false entity - everything else is real. Two realities can meet, and in their meeting, a third epi-phenomenon can be created. When two realities meet, something false can happen. But the false can happen only if there is consciousness. If there is no consciousness, the false cannot happen. Oxygen and hydrogen meet: a false water cannot...
.... Those bacteria can live eternally - because there is no birth, so there is no death. And the reverse process also happens. If food is not available, two bacteria will come nearer and nearer and they will become one, their bodies will become one. No birth, no death. With sex entered birth; with birth entered death; with birth entered individuality; with individuality entered ego. Every growth has its...
... AN EGO-TRIP, BUT IS AN AUTHENTIC RELIGIOUS SEARCH? If you don't know, if you are confused, then know well that this is an ego-trip. If you are not confused, if you know well that this is authentic, if there is no confusion at all, then it is authentic. And it is not a question of deceiving someone else. It is a question of deceiving or not deceiving oneself. If you are confused, in doubt, it is an...
... ego-trip, because the moment the authentic search is there, there is no doubt. Faith happens. Let me put it in some other way. Whenever you phrase such problems, the very confusion exactly shows that you are on the wrong path. Someone comes to me and he says, 'Tell me. I don't know whether my meditation is going deep or not.' So I say, 'If it is going deep, there is no need to come and ask me. The...
... depth is such an experience, you will know it. And if you cannot know your depth, who is going to know about it? You have come to ask me only because you are not feeling the depth. Now you want someone else to certify you. If I say, "Yes, your meditation is going very deep," you will feel very good - this is an ego-trip.' When you are ill, you know that you are ill. It may sometimes happen...
... your health, who is going to feel it? For your ill-health there may be experts to tell you what type of disease you have; there is no expert to tell you about your health. There is no need. But if you ask whether you are healthy or nor, you are unhealthy; that much is certain. This very confusion shows it. So when you are on a spiritual search, you can know whether it is an ego-trip or an authentic...
... search. And the very confusion shows that this is not an authentic search; this is a sort of ego-trip. What is the ego-trip? You are less concerned with the real phenomenon; you are more concerned with possessing it. People come to me and they say, 1You know, and you can know about us. Tell us whether our kundalini has arisen or not.' They are not concerned with kundalini, not concerned really; they...
... again sad. He is not really concerned with any awakening; he is simply concerned with feeling good: now his kundalini has awakened, now he can feel superior to others. And this is how many so-called gurus go on exploiting, because you are for your ego. They can give you certificates, they can tell you, 'Yes, you are already awakened. You have become a Buddha.' And you are not going to deny. If I say...
... this to ten persons, out of ten, nine are not going to deny it. They will just feel happy. They were in search of such a guru who would say that they are awakened. False gurus exist because of your need, because no authentic guru is going to say this to you, or give you any certificate - because any certificate is a demand from the ego. No certificate is needed. If you are experiencing it, you are...
... experiencing it. If the whole world denies it, let them deny. It makes no difference. If the real experience is there, what does it matter who says that you have achieved and who says you have not achieved? It is irrelevant. But it is not irrelevant, because your basic search is the ego. You want to believe that you have achieved all. And this happens many times: when you become a failure in the world, when...
... interested. But there are false teachers who will say, 'Yes, this is the method.' And you will feel very happy. An ego-trip means that you are not interested in really transforming yourself; you are only interested in claiming. And the claim is easy, you can purchase it cheaply. And it is a mutual thing. When a guru, a so-called guru, says that you are an awakened man, of course he has made you awakened...
... there because whenever you start changing your pattern, all that is old has to be dropped. And all your investments are in the old. You will have to suffer. When you start looking inwards for your ego and you don't find it, what will happen to your image that you have lived with? You have always thought you were a very good man, moral, this and that - what will happen to that? When you find that you...
... are nowhere to be found, where is that good man? Your ego implies all that you have thought about yourself. Everything is implied in it. It is not something that you can throw easily. It is you, your whole past. When you drop it you become like a zero, as if you never existed before. For the first time you are born; no experience, no knowledge, no past - just like an innocent child. Daring is needed...
..., courage is needed. Authentic search is arduous. Ego-trip is very easy. And it can be fulfilled very easily, because nothing is really fulfilled. You start believing; you start believing that something has happened to you. You are simply wasting time and energy and life. So if you are really with a master, he will constantly pull you back from your trip. He will have to watch that you don't become mad...
.... And disciples almost always go against their masters, because they are on their ego-trips and the master is trying to bring them out of that. And these disciples create false masters. They have a need, such a great need, that anyone who fulfills their need will become their master. And it is easy to help your ego grow, because you are for it. It is very difficult to help your ego to disappear...
.... Remember well, and check every day and every moment that your search is not an ego-trip. Go on checking it. It is subtle, and the ways of the ego are very very very cunning. They are not on the surface. The ego manipulates you from within; deep down from the unconscious. But if you are alert, the ego cannot deceive you. If you are alert, you will come to know its language, you will come to know its...
... feeling, because it is always going after experience. This is the key word. The ego is always looking for the experience - sexual or spiritual, it makes no difference. The ego is greedy to experience this and to experience that: to experience kundalini and to experience the seventh body. The ego is always after experiences. The real search is not a greed for any experience, because any experience is...
... going to frustrate you, is bound to frustrate you - because any experience is going to be repetitive. Then you will get fed up with it; then you will again demand some new experience. The search for the new will remain with the ego. You will meditate, and if you are only meditating just to get a new thrill, because your life has become boring - you are fed up with your ordinary routine life, so you...
... want to get some thrill.... You may get it, because man gets whatsoever he tries to find. That is the misery - whatsoever you desire, you will find. And then you will repent. You will get the thrill. Then what? Then you get fed up with it also. Then you want to take LSD or something else. Then you go on moving from this master to that, from this ashram to that, just in search of a new thrill. The ego...
... will stop meditating. If nothing is going to happen there, what is the use? - that shows you are on an ego-trip. If I say nothing happens there, and you will say, 'Okay, I have known many happenings and I have known many experiences, and every experience proved to be frustrating....' You pass through it and then you know it was nothing. And then an urge to repeat, and then repetition also becomes a...
... for the ego to arise. Generated by PreciseInfo ™ ...
...Dropping the Ego Now...
... Osho My Way The Way of the White Clouds: Dropping the Ego Now Main Books Headers Help Your browser does not support iframes. < Prev Osho My Way The Way of the White Clouds Next > Dropping the Ego Now From: Osho Date: Fri, 14 May 1974 00:00:00 GMT Book Title: My Way: The Way of the White Clouds Chapter #: 5 Location: am in Buddha Hall Archive Code: N.A. Short Title: N.A...
.... Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. Question 1: BELOVED OSHO, YOU SAID THE EGO CAN BE DROPPED THIS VERY MOMENT. CAN THE EGO ALSO BE DROPPED PROGRESSIVELY? The dropping always happens in the moment and always in THIS moment. There is no progressive, gradual process for it. There cannot be. The happening is instantaneous. You can't get ready for it, you can't prepare for it, because...
... whatsoever you do - and I say whatsoever - will strengthen the ego. Any gradual process will be an effort, something done on your part. So you will be strengthened more and more through it. You will become stronger. Everything gradual helps the ego. Only something absolutely non-gradual, something like a jump, not like a process, something discontinuous with the past, not in continuity with it - only then...
... the ego drops. The problem arises because we cannot understand what this ego is. The ego is the past, the continuity, all that you have done, all that you have accumulated, all the karmas, all the conditionings, all the desires, all the dreams of the past. That whole past is the ego. And if you think in terms of gradual process, you bring the past in. The dropping is non-gradual, sudden. It is a...
... discontinuity - the past is no more, the future is no more. You are left alone here and now. Then the ego cannot exist. The ego can exist only through the memory: who you are, from where you come, to whom you belong, the country, the race, the religion, the family, the tradition, and all the hurts, wounds, pleasures - all that has happened in the past. All that has happened is the ego. And you are that to...
... whom all this has happened. This distinction has to be understood: you are that to whom all has happened, and the ego is that which has happened. The ego is around you. You are in the center, egoless. A child is born absolutely fresh and young - no past, no ego. That's why children are so beautiful. They don't have any past. They are young and fresh. They cannot say I, because from where will they...
... bring the I? The I has to develop gradually. They will get educated, they will get awards, punishments, they will be appreciated, condemned - then the I will gather. A child is beautiful because the ego is not there. An old man becomes ugly, not because of old age, but because of too much past, too much of the ego. An old man can also become again beautiful, even more beautiful than a child, if he can...
... drop the ego. Then there is a second childhood, then a rebirth. This is the meaning of the resurrection of Jesus. It is not an historical fact, it is a parable. Jesus is crucified and then he resurrects. The man who was crucified is no more; that was the son of the carpenter, Jesus. Now Jesus is dead, crucified. A new entity arises out of that. Out of this death a new life is born. This is Christ...
... - not the son of a particular carpenter in Bethlehem, not a Jew, not even a man. This is Christ, something new, egoless. And the same will happen to you whenever your ego is on the cross. Whenever your ego is crucified, there is a resurrection, a rebirth. You are born again. And this childhood is eternal, because this is a rebirth of the spirit, not of the body. Now you will never become old. Always...
... and always you will be fresh and young - as fresh as the dew-drop in the morning, as fresh as the first star in the night. You will always remain fresh, young, a child, innocent - because this is a resurrection of the spirit. This always happens in a moment. Ego is time - the more time, the more ego. Ego needs time. If you penetrate deeply you may even be able to conceive that time exists only...
... because of the ego. Time is not part of the physical world around you, it is part of the psychic world within you, the mind-world. Time exists just as a space for the ego to evolve and to grow. Room is needed; time gives the room. If it is said to you that this is the last moment of your life, next moment you are going to be shot dead, suddenly time disappears. You feel very uneasy. You are still alive...
... who is sentenced, imprisoned, waiting for his death - he cannot do anything about it, death is fixed, after a certain period he will die, beyond that time, there is no tomorrow for him - now he cannot desire, he cannot think, he cannot project, he cannot even dream. The barrier is always there. Then much agony follows. That agony is for the ego, because ego cannot exist without time. Ego breathes in...
... time. Time is breath for the ego. The more time, the more possibility for the ego. In the East much has been worked out, much has been done to understand the ego, much probing has been done. And one of the findings is that unless time drops from you, ego will not drop. If tomorrow exists, the ego will exist. If there is no tomorrow, how can you pull on the ego? It will be just like pulling a boat...
... without the river. That will become a burden. A river is needed, then the boat can function. The river of time is needed for the ego. That's why the ego always thinks in terms of gradual, in terms of degrees. The ego says: Okay, enlightenment is possible - but time is needed, because you will have to work for it, prepare, get ready. And this is a very logical thing! For everything time is needed. If you...
.... Something that was already there, you realize it, that it is there. Something that you had never missed, simply forgotten, you remember it. That's why mystics go on using the word remembrance. They say the divine is not an achievement, it is simply a remembrance. Something you have forgotten, you remember. Really, no time is needed. But the mind says, the ego says, for everything time is needed, for...
... everything to grow time is needed. And if you become a victim of this logical thought, then you will never achieve it. Then you will go on postponing. You will say tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. And it will never come because tomorrow never comes. If you can understand what I am saying, that the ego can be dropped this very moment, and if it is true, then the question arises: Why is it not dropping...
... humbleness, is just a secret hiding-place for the ego and nothing else. Look at so-called humble people. They say they are humble and they will try to prove that they are the most humble in their town, in their city, in their locality - the most humble. And if you argue and if you say: No, somebody else is more humble than you, they will feel hurt. Who is feeling hurt? I was just reading about one...
... greatest sinner. You can enjoy it. Greatest sinner - then you become a peak. Virtue or sin is immaterial. You must be someone. Whatsoever the reason for it, your ego must be at the top. George Bernard Shaw is reported to have said, "I would rather be first in hell than second in heaven. Hell is not a bad place if you are the first and foremost. Even heaven will look dull if you are just standing...
... somewhere in a queue, a nobody." And Bernard Shaw is right. This is how the human mind functions. Nobody wants to drop the ego. Otherwise, there is no problem - you can simply drop it right now. And if you feel that time is needed, then time is needed only for your understanding that you are clinging to it. And the moment you can understand that it is your clinging, the thing will happen. You may...
... - without you everything will stop. If you are unoccupied, suddenly you become aware that without you the world goes on beautifully. Nothing is changing. You have been discarded. You are thrown on the junk pile. You are not needed. The moment you feel you are not needed, the ego becomes uneasy - because it exists only when you are needed. So, all around, the ego goes on forcing this attitude on everybody...
...: You are a must, you are needed, without you nothing can happen, without you the world will dissolve. Unoccupied, you come to realize that the game continues. You are not an essential part. You can be discarded easily. Nobody will bother about you. Nobody will think about you. Rather, they may even feel relieved. That shatters the ego. So people want occupation, something or other, but they have to...
... are saving the world from a third war; or because you are creating such vibrations, the world is reaching towards a utopia, a peaceful state of society. And you can enjoy this occupation there. Nobody is going to argue because you are alone. Nobody is going to dispute the fact that you are in illusion or a hallucinatory state. You can get really involved with it. The ego will assert itself again in...
... continue quite well without you. And there is no depression in it. It is good. So far, so good...the world can continue without you. This can become a freedom if you understand. If you don't understand, then you feel you are being shattered. So people continue to be occupied, and the ego gives them the greatest occupation possible. Twenty-four hours, the ego gives them occupation. They are thinking how...
... to become a member of parliament. They are thinking - how to become a deputy minister and a minister and a prime minister, and how to become a president. The ego goes on and on and on. It gives you a constant occupation - how to achieve more riches, how to create a kingdom. The ego gives you dreams, continuous inner occupation. And you feel much is going on. Unoccupied, suddenly you become aware of...
... anybody, you can murder. You can change as you like. You are the master there. The ego feels most vital while dreaming, because there is nobody who can antagonize you, who can say: No, this is wrong. You are whole and sole. Whatsoever you want, you create. Whatsoever you don't want, you destroy. You are absolutely powerful. You are omnipotent in your dreams. Dreams stop only when ego drops. So this is...
... the sign, really; in old yoga scriptures, this is the sign of a man who has become enlightened: he cannot dream. Dreaming stops because there is no need. It was an ego-need. You want to be occupied. That's why you cannot drop the ego. Unless you are ready to be empty, unoccupied, unless you are ready to be nobody, unless you are ready to enjoy and celebrate life even if you are not needed, ego...
... cannot be dropped. You have a need to be needed. Somebody must need you - then you feel good. If more and more people need you, you feel better and better. That's why leadership is so much enjoyed, because so many people need you. A leader can become very humble. There is no need to assert his ego. His ego is already so deeply fulfilled because so many people need him, so many people depend on him. He...
... - apparently, at least. They will not look egoistic, because, in a very subtle way, so many people depend on them - they have become significant, their life appears meaningful to them. If your ego is your meaning, if your ego is your significance, how can you drop it? Listening to me, you start thinking to drop it. But just by thinking you cannot drop the ego. You have to come to understand the roots - where...
... it is, where it exists, why it exists. These are the unconscious forces working within you without your knowledge. They have to be made conscious. You have to bring all the roots of your ego out of the soil and earth so you can look and see. If you can remain unoccupied, if you can remain satisfied without being needed, the ego can drop this very moment. But these ifs are big. Meditation will...
..., but time is involved because the water has to be heated up to boiling-point. Evaporation happens suddenly, but heating takes time. Understanding is just like heating. It takes time. Dropping of the ego happens like evaporation. It happens suddenly. So don't try to drop the ego. Rather, try to deepen your understanding. Don't try to make water change into vapor. Heat it. The second thing will follow...
... automatically, it will happen. Grow in understanding. Make it more intense, more focused. Bring all your energy to understand the phenomenon of your being, your ego, your mind, your unconscious. Become more and more alert. And whatsoever happens, make it a point to try to understand it also. Somebody insults you and you feel anger. Don't miss this opportunity; try to understand why, why this anger. And don't...
... process. A moment comes, a right moment, when the heating has come to the boiling-point. Suddenly the ego drops. You cannot drop it directly - you can prepare the situation in which it happens. That situation will take time. Two schools have always existed. One school is of sudden enlightenment which says enlightenment happens suddenly, it is non-temporal. Another school, just contradicting the first...
... constant showering, a constant sharing, a constant giving. But to achieve this, you are not required to be anti-sex. To achieve this, you have to accept sex as part of life, of natural life. Move with it - only move with more consciousness. Consciousness is the bridge, the golden bridge, from this world to the other, from hell to heaven, from the ego to the divine. Enough for today. Generated by...
... Osho My Way The Way of the White Clouds: Dropping the Ego Now Main Books Headers Help Your browser does not support iframes. < Prev Osho My Way The Way of the White Clouds Next > Dropping the Ego Now From: Osho Date: Fri, 14 May 1974 00:00:00 GMT Book Title: My Way: The Way of the White Clouds Chapter #: 5 Location: am in Buddha Hall Archive Code: N.A. Short Title: N.A...
.... Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. Question 1: BELOVED OSHO, YOU SAID THE EGO CAN BE DROPPED THIS VERY MOMENT. CAN THE EGO ALSO BE DROPPED PROGRESSIVELY? The dropping always happens in the moment and always in THIS moment. There is no progressive, gradual process for it. There cannot be. The happening is instantaneous. You can't get ready for it, you can't prepare for it, because...
... whatsoever you do - and I say whatsoever - will strengthen the ego. Any gradual process will be an effort, something done on your part. So you will be strengthened more and more through it. You will become stronger. Everything gradual helps the ego. Only something absolutely non-gradual, something like a jump, not like a process, something discontinuous with the past, not in continuity with it - only then...
... the ego drops. The problem arises because we cannot understand what this ego is. The ego is the past, the continuity, all that you have done, all that you have accumulated, all the karmas, all the conditionings, all the desires, all the dreams of the past. That whole past is the ego. And if you think in terms of gradual process, you bring the past in. The dropping is non-gradual, sudden. It is a...
... discontinuity - the past is no more, the future is no more. You are left alone here and now. Then the ego cannot exist. The ego can exist only through the memory: who you are, from where you come, to whom you belong, the country, the race, the religion, the family, the tradition, and all the hurts, wounds, pleasures - all that has happened in the past. All that has happened is the ego. And you are that to...
... whom all this has happened. This distinction has to be understood: you are that to whom all has happened, and the ego is that which has happened. The ego is around you. You are in the center, egoless. A child is born absolutely fresh and young - no past, no ego. That's why children are so beautiful. They don't have any past. They are young and fresh. They cannot say I, because from where will they...
... bring the I? The I has to develop gradually. They will get educated, they will get awards, punishments, they will be appreciated, condemned - then the I will gather. A child is beautiful because the ego is not there. An old man becomes ugly, not because of old age, but because of too much past, too much of the ego. An old man can also become again beautiful, even more beautiful than a child, if he can...
... drop the ego. Then there is a second childhood, then a rebirth. This is the meaning of the resurrection of Jesus. It is not an historical fact, it is a parable. Jesus is crucified and then he resurrects. The man who was crucified is no more; that was the son of the carpenter, Jesus. Now Jesus is dead, crucified. A new entity arises out of that. Out of this death a new life is born. This is Christ...
... - not the son of a particular carpenter in Bethlehem, not a Jew, not even a man. This is Christ, something new, egoless. And the same will happen to you whenever your ego is on the cross. Whenever your ego is crucified, there is a resurrection, a rebirth. You are born again. And this childhood is eternal, because this is a rebirth of the spirit, not of the body. Now you will never become old. Always...
... and always you will be fresh and young - as fresh as the dew-drop in the morning, as fresh as the first star in the night. You will always remain fresh, young, a child, innocent - because this is a resurrection of the spirit. This always happens in a moment. Ego is time - the more time, the more ego. Ego needs time. If you penetrate deeply you may even be able to conceive that time exists only...
... because of the ego. Time is not part of the physical world around you, it is part of the psychic world within you, the mind-world. Time exists just as a space for the ego to evolve and to grow. Room is needed; time gives the room. If it is said to you that this is the last moment of your life, next moment you are going to be shot dead, suddenly time disappears. You feel very uneasy. You are still alive...
... who is sentenced, imprisoned, waiting for his death - he cannot do anything about it, death is fixed, after a certain period he will die, beyond that time, there is no tomorrow for him - now he cannot desire, he cannot think, he cannot project, he cannot even dream. The barrier is always there. Then much agony follows. That agony is for the ego, because ego cannot exist without time. Ego breathes in...
... time. Time is breath for the ego. The more time, the more possibility for the ego. In the East much has been worked out, much has been done to understand the ego, much probing has been done. And one of the findings is that unless time drops from you, ego will not drop. If tomorrow exists, the ego will exist. If there is no tomorrow, how can you pull on the ego? It will be just like pulling a boat...
... without the river. That will become a burden. A river is needed, then the boat can function. The river of time is needed for the ego. That's why the ego always thinks in terms of gradual, in terms of degrees. The ego says: Okay, enlightenment is possible - but time is needed, because you will have to work for it, prepare, get ready. And this is a very logical thing! For everything time is needed. If you...
.... Something that was already there, you realize it, that it is there. Something that you had never missed, simply forgotten, you remember it. That's why mystics go on using the word remembrance. They say the divine is not an achievement, it is simply a remembrance. Something you have forgotten, you remember. Really, no time is needed. But the mind says, the ego says, for everything time is needed, for...
... everything to grow time is needed. And if you become a victim of this logical thought, then you will never achieve it. Then you will go on postponing. You will say tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. And it will never come because tomorrow never comes. If you can understand what I am saying, that the ego can be dropped this very moment, and if it is true, then the question arises: Why is it not dropping...
... humbleness, is just a secret hiding-place for the ego and nothing else. Look at so-called humble people. They say they are humble and they will try to prove that they are the most humble in their town, in their city, in their locality - the most humble. And if you argue and if you say: No, somebody else is more humble than you, they will feel hurt. Who is feeling hurt? I was just reading about one...
... greatest sinner. You can enjoy it. Greatest sinner - then you become a peak. Virtue or sin is immaterial. You must be someone. Whatsoever the reason for it, your ego must be at the top. George Bernard Shaw is reported to have said, "I would rather be first in hell than second in heaven. Hell is not a bad place if you are the first and foremost. Even heaven will look dull if you are just standing...
... somewhere in a queue, a nobody." And Bernard Shaw is right. This is how the human mind functions. Nobody wants to drop the ego. Otherwise, there is no problem - you can simply drop it right now. And if you feel that time is needed, then time is needed only for your understanding that you are clinging to it. And the moment you can understand that it is your clinging, the thing will happen. You may...
... - without you everything will stop. If you are unoccupied, suddenly you become aware that without you the world goes on beautifully. Nothing is changing. You have been discarded. You are thrown on the junk pile. You are not needed. The moment you feel you are not needed, the ego becomes uneasy - because it exists only when you are needed. So, all around, the ego goes on forcing this attitude on everybody...
...: You are a must, you are needed, without you nothing can happen, without you the world will dissolve. Unoccupied, you come to realize that the game continues. You are not an essential part. You can be discarded easily. Nobody will bother about you. Nobody will think about you. Rather, they may even feel relieved. That shatters the ego. So people want occupation, something or other, but they have to...
... are saving the world from a third war; or because you are creating such vibrations, the world is reaching towards a utopia, a peaceful state of society. And you can enjoy this occupation there. Nobody is going to argue because you are alone. Nobody is going to dispute the fact that you are in illusion or a hallucinatory state. You can get really involved with it. The ego will assert itself again in...
... continue quite well without you. And there is no depression in it. It is good. So far, so good...the world can continue without you. This can become a freedom if you understand. If you don't understand, then you feel you are being shattered. So people continue to be occupied, and the ego gives them the greatest occupation possible. Twenty-four hours, the ego gives them occupation. They are thinking how...
... to become a member of parliament. They are thinking - how to become a deputy minister and a minister and a prime minister, and how to become a president. The ego goes on and on and on. It gives you a constant occupation - how to achieve more riches, how to create a kingdom. The ego gives you dreams, continuous inner occupation. And you feel much is going on. Unoccupied, suddenly you become aware of...
... anybody, you can murder. You can change as you like. You are the master there. The ego feels most vital while dreaming, because there is nobody who can antagonize you, who can say: No, this is wrong. You are whole and sole. Whatsoever you want, you create. Whatsoever you don't want, you destroy. You are absolutely powerful. You are omnipotent in your dreams. Dreams stop only when ego drops. So this is...
... the sign, really; in old yoga scriptures, this is the sign of a man who has become enlightened: he cannot dream. Dreaming stops because there is no need. It was an ego-need. You want to be occupied. That's why you cannot drop the ego. Unless you are ready to be empty, unoccupied, unless you are ready to be nobody, unless you are ready to enjoy and celebrate life even if you are not needed, ego...
... cannot be dropped. You have a need to be needed. Somebody must need you - then you feel good. If more and more people need you, you feel better and better. That's why leadership is so much enjoyed, because so many people need you. A leader can become very humble. There is no need to assert his ego. His ego is already so deeply fulfilled because so many people need him, so many people depend on him. He...
... - apparently, at least. They will not look egoistic, because, in a very subtle way, so many people depend on them - they have become significant, their life appears meaningful to them. If your ego is your meaning, if your ego is your significance, how can you drop it? Listening to me, you start thinking to drop it. But just by thinking you cannot drop the ego. You have to come to understand the roots - where...
... it is, where it exists, why it exists. These are the unconscious forces working within you without your knowledge. They have to be made conscious. You have to bring all the roots of your ego out of the soil and earth so you can look and see. If you can remain unoccupied, if you can remain satisfied without being needed, the ego can drop this very moment. But these ifs are big. Meditation will...
..., but time is involved because the water has to be heated up to boiling-point. Evaporation happens suddenly, but heating takes time. Understanding is just like heating. It takes time. Dropping of the ego happens like evaporation. It happens suddenly. So don't try to drop the ego. Rather, try to deepen your understanding. Don't try to make water change into vapor. Heat it. The second thing will follow...
... automatically, it will happen. Grow in understanding. Make it more intense, more focused. Bring all your energy to understand the phenomenon of your being, your ego, your mind, your unconscious. Become more and more alert. And whatsoever happens, make it a point to try to understand it also. Somebody insults you and you feel anger. Don't miss this opportunity; try to understand why, why this anger. And don't...
... process. A moment comes, a right moment, when the heating has come to the boiling-point. Suddenly the ego drops. You cannot drop it directly - you can prepare the situation in which it happens. That situation will take time. Two schools have always existed. One school is of sudden enlightenment which says enlightenment happens suddenly, it is non-temporal. Another school, just contradicting the first...
... constant showering, a constant sharing, a constant giving. But to achieve this, you are not required to be anti-sex. To achieve this, you have to accept sex as part of life, of natural life. Move with it - only move with more consciousness. Consciousness is the bridge, the golden bridge, from this world to the other, from hell to heaven, from the ego to the divine. Enough for today. Generated by...
... SLIGHT SULLEN EXPRESSION OF ANGER BEGAN TO SHOW ON HIS FACE. THE
ZEN MASTER THEN SMILED AND SAID: YOUR EXCELLENCY, THIS IS EGOTISM. Ego is the basic problem, the most basic. And unless you solve it, nothing is solved. Unless ego disappears, the Ultimate cannot penetrate you. The ego is like a closed door. The guest is standing outside. The guest has been knocking, but the door is closed. Not only is...
..., 'numskull', and a sullen expression and a slight anger started to show on his face. Now the situation is real. A Master is there, without any ego; and the Prime Minister is there - now the ego is showing up, now the real has surfaced. THE ZEN MASTER THEN SMILED AND SAID: YOUR EXCELLENCY THIS IS EGOTISM. And it has nothing to do with Buddhism. It has something to do with you. The Master was really skillful...
...How Does Buddhism Explain Egotism...
... Osho Returning to the Source: How Does Buddhism Explain Egotism Main Books Headers Help Your browser does not support iframes. < Prev Osho Returning to the Source Next > How Does Buddhism Explain Egotism From: Osho Date: Fri, 15 December 1974 00:00:00 GMT Book Title: Returning to the Source Chapter #: 5 Location: am in Buddha Hall Archive Code: N.A. Short Title: N.A...
... DAY, HOWEVER, WHEN HE WAS PAYING HIS USUAL VISIT TO THE ZEN MASTER, HE ASKED THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: YOUR REVERENCE, HOW DOES BUDDHISM EXPLAIN EGOTISM? THE ZEN MASTER'S FACE SUDDENLY TURNED BLUE, AND IN AN EXTREMELY HAUGHTY AND CONTEMPTUOUS MANNER HE SAID TO THE PREMIER: WHAT ARE YOU SAYING YOU NUMSKULL? THIS UNREASONABLE AND UNEXPECTED DEFIANCE SO HURT THE FEELINGS OF THE PRIME MINISTER THAT A...
... the door closed, but the ego goes on interpreting. It says: There is nobody outside, no guest has come, nobody has knocked, just a strong wind is knocking at the door. It goes on interpreting from the inside. without looking at the fact. And the door remains closed. By interpretations, even the possibility of its opening becomes less and less. And a moment comes when you are completely closed in...
... your own ego. Then all sensitivity is lost. Then you are not an opening, and you cannot have a meeting with existence. Then you are almost dead. The ego becomes your grave. This is the most basic problem. If you solve it, everything is solved. There is no need to seek God. There is no need to seek Truth. If the ego is not there, suddenly everything is found. If the ego is not there you simply come to...
... know that Truth has always been around you, without and within. It was the ego which wouldn't allow you to see it. It was the ego that was closing your eyes and your being. So the first thing to be understood is what this ego is. A child is born. A child is born without any knowledge, any consciousness of his own self. And when a child is born the first thing he becomes aware of is not himself. The...
... awareness is a reflected awareness. He is not aware of who he is. He is simply aware of the mother and what she thinks about him. If she smiles, if she appreciates the child, if she says: You are beautiful; if she hugs and kisses him, the child feels good about himself. Now an ego is born. Through appreciation, love, care, he feels he is good, he feels he is valuable, he feels he has some significance. A...
... center is born. But this center is a reflected center. It is not his real being. He does not know who he is. He simply knows what others think about him. And this is the ego: the reflection, what others think. If nobody thinks that he is of any use, nobody appreciates him, nobody smiles, then too an ego is born - an ill ego: sad, rejected, like a wound; feeling inferior, worthless. This too is the ego...
.... This too is a reflection. First the mother - and mother means the world in the beginning - then others will join the mother, and the world goes on growing. And the more the world grows, the more complex the ego becomes, because many others' opinions are reflected. The ego is an accumulated phenomenon, a by-product of living with others. If a child lives totally alone, he will never come to grow an...
... ego. But that is not going to help. He will remain like an animal. That doesn't mean that he will come to know the real Self, no. The real can be known only through the false, so ego is a must. One has to pass through it. It is a discipline. The real can be known only through the illusion. You cannot know the Truth directly. First you have to know that which is not true. First you have to encounter...
... the untrue. Through that encounter you become capable of knowing the Truth. If you know the false as the false, Truth will dawn upon you. Ego is a need; it is a social need, it is a social by-product. The society means all that is around you - not you, but all that is around you. All, minus you, is the society, and everybody reflects. You will go to school and the teacher will reflect who you are...
.... You will be in friendship with other children and they will reflect who you are. By and by, everybody is adding to your ego, and everybody is trying to modify it in such a way that you don't become a problem to the society. They are not concerned with you. They are concerned with the society. Society is concerned with itself, and that's how it should be. They are not concerned that you should become...
... a self-knower. They are concerned that you should become an efficient part in the mechanism of the society. You should fit into the pattern. So they are trying to give you an ego that fits with the society. They teach you morality. Morality means giving you an ego which will fit with the society. If you are immoral, you will always be a misfit somewhere or other. That's why we put criminals in the...
... up in such a way that he fits into the society, that's all. Because society is interested in efficient members. Society is not interested that you should attain to self-knowledge. Society is always against religion. Hence, the crucifixion of Jesus. the murder of Socrates - because they also didn't fit. Two types of people don't fit. One: someone who has developed an anti-social ego; he will never...
... fit. But he can be put on trial. There is that possibility. You can torture that man, you can punish him, and he may come to his senses. The torture may be too much, and he may be converted. Then there is another type of man who is impossible for the society - a Jesus. He is not a criminal, but he has no ego. How can you make a man who has no ego fit? He looks absolutely irresponsible, but he is not...
..., but something can be done about them; they are not that dangerous. Then there is a group of people which is beyond society. They are impossible. You cannot change them. They will not be ready to make any compromise. The society creates an ego because the ego can be controlled and manipulated. The Self can never be controlled and manipulated. Nobody has ever heard of the society controlling a Self...
... - not possible. And the child needs a center; the child is completely unaware of his own center. The society gives him a center and the child is by and by convinced that this is his center, the ego that society gives. A child comes back to his home. If he has come first in his class, the whole family is happy. You hug and kiss him, and you take the child on your shoulders and dance and you say: What a...
... beautiful child! You are a pride to us. You are giving him an ego, a subtle ego. And if the child comes home dejected, unsuccessful, a failure, he couldn't pass, or he has just been on the back-bench, then nobody appreciates him and the child feels rejected. He will try hard next time, because the center feels shaken. Ego is always shaken, always in search of food, that somebody should appreciate it...
... so: if a wife is very, very great, her husband will be a problem. Ask the wives of great men. A great man has many deeper things to do. A Socrates; he was more interested in meditation than in his wife, and that was a wound. Socrates' wife was continuously nagging. He was more attentive to somewhere else. 'Something is more important than me?' This shakes the ego. I have heard:. Mulla Nasrudin and...
... others that you get the idea of who you are. They shape your center. This center is false, because you CARRY your real center. That is nobody's business. Nobody shapes it. You come with it. You are born with it. So you have two centers. One center you come with, which is given by existence itself. That is the Self. And the other center, which is created by the society, is the ego - it is a false thing...
... - and it is a very great trick. Through the ego the society is controlling you. You have to behave in a certain way, because only then does the society appreciate you. You have to walk in a certain way; you have to laugh in a certain way; you have to follow certain manners, a morality, a code. Only then will the society appreciate you, and if it doesn't, your ego will be shaken. And when the ego is...
... shaken, you don't know where you are, who you are. The others have given you the idea. That idea is the ego. Try to understand it as deeply as possible, because this has to be thrown. And unless you throw it you will never be able to attain to the Self. Because you are addicted to the center, you cannot move, and you cannot look at the Self. And remember, there is going to be an interim period, an...
... interval, when the ego will be shattered, when you will not know who you are, when you will not know where you are going, when all boundaries will melt. You will be simply confused, a chaos. Because of this chaos, you are afraid to lose the ego. But it has to be so. One has to pass through the chaos before one attains to the real center. And if you are daring, the period will be small. If you are afraid...
..., and you again fall back to the ego, and you again start arranging it, then it can be very, very long; many lives can be wasted. Enlightenment is always sudden. There is nothing like gradual Enlightenment. The gradualness comes if you are not daring, it comes out of your fear. Then you take one step towards the center, the real center, and you become afraid - you come back. It is just like a small...
...: I know well that at home also you sleep in the dark, I have never seen a light on. So why are you afraid here? The boy said: Yes, that's right - but that is my darkness. This darkness is completely unknown. Even with darkness you feel: This is mine. Outside - an unknown darkness. With the ego you feel: This is my darkness. It may be troublesome, maybe it creates many miseries, but still - mine...
... nine-tenths, somewhere your real center is hidden. One has to be daring, courageous. One has to take a step into the Unknown. For a while all boundaries will be lost. For a while you will feel dizzy. For a while, you will feel very afraid and shaken, as if an earthquake has happened. But if you are courageous and you don't go backwards, if you don't fall back to the ego and you go on and on, there is...
... difference between a real flower and a plastic or a paper flower. The ego is a plastic flower - dead. It just looks like a flower, it is not a flower. You cannot really call it a flower. Even linguistically, to call it a flower is wrong, because a flower is something which flowers. And this plastic thing is just a thing, not a flowering. It is dead. There is no life in it. You have a flowering center...
... within. That's why Hindus call it a lotus - it is a flowering. They call it the one-thousand-petalled lotus. One thousand' means infinite petals. And it goes on flowering, it never stops, it never dies. But you are satisfied with a plastic ego. There are some reasons why you are satisfied. With a dead thing, there are many conveniences. One is that a dead thing never dies. It cannot - it was never...
... existence exists eternally, always dying always coming back. It is a wheel; the spokes go up, then they go down. This is how the wheel moves. The ego is a plastic thing, but it looks permanent. Remember, eternity is not permanence. Eternity moves through movements. Eternity moves through change. Eternity is continuous change, and yet it remains the same: changing, yet remaining the same, moving, yet never...
... moving. The ego has a certain quality - it is dead. It is a plastic thing. And it is very easy to get it, because others give it. You need not seek it. There is no search involved. That's why unless you become a seeker after the Unknown, you have not yet become an individual. You are just a part of the crowd. You are just a mob. When you don't have a real center, how can you be an individual? The ego...
... is not individual. Ego is a social phenomenon - it is society, it is not you. But it gives you a function in the society, a hierarchy in the society. And if you remain satisfied with it, you will miss the whole opportunity of finding the Self. And that's why you are so miserable. With a plastic life, how can you be happy? With a false life, how can you be ecstatic and blissful? And then this ego...
... creates many miseries, millions of them. You cannot see, because it is 'your own darkness'. You are attuned to it. Have you ever noticed that all types of miseries enter through the ego? It cannot make you blissful; it can only make you miserable. Ego is hell. Whenever you suffer, just try to watch and analyze, and you will find, somewhere the ego is the cause of it. And the ego goes on finding causes...
...: That I know - but you are listening very aggressively. You are an egoist, as everyone is. Some are very gross, just on the surface, and they are not so difficult. Some are very subtle, deep down, and they are the real problems. This ego comes continuously in conflict with others because every ego is so unconfident about itself. It has to be - it is a false thing. When you don't have anything in your...
... hand and you just think that something is there, then there will be a problem. If somebody says: There is nothing, immediately the fight will start, because you also feel that there is nothing. The other makes you aware of the fact. Ego is false, it is nothing. That you also know. How can you miss knowing it? It is impossible! A conscious being, how can he miss knowing that this ego is just false...
... - you will be hurt, but the wall has not hurt you. The ego is always looking for some trouble. Why? Because if nobody pays attention to you, the ego feels hungry. It lives on attention. So even if somebody is fighting and angry with you, that too is good because at least the attention is paid. If somebody loves, it is okay. If somebody is not loving you, then even anger will be good. At least the...
... attention will come to you. But if nobody is paying any attention to you, nobody thinks you are somebody important, significant, then how will you feed your ego? Others' attention is needed. In millions of ways you attract the attention of others: you dress in a certain way, you try to look beautiful, you behave, you become very polite, you change. When you feel what type of situation is there, you...
... about suicide. Why? Why, if a wife leaves you, should you commit suicide? Why, if a husband leaves you, should you commit suicide? Because you don't have any center of your own. The wife was giving you the center; the husband was giving you the center. This is how people exist. This is how people become dependent on others. It is a deep slavery. Ego HAS to be a slave. It depends on others. And only a...
... person who has no ego is for the first time a Master; he is no longer a slave. Try to understand this. And start looking for the ego, not in others, that is not your business, but in yourself. Whenever you feel miserable, immediately close your eyes and try to find out from where the misery is coming and you will always find it is the false center which has clashed with someone. You expected something...
..., and it didn't happen. You expected something, and just the contrary happened - your ego is shaken, you are in misery. Just look, whenever you are miserable, try to find out why. Causes are not outside you. The basic cause is within you - but you always look outside, you always ask: Who is making me miserable? Who is the cause of my anger? Who is the cause of my anguish? And if you look outside, you...
... will miss. Just close the eyes and always look within. The source of all misery, anger, anguish, is hidden in you, your ego. And if you find the source, it will be easy to move beyond it. If you can see that it is your own ego that gives you trouble, you will like to drop it - because nobody can carry the source of misery if he understands it. And remember, there is no need to drop the ego. You...
... cannot drop it. If you try to drop it, you will attain to a certain subtle ego again which says: I have become humble. Don't try to be humble. That's again ego in hiding - but it is not dead. Don't try to be humble. Nobody can try humility. And nobody can create humility through any effort of his own - no. When the ego is no more, a humbleness comes to you. It is not a creation. It is a shadow of the...
... real center. And a really humble man is neither humble nor egoistic. He is simply simple. He's not even aware that he is humble. If you are aware that you are humble, the ego is there. Look at humble persons. There are millions who think that they are very humble. They bow down very low, but watch them - they are the subtlest egoists. Now humility is their source of food. They say: I am humble, and...
... then they look at you and they wait for you to appreciate them. 'You are really humble.' They would like you to say: In fact, you are the most humble man in the world; nobody is as humble as you are. Then see the smile that comes on their faces. What is ego? Ego is a hierarchy that says: No one is like me. It can feed on humbleness - 'Nobody is like me, I am the most humble man.' Once it happened: A...
... monk came to me and he was talking about his humility, and I said: You are nothing. I know a man who is more humble than you. Suddenly anger, ego, and he said: Who is that man? Show him to me. That is not the point - I told him: That is not the point. I am not going to show him to you. But try to understand, because suddenly the ego comes in and says: How is somebody else daring to be more humble...
... was somebody else there who was praying - it was dark, and the emperor was also saying: I am nobody. I am nothing. I am just empty, a beggar at your door. When he heard that somebody else was saying the same thing, he said: Stop! Who is trying to overtake me? Who are you? How dare you say before the emperor that you are nobody when he is saying that he is nobody. This is how the ego goes. It is so...
... subtle. Its ways are so subtle and cunning, you have to be very, very alert, only then will you see it. Don't try to be humble. Just try to see that all misery, all anguish comes through it. Just watch! No need to drop it. You cannot drop it. Who will drop it? Then the DROPPER will become the ego. It always comes back. Whatsoever you do, stand out of it, and look and watch. whatsoever you do...
... see from where this misery is coming. It is your own ego. If you continuously feel and understand, and the understanding that the ego is the cause becomes so deep-rooted, one day you will suddenly see that it has disappeared. Nobody drops it - nobody can drop it. You simply see; it has simply disappeared, because the very understanding that ego causes all misery becomes the dropping. The very...
... understanding is the disappearance of the ego. And you are so clever in seeing the ego in others. Anybody can see someone else's ego. When it comes to your own, then the problem arises - because you don't know the territory, you have never travelled on it. The whole path towards the Divine, the Ultimate, has to pass through this territory of the ego. The false has to be understood as false. The source of...
... misery has to be understood as the source of misery - then it simply drops. When you know it is poison, it drops. When you know it is fire, it drops. When you know this is the hell, it drops. And then you never say: I have dropped the ego. Then you simply laugh at the whole thing, the joke that you were the creator of all misery. I was just looking at a few cartoons on Charlie Brown. In one cartoon he...
... is your problem? The problem becomes multifold, because there are helpers who are in the same boat. And they would like to help, because when you help somebody the ego feels very good, very, very good - because you are a great helper, a great guru, a Master; you are helping so many people. The greater the crowd of your followers, the better you feel. But you are in the same boat - you cannot help...
... allow. Whenever he would go out - sometimes he had to go to see his patients - the first thing he would do when he came home was to inquire about where his wife had gone, who she had met, who had come to the house, and there would be a cross-examination. His wife says that she was simply surprised. This man was so wise with others - but with his own.... It is difficult to see one's own ego. It is very...
... easy to see others' egos. But that is not the point, you cannot help them. Try to see your own ego. Just watch it. Don't be in a hurry to drop it, just watch it. The more you watch, the more capable you will become. Suddenly one day, you simply see that it has dropped. And when it drops by itself, only then does it drop. There is no other way. Prematurely you cannot drop it. It drops just like a dead...
... leaf. The tree is not doing anything. Just a breeze, a situation, and the dead leaf simply drops. The tree is not even aware that the dead leaf has dropped. It makes no noise, it makes no claim - nothing. The dead leaf simply drops and shatters on the ground, just like that. When you are mature through understanding, awareness, and you have felt totally that ego is the cause of all your misery...
... about your attention. You don't mean anything to them - now they have attained. They can be humble; they can afford to be. That's why great leaders are always humble. But that humility is not the humility of a Buddha, not that of a Lao Tzu; that humility is false. When you are no one, then to be humble is very difficult. When you are defeated, then to be humble is very difficult because the ego is so...
... has been my experience with people. If somebody comes to me, and he has already arrived somewhere in life, he is always humble. He bows down deeply, he sits on the floor. He is established. This humbleness is good for his ego. Whenever somebody comes who is frustrated, who has gambled and lost, who is nobody, then it is hard for him to sit on the floor. One man wrote a letter to me saying: I can...
... POLITENESS ON THE ZEN MASTER'S PART, OR OF VAIN LOFTINESS ON THE PART OF THE MINISTER; THE ASSOCIATION SEEMED TO BE THE PURELY RELIGIOUS ONE OF A REVERED MASTER AND AN OBEDIENT DISCIPLE. But this is only on the surface. Deep down the prime minister is the Prime Minister. Deep down he is somebody very, very important. Deep down he has the same ego as everybody else. This situation, this appearance on the...
...: YOUR REVERENCE, HOW DOES BUDDHISM EXPLAIN EGOTISM? Deep down, you cannot really fool yourself either. How can you? You know what you are doing. While you are deceiving, then too you know that you are deceiving. You can deceive the whole world, but how can you deceive yourself? It is impossible. You may not be alert, but the moment you become alert, you know what you have been doing. This too is a...
... have told me that one of his friends is impotent - What about it? What to do? Why did you trouble to come? Your friend could have come and told me the same. Then he became disturbed. People talk indirectly and problems are personal. And they talk philosophy; they ask questions like: How in Buddhism is egotism explained? What nonsense! What has it to do with Buddhism? Egotism is your problem. Why make...
... it indirect? If you make it indirect, you will miss. You will not be able to understand because from the very beginning you are deceiving. And you may be thinking that you are asking about Buddhism and egotism, then a theory can be given to you, a hypothesis, a philosophy, a system, but that won't help - because each individual has his own problem, and each individual has his own problem in a...
... not. What are you going to do with God? Leave Him to Himself. What are you going to do? If He exists, what will you do? If He doesn't exist, what will you do? It looks like your mind is not facing real problems and is avoiding them through imaginary problems. God is an imaginary problem for you. Anger, ego, sex, passion, hate: they are real problems. You don't ask about them - you ask about God. How...
... is the difference? If you hurt their egos, they will both get mad. So where does God come in? This is a trick - you want to avoid real problems. The words 'god', 'moksha', 'truth', are like blankets. You cover all the problems with them and hide them. They are not problems, they are blankets. And those who answer them help you to avoid the reality YOUR REVERENCE, HOW DOES BUDDHISM EXPLAIN EGOTISM...
.... Otherwise, the Premier would have laughed, and he would have said: Yes, you are right. Now what about Buddhism and how it explains egotism? But just a single word.... How much you are addicted to words! A single word, and the whole situation changes? And what is a word? Just a sound with no meaning really, because meaning is just a contract of the society, between people: We will mean this by this. It is...
... you react. When you react, you are a victim, you are possessed by the emotion, you are not a Master. When you don't react, you simply create a situation. The Master looked angry, condemning, when he insulted the Prime Minister. And when the insult had done its work, and the real Prime Minister had surfaced, he smiled and said: Your Excellency, this is egotism. Generated by PreciseInfo ™ ...
..., 'numskull', and a sullen expression and a slight anger started to show on his face. Now the situation is real. A Master is there, without any ego; and the Prime Minister is there - now the ego is showing up, now the real has surfaced. THE ZEN MASTER THEN SMILED AND SAID: YOUR EXCELLENCY THIS IS EGOTISM. And it has nothing to do with Buddhism. It has something to do with you. The Master was really skillful...
...How Does Buddhism Explain Egotism...
... Osho Returning to the Source: How Does Buddhism Explain Egotism Main Books Headers Help Your browser does not support iframes. < Prev Osho Returning to the Source Next > How Does Buddhism Explain Egotism From: Osho Date: Fri, 15 December 1974 00:00:00 GMT Book Title: Returning to the Source Chapter #: 5 Location: am in Buddha Hall Archive Code: N.A. Short Title: N.A...
... DAY, HOWEVER, WHEN HE WAS PAYING HIS USUAL VISIT TO THE ZEN MASTER, HE ASKED THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: YOUR REVERENCE, HOW DOES BUDDHISM EXPLAIN EGOTISM? THE ZEN MASTER'S FACE SUDDENLY TURNED BLUE, AND IN AN EXTREMELY HAUGHTY AND CONTEMPTUOUS MANNER HE SAID TO THE PREMIER: WHAT ARE YOU SAYING YOU NUMSKULL? THIS UNREASONABLE AND UNEXPECTED DEFIANCE SO HURT THE FEELINGS OF THE PRIME MINISTER THAT A...
... the door closed, but the ego goes on interpreting. It says: There is nobody outside, no guest has come, nobody has knocked, just a strong wind is knocking at the door. It goes on interpreting from the inside. without looking at the fact. And the door remains closed. By interpretations, even the possibility of its opening becomes less and less. And a moment comes when you are completely closed in...
... your own ego. Then all sensitivity is lost. Then you are not an opening, and you cannot have a meeting with existence. Then you are almost dead. The ego becomes your grave. This is the most basic problem. If you solve it, everything is solved. There is no need to seek God. There is no need to seek Truth. If the ego is not there, suddenly everything is found. If the ego is not there you simply come to...
... know that Truth has always been around you, without and within. It was the ego which wouldn't allow you to see it. It was the ego that was closing your eyes and your being. So the first thing to be understood is what this ego is. A child is born. A child is born without any knowledge, any consciousness of his own self. And when a child is born the first thing he becomes aware of is not himself. The...
... awareness is a reflected awareness. He is not aware of who he is. He is simply aware of the mother and what she thinks about him. If she smiles, if she appreciates the child, if she says: You are beautiful; if she hugs and kisses him, the child feels good about himself. Now an ego is born. Through appreciation, love, care, he feels he is good, he feels he is valuable, he feels he has some significance. A...
... center is born. But this center is a reflected center. It is not his real being. He does not know who he is. He simply knows what others think about him. And this is the ego: the reflection, what others think. If nobody thinks that he is of any use, nobody appreciates him, nobody smiles, then too an ego is born - an ill ego: sad, rejected, like a wound; feeling inferior, worthless. This too is the ego...
.... This too is a reflection. First the mother - and mother means the world in the beginning - then others will join the mother, and the world goes on growing. And the more the world grows, the more complex the ego becomes, because many others' opinions are reflected. The ego is an accumulated phenomenon, a by-product of living with others. If a child lives totally alone, he will never come to grow an...
... ego. But that is not going to help. He will remain like an animal. That doesn't mean that he will come to know the real Self, no. The real can be known only through the false, so ego is a must. One has to pass through it. It is a discipline. The real can be known only through the illusion. You cannot know the Truth directly. First you have to know that which is not true. First you have to encounter...
... the untrue. Through that encounter you become capable of knowing the Truth. If you know the false as the false, Truth will dawn upon you. Ego is a need; it is a social need, it is a social by-product. The society means all that is around you - not you, but all that is around you. All, minus you, is the society, and everybody reflects. You will go to school and the teacher will reflect who you are...
.... You will be in friendship with other children and they will reflect who you are. By and by, everybody is adding to your ego, and everybody is trying to modify it in such a way that you don't become a problem to the society. They are not concerned with you. They are concerned with the society. Society is concerned with itself, and that's how it should be. They are not concerned that you should become...
... a self-knower. They are concerned that you should become an efficient part in the mechanism of the society. You should fit into the pattern. So they are trying to give you an ego that fits with the society. They teach you morality. Morality means giving you an ego which will fit with the society. If you are immoral, you will always be a misfit somewhere or other. That's why we put criminals in the...
... up in such a way that he fits into the society, that's all. Because society is interested in efficient members. Society is not interested that you should attain to self-knowledge. Society is always against religion. Hence, the crucifixion of Jesus. the murder of Socrates - because they also didn't fit. Two types of people don't fit. One: someone who has developed an anti-social ego; he will never...
... fit. But he can be put on trial. There is that possibility. You can torture that man, you can punish him, and he may come to his senses. The torture may be too much, and he may be converted. Then there is another type of man who is impossible for the society - a Jesus. He is not a criminal, but he has no ego. How can you make a man who has no ego fit? He looks absolutely irresponsible, but he is not...
..., but something can be done about them; they are not that dangerous. Then there is a group of people which is beyond society. They are impossible. You cannot change them. They will not be ready to make any compromise. The society creates an ego because the ego can be controlled and manipulated. The Self can never be controlled and manipulated. Nobody has ever heard of the society controlling a Self...
... - not possible. And the child needs a center; the child is completely unaware of his own center. The society gives him a center and the child is by and by convinced that this is his center, the ego that society gives. A child comes back to his home. If he has come first in his class, the whole family is happy. You hug and kiss him, and you take the child on your shoulders and dance and you say: What a...
... beautiful child! You are a pride to us. You are giving him an ego, a subtle ego. And if the child comes home dejected, unsuccessful, a failure, he couldn't pass, or he has just been on the back-bench, then nobody appreciates him and the child feels rejected. He will try hard next time, because the center feels shaken. Ego is always shaken, always in search of food, that somebody should appreciate it...
... so: if a wife is very, very great, her husband will be a problem. Ask the wives of great men. A great man has many deeper things to do. A Socrates; he was more interested in meditation than in his wife, and that was a wound. Socrates' wife was continuously nagging. He was more attentive to somewhere else. 'Something is more important than me?' This shakes the ego. I have heard:. Mulla Nasrudin and...
... others that you get the idea of who you are. They shape your center. This center is false, because you CARRY your real center. That is nobody's business. Nobody shapes it. You come with it. You are born with it. So you have two centers. One center you come with, which is given by existence itself. That is the Self. And the other center, which is created by the society, is the ego - it is a false thing...
... - and it is a very great trick. Through the ego the society is controlling you. You have to behave in a certain way, because only then does the society appreciate you. You have to walk in a certain way; you have to laugh in a certain way; you have to follow certain manners, a morality, a code. Only then will the society appreciate you, and if it doesn't, your ego will be shaken. And when the ego is...
... shaken, you don't know where you are, who you are. The others have given you the idea. That idea is the ego. Try to understand it as deeply as possible, because this has to be thrown. And unless you throw it you will never be able to attain to the Self. Because you are addicted to the center, you cannot move, and you cannot look at the Self. And remember, there is going to be an interim period, an...
... interval, when the ego will be shattered, when you will not know who you are, when you will not know where you are going, when all boundaries will melt. You will be simply confused, a chaos. Because of this chaos, you are afraid to lose the ego. But it has to be so. One has to pass through the chaos before one attains to the real center. And if you are daring, the period will be small. If you are afraid...
..., and you again fall back to the ego, and you again start arranging it, then it can be very, very long; many lives can be wasted. Enlightenment is always sudden. There is nothing like gradual Enlightenment. The gradualness comes if you are not daring, it comes out of your fear. Then you take one step towards the center, the real center, and you become afraid - you come back. It is just like a small...
...: I know well that at home also you sleep in the dark, I have never seen a light on. So why are you afraid here? The boy said: Yes, that's right - but that is my darkness. This darkness is completely unknown. Even with darkness you feel: This is mine. Outside - an unknown darkness. With the ego you feel: This is my darkness. It may be troublesome, maybe it creates many miseries, but still - mine...
... nine-tenths, somewhere your real center is hidden. One has to be daring, courageous. One has to take a step into the Unknown. For a while all boundaries will be lost. For a while you will feel dizzy. For a while, you will feel very afraid and shaken, as if an earthquake has happened. But if you are courageous and you don't go backwards, if you don't fall back to the ego and you go on and on, there is...
... difference between a real flower and a plastic or a paper flower. The ego is a plastic flower - dead. It just looks like a flower, it is not a flower. You cannot really call it a flower. Even linguistically, to call it a flower is wrong, because a flower is something which flowers. And this plastic thing is just a thing, not a flowering. It is dead. There is no life in it. You have a flowering center...
... within. That's why Hindus call it a lotus - it is a flowering. They call it the one-thousand-petalled lotus. One thousand' means infinite petals. And it goes on flowering, it never stops, it never dies. But you are satisfied with a plastic ego. There are some reasons why you are satisfied. With a dead thing, there are many conveniences. One is that a dead thing never dies. It cannot - it was never...
... existence exists eternally, always dying always coming back. It is a wheel; the spokes go up, then they go down. This is how the wheel moves. The ego is a plastic thing, but it looks permanent. Remember, eternity is not permanence. Eternity moves through movements. Eternity moves through change. Eternity is continuous change, and yet it remains the same: changing, yet remaining the same, moving, yet never...
... moving. The ego has a certain quality - it is dead. It is a plastic thing. And it is very easy to get it, because others give it. You need not seek it. There is no search involved. That's why unless you become a seeker after the Unknown, you have not yet become an individual. You are just a part of the crowd. You are just a mob. When you don't have a real center, how can you be an individual? The ego...
... is not individual. Ego is a social phenomenon - it is society, it is not you. But it gives you a function in the society, a hierarchy in the society. And if you remain satisfied with it, you will miss the whole opportunity of finding the Self. And that's why you are so miserable. With a plastic life, how can you be happy? With a false life, how can you be ecstatic and blissful? And then this ego...
... creates many miseries, millions of them. You cannot see, because it is 'your own darkness'. You are attuned to it. Have you ever noticed that all types of miseries enter through the ego? It cannot make you blissful; it can only make you miserable. Ego is hell. Whenever you suffer, just try to watch and analyze, and you will find, somewhere the ego is the cause of it. And the ego goes on finding causes...
...: That I know - but you are listening very aggressively. You are an egoist, as everyone is. Some are very gross, just on the surface, and they are not so difficult. Some are very subtle, deep down, and they are the real problems. This ego comes continuously in conflict with others because every ego is so unconfident about itself. It has to be - it is a false thing. When you don't have anything in your...
... hand and you just think that something is there, then there will be a problem. If somebody says: There is nothing, immediately the fight will start, because you also feel that there is nothing. The other makes you aware of the fact. Ego is false, it is nothing. That you also know. How can you miss knowing it? It is impossible! A conscious being, how can he miss knowing that this ego is just false...
... - you will be hurt, but the wall has not hurt you. The ego is always looking for some trouble. Why? Because if nobody pays attention to you, the ego feels hungry. It lives on attention. So even if somebody is fighting and angry with you, that too is good because at least the attention is paid. If somebody loves, it is okay. If somebody is not loving you, then even anger will be good. At least the...
... attention will come to you. But if nobody is paying any attention to you, nobody thinks you are somebody important, significant, then how will you feed your ego? Others' attention is needed. In millions of ways you attract the attention of others: you dress in a certain way, you try to look beautiful, you behave, you become very polite, you change. When you feel what type of situation is there, you...
... about suicide. Why? Why, if a wife leaves you, should you commit suicide? Why, if a husband leaves you, should you commit suicide? Because you don't have any center of your own. The wife was giving you the center; the husband was giving you the center. This is how people exist. This is how people become dependent on others. It is a deep slavery. Ego HAS to be a slave. It depends on others. And only a...
... person who has no ego is for the first time a Master; he is no longer a slave. Try to understand this. And start looking for the ego, not in others, that is not your business, but in yourself. Whenever you feel miserable, immediately close your eyes and try to find out from where the misery is coming and you will always find it is the false center which has clashed with someone. You expected something...
..., and it didn't happen. You expected something, and just the contrary happened - your ego is shaken, you are in misery. Just look, whenever you are miserable, try to find out why. Causes are not outside you. The basic cause is within you - but you always look outside, you always ask: Who is making me miserable? Who is the cause of my anger? Who is the cause of my anguish? And if you look outside, you...
... will miss. Just close the eyes and always look within. The source of all misery, anger, anguish, is hidden in you, your ego. And if you find the source, it will be easy to move beyond it. If you can see that it is your own ego that gives you trouble, you will like to drop it - because nobody can carry the source of misery if he understands it. And remember, there is no need to drop the ego. You...
... cannot drop it. If you try to drop it, you will attain to a certain subtle ego again which says: I have become humble. Don't try to be humble. That's again ego in hiding - but it is not dead. Don't try to be humble. Nobody can try humility. And nobody can create humility through any effort of his own - no. When the ego is no more, a humbleness comes to you. It is not a creation. It is a shadow of the...
... real center. And a really humble man is neither humble nor egoistic. He is simply simple. He's not even aware that he is humble. If you are aware that you are humble, the ego is there. Look at humble persons. There are millions who think that they are very humble. They bow down very low, but watch them - they are the subtlest egoists. Now humility is their source of food. They say: I am humble, and...
... then they look at you and they wait for you to appreciate them. 'You are really humble.' They would like you to say: In fact, you are the most humble man in the world; nobody is as humble as you are. Then see the smile that comes on their faces. What is ego? Ego is a hierarchy that says: No one is like me. It can feed on humbleness - 'Nobody is like me, I am the most humble man.' Once it happened: A...
... monk came to me and he was talking about his humility, and I said: You are nothing. I know a man who is more humble than you. Suddenly anger, ego, and he said: Who is that man? Show him to me. That is not the point - I told him: That is not the point. I am not going to show him to you. But try to understand, because suddenly the ego comes in and says: How is somebody else daring to be more humble...
... was somebody else there who was praying - it was dark, and the emperor was also saying: I am nobody. I am nothing. I am just empty, a beggar at your door. When he heard that somebody else was saying the same thing, he said: Stop! Who is trying to overtake me? Who are you? How dare you say before the emperor that you are nobody when he is saying that he is nobody. This is how the ego goes. It is so...
... subtle. Its ways are so subtle and cunning, you have to be very, very alert, only then will you see it. Don't try to be humble. Just try to see that all misery, all anguish comes through it. Just watch! No need to drop it. You cannot drop it. Who will drop it? Then the DROPPER will become the ego. It always comes back. Whatsoever you do, stand out of it, and look and watch. whatsoever you do...
... see from where this misery is coming. It is your own ego. If you continuously feel and understand, and the understanding that the ego is the cause becomes so deep-rooted, one day you will suddenly see that it has disappeared. Nobody drops it - nobody can drop it. You simply see; it has simply disappeared, because the very understanding that ego causes all misery becomes the dropping. The very...
... understanding is the disappearance of the ego. And you are so clever in seeing the ego in others. Anybody can see someone else's ego. When it comes to your own, then the problem arises - because you don't know the territory, you have never travelled on it. The whole path towards the Divine, the Ultimate, has to pass through this territory of the ego. The false has to be understood as false. The source of...
... misery has to be understood as the source of misery - then it simply drops. When you know it is poison, it drops. When you know it is fire, it drops. When you know this is the hell, it drops. And then you never say: I have dropped the ego. Then you simply laugh at the whole thing, the joke that you were the creator of all misery. I was just looking at a few cartoons on Charlie Brown. In one cartoon he...
... is your problem? The problem becomes multifold, because there are helpers who are in the same boat. And they would like to help, because when you help somebody the ego feels very good, very, very good - because you are a great helper, a great guru, a Master; you are helping so many people. The greater the crowd of your followers, the better you feel. But you are in the same boat - you cannot help...
... allow. Whenever he would go out - sometimes he had to go to see his patients - the first thing he would do when he came home was to inquire about where his wife had gone, who she had met, who had come to the house, and there would be a cross-examination. His wife says that she was simply surprised. This man was so wise with others - but with his own.... It is difficult to see one's own ego. It is very...
... easy to see others' egos. But that is not the point, you cannot help them. Try to see your own ego. Just watch it. Don't be in a hurry to drop it, just watch it. The more you watch, the more capable you will become. Suddenly one day, you simply see that it has dropped. And when it drops by itself, only then does it drop. There is no other way. Prematurely you cannot drop it. It drops just like a dead...
... leaf. The tree is not doing anything. Just a breeze, a situation, and the dead leaf simply drops. The tree is not even aware that the dead leaf has dropped. It makes no noise, it makes no claim - nothing. The dead leaf simply drops and shatters on the ground, just like that. When you are mature through understanding, awareness, and you have felt totally that ego is the cause of all your misery...
... about your attention. You don't mean anything to them - now they have attained. They can be humble; they can afford to be. That's why great leaders are always humble. But that humility is not the humility of a Buddha, not that of a Lao Tzu; that humility is false. When you are no one, then to be humble is very difficult. When you are defeated, then to be humble is very difficult because the ego is so...
... has been my experience with people. If somebody comes to me, and he has already arrived somewhere in life, he is always humble. He bows down deeply, he sits on the floor. He is established. This humbleness is good for his ego. Whenever somebody comes who is frustrated, who has gambled and lost, who is nobody, then it is hard for him to sit on the floor. One man wrote a letter to me saying: I can...
... POLITENESS ON THE ZEN MASTER'S PART, OR OF VAIN LOFTINESS ON THE PART OF THE MINISTER; THE ASSOCIATION SEEMED TO BE THE PURELY RELIGIOUS ONE OF A REVERED MASTER AND AN OBEDIENT DISCIPLE. But this is only on the surface. Deep down the prime minister is the Prime Minister. Deep down he is somebody very, very important. Deep down he has the same ego as everybody else. This situation, this appearance on the...
...: YOUR REVERENCE, HOW DOES BUDDHISM EXPLAIN EGOTISM? Deep down, you cannot really fool yourself either. How can you? You know what you are doing. While you are deceiving, then too you know that you are deceiving. You can deceive the whole world, but how can you deceive yourself? It is impossible. You may not be alert, but the moment you become alert, you know what you have been doing. This too is a...
... have told me that one of his friends is impotent - What about it? What to do? Why did you trouble to come? Your friend could have come and told me the same. Then he became disturbed. People talk indirectly and problems are personal. And they talk philosophy; they ask questions like: How in Buddhism is egotism explained? What nonsense! What has it to do with Buddhism? Egotism is your problem. Why make...
... it indirect? If you make it indirect, you will miss. You will not be able to understand because from the very beginning you are deceiving. And you may be thinking that you are asking about Buddhism and egotism, then a theory can be given to you, a hypothesis, a philosophy, a system, but that won't help - because each individual has his own problem, and each individual has his own problem in a...
... not. What are you going to do with God? Leave Him to Himself. What are you going to do? If He exists, what will you do? If He doesn't exist, what will you do? It looks like your mind is not facing real problems and is avoiding them through imaginary problems. God is an imaginary problem for you. Anger, ego, sex, passion, hate: they are real problems. You don't ask about them - you ask about God. How...
... is the difference? If you hurt their egos, they will both get mad. So where does God come in? This is a trick - you want to avoid real problems. The words 'god', 'moksha', 'truth', are like blankets. You cover all the problems with them and hide them. They are not problems, they are blankets. And those who answer them help you to avoid the reality YOUR REVERENCE, HOW DOES BUDDHISM EXPLAIN EGOTISM...
.... Otherwise, the Premier would have laughed, and he would have said: Yes, you are right. Now what about Buddhism and how it explains egotism? But just a single word.... How much you are addicted to words! A single word, and the whole situation changes? And what is a word? Just a sound with no meaning really, because meaning is just a contract of the society, between people: We will mean this by this. It is...
... you react. When you react, you are a victim, you are possessed by the emotion, you are not a Master. When you don't react, you simply create a situation. The Master looked angry, condemning, when he insulted the Prime Minister. And when the insult had done its work, and the real Prime Minister had surfaced, he smiled and said: Your Excellency, this is egotism. Generated by PreciseInfo ™ ...
.... BUT THE YAKSHA DISAPPEARED FROM HIS VIEW. AND IN THAT VERY SPOT
HE BEHELD A WOMAN, THE WONDROUSLY EFFULGENT UMA, THE DAUGHTER OF THE
SNOW-CLAD MOUNTAIN, HIMAVAT. AND OF HER HE ASKED: "WHO COULD THIS YAKSHA
BE?" In deep silence there is no ego.
It exists only when you are disturbed. It is part of disease. When you
are deeply silent, you are, but there is no feeling of the 'I'. It
cannot...
... exist in silence. When you are totally calm and quiet, the 'I' is not there. But the more disturbed you are, the more you will have the feeling of the ego. The ego is a disturbed, diseased state of the mind. The ego is not healthy. It is an illness. You become aware of it only when you are not in total harmony. When you are in harmony, you are, but there is no 'I', no feeling of the 'I'. 'Am-ness' is...
... needed to feel yourself. And that pain creates the I, that suffering, anguish, anxiety, creates the I. So if you are egoistic, remember that this shows that your inner harmony is lost. You cannot do anything about the ego directly - unless you regain the inner harmony. If you start doing something for the ego directly, nothing will happen. On the contrary, you may get more disturbed. All the religions...
... say: be egoless. They mean: be harmonious. Their insistence to dissolve the ego is the insistence to dissolve the disturbance - become a rhythm, become an inner silence. They insist for health. The Sanskrit word for health is very beautiful: the word is SWASTHA - it means to be in one's self. When you are in your self, there is no ego. The English word health also is beautiful from a different...
... viewpoint. It comes from the same root as the word whole comes from - wholeness. When you are whole, you are healthy; when you are fragmented, divided, split, you are unhealthy. When you have a feeling of wholeness - no division, undivided, one - you are healthy. The word holy also comes from whole. When you are really whole, you are holy, you are pure, innocent. The ego exists when you are fragmented...
..., divided, split - when you are not one. When your parts are in conflict and there is a disharmony within, turmoil, anguish, the ego exists. The greater the anxiety, the greater will be the ego. If you try to fulfill your ego you will get more and more disturbed - and the last state of ego is madness. If you really try to fulfill the ego you will become mad. In the East, madness is not such a problem as...
... it is in the West because the whole Western mind depends on the ambition to fulfill the ego. American psychologists say that now three persons out of four are mentally ill. This is too much - unbelievable! And if it is true, then the fourth is just on the boundary line, because the fourth is a part; he lives among these three. He cannot be really healthy - just so-so, just on the boundary line. Any...
... gets more and more disturbed if you try to fulfill the ego because for a greater ego to exist you need greater disturbance, greater illness, disease, greater fragmentation, division. When your fragments of being are in deep conflict, they create the tension. In that tension ego can exist. Fight is needed for the ego - a battleground: your being must become a battleground. This can happen in two ways...
...: either you can fight with others or you can fight with yourself. You can fight with others in a competitive world. You are ambitious, others are also ambitious. You want to be fulfilled as an ego, others are also on the same route. Then you fight with them. This is the worldly way to achieve the ego - the political way or the economic way. But there are religious ways also. You stop fighting with...
... are worldly egos and there are spiritual egos. A man who achieves riches, achieves prestige, becomes powerful, has ego. But do not think that a person who is struggling spiritually doesn't have one. He may have an even subtler ego - a deeper, a more refined ego, but he has one. Your so-called saints are all egoistic. They achieve their egos through austerities - through TAPA, through arduous effort...
.... They have their own victories upon themselves. They have no enemies outside, they have created the enemy within. And then they fight with it, and when they win they have a very egoistic feeling. They feel power. So the second thing to be understood: whenever you feel powerful, remember you have attained a crystallization of the ego. And whenever YOU are powerful, you cannot meet the divine, you...
.... If you are feeling powerful in any way, you are creating a barrier. When you are powerful you are blind to the total. And you are so much disturbed through your power, so much in inner turmoil, that you cannot have that silence which can become a meeting, a communion with the total. Hence, the emphasis of all religions to dissolve the ego: only then can you enter the divine. Jesus says: "Only...
... those who are like children will enter my kingdom of God." Why "like children"? Children are helpless; they are not powerful. Children are still part of the cosmic whole. They have not yet become egos. They do not yet have a crystallized center of the ego; they are still undivided. That is why children are so beautiful. It is difficult to find an ugly child and it is difficult to find a...
... is not fighting with himself either - he is not yet religious. He is simply a natural being just like animals, birds, trees, rocks. He is part of the cosmic whole. He will come out of it. We will bring him out of it; we cannot leave him like that. And even if we leave him he will come out of it, because he has the potentiality to be divided, he has the potentiality to become an ego. And that is...
... part of the ultimate education, that he must become an ego, because unless you have an ego you cannot lose it. The child is pre-ego. His innocence is natural, but a natural innocence can be disturbed at any moment. Whenever he becomes mind, he becomes cunning. Whenever he will become alert about his individuality, he will become egoistic. This is the meaning of the biblical story, that Adam and Eve...
... where he ends and where his mother begins. He feels everything as one. For nine months in the womb he exists as one with his mother. He breathes through his mother, he lives through his mother. Even after being born, when he has come out of the womb, deep in his mind he goes on existing as one with his mother. He has no ego and he cannot feel that he is separate yet. By and by he will know that he is...
... and Eve were prohibited to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge but they had to eat it. It is part of maturing. They were innocent. The moment they ate the fruit they became alert and aware. Suddenly they started hiding their bodies. Now Eve was aware of Adam and Adam was aware of Eve. Clothes came into existence through the ego. They became aware of themselves as separate. Before that they were...
... just part of each other; they never knew that they were separate. They became separated. And this happens to every Adam and Eve. It did not only happen once: whenever a child is born, he comes out of the garden of Eden. In the mother's womb he is in the garden of Eden, one with existence, with no responsibilities, with no worries, with no ego. He exists but without any center. Then he is born. Really...
..., the story, this biblical story of Adam and Eve, is the story of every child's birth. He is thrown out of the mother. Adam and Eve were thrown out of the garden of Eden and every child has to be thrown out. Then the ego grows; it goes on growing. And with it the pain goes on growing. Hence, every old man goes on thinking in terms that childhood was paradise. It was! In this sense it was a paradise...
... because you were not yet an ego. You had not tasted the fruit of knowledge; you had not come to know yourself as separate. With separation problems arise: you become anxious. With separation, death arises. It is said in the biblical story that death didn't exist before. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, death came into existence. Before that they were immortal. Every child is immortal. He is not aware of...
... death because death can become meaningful only to the 'I', to the ego. When you have a conception that you are separate, immediately the problem arises whether you are going to be here forever or whether you will die. The trees are immortal. Not that they do not die - they die but they have no awareness of death. The animals are immortal. Not that death is not going to be there - death will be there...
... but they are not aware of it. They have no egos, so how can they feel they are going to die? 'I' must be there before I can feel that I will die. Death is part of the ego. So now let me tell you: death arises out of disease, illness; and death is the last thing, the climax, where ego ends. Ego creates death around you and the fear - and this is the paradox: the more fearful you feel about death, the...
... more you try to be powerful. Because you think that if you are powerful, then you can do something about death. At least you can postpone it; you can push it away a little. But the more powerful you grow, the more death becomes significant. The more powerful you grow, the more you become afraid of death, because with the power grows the ego. If you are rich, politically powerful, you will be more...
... to death. This is the reason: they have not much to lose. They are existing on the lowest rung, so death cannot become a fall to them. They are already fallen; they are already existing in the grave. What I intend to say is: power gives you ego, ego creates lust for power and this becomes a vicious circle. And when you are powerful you become afraid of death. When you become afraid of death you...
... attained by your inner spirit, not by your ego. But the ego always exploits the whole victory. It says, "I have done this." And, really, nothing is ever done by the ego. The ego is the exploiter - an exploiter par excellence. Even things like birth are exploited by the ego. You say, "This is my birthday" - as if you have done something about your birth. You say, "MY birthday! I...
... was born on this day," as if the 'I' did something. The birth happened. It is a happening, not a doing. But your ego exploits even that. You say, "I breathe." It is absolutely wrong. Breathing happens; you are not breathing. Breathing goes on without you. You can interfere but you cannot breathe. Breathing is a natural thing. The Brahman breathes through you. If it was so, as we say...
... something which you are doing. It is something which is happening to you: a greater force... life you may call it. The Upanishads call it Brahman, the elan vital of Bergson, or whatsoever you like to call it. Life breathes through you, but the ego goes on exploiting everything and goes on saying, "I am breathing." You fall in love and you say, "I love." Really, it is never anything on...
... you. Everything is done by the life force, and everything done by the life force is exploited by the ego. And ego says, "I am doing this," and then feels very elated. This is the parable: THE STORY GOES THAT BRAHMAN OBTAINED A CERTAIN VICTORY FOR THE DEVAS... for the deities. In Indian mythology, all the forces of nature are deities. Fire is a deity - a natural force; air is a deity - a...
... Ganges cannot have an ego, cannot be allowed to have an ego. It is part of a great circle. Again the water will fall into the sea, and again the clouds will come, and again they will pour water down the Ganges, on the Gangotri, and the river will go on flowing. It is a great circle. Clouds, Gangotri, Ganges, the sea - clouds, Gangotri, Ganges, the sea: it is a great circle. You are also just a part of...
... defeat ego cannot be fulfilled. Only through victory can it be fulfilled, so defeat has to be thrown onto the Brahman. If the gods were defeated, they would certainly have said, "The Brahman is against us, destiny is against us, fate is against us. That is why we have been defeated." If you are victorious, then you say that it is because of you. Look at the trick of the ego. Neither is...
... because of you, or both are because of you. Decide and the ego will die. If you say, "Both are not because of me: a greater force is working and I am just a particle, an atomic thing, just a cell, just helpless. Things are happening to me - I am not a doer, so whether victory comes or defeat, both belong to the ultimate," your ego will dissolve. Or say, "Both belong to me, victory and...
... defeat, honor and dishonor" - then too your ego will disappear, because both are contradictory. They negate each other. Victory will give you a little ego and defeat will take that little ego away., You will be just without the ego. These are the two ways. Hindus have followed the first. They say victory and death and everything belongs to the divine, to the order of the cosmos. Jainas and...
... Buddhists have followed the second. They say that there is no God: "Everything belongs to me - the defeat and the victory, the loss and the gain, the birth and death, everything belongs to me." Then these two contradictory things negate each other and the ego is dissolved. In both cases the happening is the same. The ego can persist only if you go on giving all the victories to it and go on...
... giving all the defeats to the world or to the destiny or to the Brahman. Then the ego can exist. This is how the ego exists. The parable says: BRAHMAN CAME TO KNOW THIS, THEIR VANITY. He came to know about their egos, that now they are feeling very elated and they are saying THEY are victorious. It is because of them - victory belongs only to them. HE VERILY APPEARED BEFORE THEM. BUT THEY DID NOT...
... UNDERSTAND WHO THAT YAKSHA - DEMI-GOD - WAS. The second part of the parable: whenever the original, the cosmic source, feels that you are feeling elated, that you are feeling egoistic, it appears before you - but you cannot recognize it. The ego will not allow you to recognize it; it will close your eyes. It comes to you also, not only to those devas. This is a human story, a very psychological parable...
.... Now there was only ego; the source had disappeared. Only the exploiter - that which has never done anything but which goes on thinking that "I can do this and that." Agni could not burn the straw... SO HE WITHDREW FROM THERE AND RETURNED TO THE OTHER GODS SAYING, "I COULD NOT ASCERTAIN WHO THIS SPIRIT WAS." He didn't say that he had been a failure, that he couldn't burn it. He...
... simply said, "I COULDN'T ASCERTAIN WHO THIS SPIRIT WAS." This is how the ego functions. Even if the divine is standing before you, you will go on saying: I couldn't ascertain who this spirit was. Even if life reveals to you that your ego is impotent, you will not realize it. Life goes on revealing to you that your ego is impotent - is it not so? Every moment life goes on saying to you, "...
... ENERGY DO YOU POSSESS, YOU OF SUCH FAME?" ASKED THE SPIRIT. "I CAN VERILY BLOW AWAY EVERYTHING, WHATEVER THERE IS ON THIS EARTH," REPLIED VAYU. THE YAKSHA PLACED A STRAW BEFORE HIM AND SAID, "BLOW THIS AWAY." VAYU APPROACHED IT WITH ALL SPEED; HE WAS, HOWEVER, UNABLE TO BLOW IT AWAY. "WITH ALL SPEED" - your ego can act with all speed but nothing will happen out of it...
.... Your ego can do something with all speed, all effort, but nothing will happen out of it. Remember this; this will be helpful. People come to me and they go on saying, "I am making such an effort to meditate, but nothing is happening." Nothing will happen because the 'I' is making the effort. You are not allowing the divine to happen within. YOU are trying to do something. You are impotent...
.... Whatsoever potency you have comes through the original source, from the cosmos, from the Brahman. It doesn't belong to you. You are just a vehicle. So when the 'I' starts trying something, then nothing happens. In Zen monasteries they teach the seekers only one secret, and the secret is: do something without bringing the 'I' into it. If you can do something without bringing the ego into it, everything will...
... much intellect, too much ego, too much effort. Then the ego came to a point where it said to the German people, "Now you can be victorious all over the world." Hitler was just the expression of all the minds - ego-oriented. Herrigel was unable to understand: "If I do not release the arrow, how can the arrow be released? If I am not making an effort, there will be no effort at all."...
..., and for the first time in three years he could realize that the master was not releasing. It was the life force. The arrow was released by something which was not coming from the ego. It was coming from a deeper energy. He stood as if hypnotized. He came near the master, took the bow from his hand and released the arrow, and the master said, "Right! You have done it." And Herrigel writes...
... - empty. The fire could not burn a straw, the Vayu could not blow a straw. It was so clear to realize that the original source had withdrawn. But they couldn't recognize it. Ego is really so blind that it never recognizes its impotency. Even when the source has moved away, it goes on thinking in old terms. Even when everything is defeated and everything is a failure, it goes on thinking in old terms...
... exist in silence. When you are totally calm and quiet, the 'I' is not there. But the more disturbed you are, the more you will have the feeling of the ego. The ego is a disturbed, diseased state of the mind. The ego is not healthy. It is an illness. You become aware of it only when you are not in total harmony. When you are in harmony, you are, but there is no 'I', no feeling of the 'I'. 'Am-ness' is...
... needed to feel yourself. And that pain creates the I, that suffering, anguish, anxiety, creates the I. So if you are egoistic, remember that this shows that your inner harmony is lost. You cannot do anything about the ego directly - unless you regain the inner harmony. If you start doing something for the ego directly, nothing will happen. On the contrary, you may get more disturbed. All the religions...
... say: be egoless. They mean: be harmonious. Their insistence to dissolve the ego is the insistence to dissolve the disturbance - become a rhythm, become an inner silence. They insist for health. The Sanskrit word for health is very beautiful: the word is SWASTHA - it means to be in one's self. When you are in your self, there is no ego. The English word health also is beautiful from a different...
... viewpoint. It comes from the same root as the word whole comes from - wholeness. When you are whole, you are healthy; when you are fragmented, divided, split, you are unhealthy. When you have a feeling of wholeness - no division, undivided, one - you are healthy. The word holy also comes from whole. When you are really whole, you are holy, you are pure, innocent. The ego exists when you are fragmented...
..., divided, split - when you are not one. When your parts are in conflict and there is a disharmony within, turmoil, anguish, the ego exists. The greater the anxiety, the greater will be the ego. If you try to fulfill your ego you will get more and more disturbed - and the last state of ego is madness. If you really try to fulfill the ego you will become mad. In the East, madness is not such a problem as...
... it is in the West because the whole Western mind depends on the ambition to fulfill the ego. American psychologists say that now three persons out of four are mentally ill. This is too much - unbelievable! And if it is true, then the fourth is just on the boundary line, because the fourth is a part; he lives among these three. He cannot be really healthy - just so-so, just on the boundary line. Any...
... gets more and more disturbed if you try to fulfill the ego because for a greater ego to exist you need greater disturbance, greater illness, disease, greater fragmentation, division. When your fragments of being are in deep conflict, they create the tension. In that tension ego can exist. Fight is needed for the ego - a battleground: your being must become a battleground. This can happen in two ways...
...: either you can fight with others or you can fight with yourself. You can fight with others in a competitive world. You are ambitious, others are also ambitious. You want to be fulfilled as an ego, others are also on the same route. Then you fight with them. This is the worldly way to achieve the ego - the political way or the economic way. But there are religious ways also. You stop fighting with...
... are worldly egos and there are spiritual egos. A man who achieves riches, achieves prestige, becomes powerful, has ego. But do not think that a person who is struggling spiritually doesn't have one. He may have an even subtler ego - a deeper, a more refined ego, but he has one. Your so-called saints are all egoistic. They achieve their egos through austerities - through TAPA, through arduous effort...
.... They have their own victories upon themselves. They have no enemies outside, they have created the enemy within. And then they fight with it, and when they win they have a very egoistic feeling. They feel power. So the second thing to be understood: whenever you feel powerful, remember you have attained a crystallization of the ego. And whenever YOU are powerful, you cannot meet the divine, you...
.... If you are feeling powerful in any way, you are creating a barrier. When you are powerful you are blind to the total. And you are so much disturbed through your power, so much in inner turmoil, that you cannot have that silence which can become a meeting, a communion with the total. Hence, the emphasis of all religions to dissolve the ego: only then can you enter the divine. Jesus says: "Only...
... those who are like children will enter my kingdom of God." Why "like children"? Children are helpless; they are not powerful. Children are still part of the cosmic whole. They have not yet become egos. They do not yet have a crystallized center of the ego; they are still undivided. That is why children are so beautiful. It is difficult to find an ugly child and it is difficult to find a...
... is not fighting with himself either - he is not yet religious. He is simply a natural being just like animals, birds, trees, rocks. He is part of the cosmic whole. He will come out of it. We will bring him out of it; we cannot leave him like that. And even if we leave him he will come out of it, because he has the potentiality to be divided, he has the potentiality to become an ego. And that is...
... part of the ultimate education, that he must become an ego, because unless you have an ego you cannot lose it. The child is pre-ego. His innocence is natural, but a natural innocence can be disturbed at any moment. Whenever he becomes mind, he becomes cunning. Whenever he will become alert about his individuality, he will become egoistic. This is the meaning of the biblical story, that Adam and Eve...
... where he ends and where his mother begins. He feels everything as one. For nine months in the womb he exists as one with his mother. He breathes through his mother, he lives through his mother. Even after being born, when he has come out of the womb, deep in his mind he goes on existing as one with his mother. He has no ego and he cannot feel that he is separate yet. By and by he will know that he is...
... and Eve were prohibited to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge but they had to eat it. It is part of maturing. They were innocent. The moment they ate the fruit they became alert and aware. Suddenly they started hiding their bodies. Now Eve was aware of Adam and Adam was aware of Eve. Clothes came into existence through the ego. They became aware of themselves as separate. Before that they were...
... just part of each other; they never knew that they were separate. They became separated. And this happens to every Adam and Eve. It did not only happen once: whenever a child is born, he comes out of the garden of Eden. In the mother's womb he is in the garden of Eden, one with existence, with no responsibilities, with no worries, with no ego. He exists but without any center. Then he is born. Really...
..., the story, this biblical story of Adam and Eve, is the story of every child's birth. He is thrown out of the mother. Adam and Eve were thrown out of the garden of Eden and every child has to be thrown out. Then the ego grows; it goes on growing. And with it the pain goes on growing. Hence, every old man goes on thinking in terms that childhood was paradise. It was! In this sense it was a paradise...
... because you were not yet an ego. You had not tasted the fruit of knowledge; you had not come to know yourself as separate. With separation problems arise: you become anxious. With separation, death arises. It is said in the biblical story that death didn't exist before. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, death came into existence. Before that they were immortal. Every child is immortal. He is not aware of...
... death because death can become meaningful only to the 'I', to the ego. When you have a conception that you are separate, immediately the problem arises whether you are going to be here forever or whether you will die. The trees are immortal. Not that they do not die - they die but they have no awareness of death. The animals are immortal. Not that death is not going to be there - death will be there...
... but they are not aware of it. They have no egos, so how can they feel they are going to die? 'I' must be there before I can feel that I will die. Death is part of the ego. So now let me tell you: death arises out of disease, illness; and death is the last thing, the climax, where ego ends. Ego creates death around you and the fear - and this is the paradox: the more fearful you feel about death, the...
... more you try to be powerful. Because you think that if you are powerful, then you can do something about death. At least you can postpone it; you can push it away a little. But the more powerful you grow, the more death becomes significant. The more powerful you grow, the more you become afraid of death, because with the power grows the ego. If you are rich, politically powerful, you will be more...
... to death. This is the reason: they have not much to lose. They are existing on the lowest rung, so death cannot become a fall to them. They are already fallen; they are already existing in the grave. What I intend to say is: power gives you ego, ego creates lust for power and this becomes a vicious circle. And when you are powerful you become afraid of death. When you become afraid of death you...
... attained by your inner spirit, not by your ego. But the ego always exploits the whole victory. It says, "I have done this." And, really, nothing is ever done by the ego. The ego is the exploiter - an exploiter par excellence. Even things like birth are exploited by the ego. You say, "This is my birthday" - as if you have done something about your birth. You say, "MY birthday! I...
... was born on this day," as if the 'I' did something. The birth happened. It is a happening, not a doing. But your ego exploits even that. You say, "I breathe." It is absolutely wrong. Breathing happens; you are not breathing. Breathing goes on without you. You can interfere but you cannot breathe. Breathing is a natural thing. The Brahman breathes through you. If it was so, as we say...
... something which you are doing. It is something which is happening to you: a greater force... life you may call it. The Upanishads call it Brahman, the elan vital of Bergson, or whatsoever you like to call it. Life breathes through you, but the ego goes on exploiting everything and goes on saying, "I am breathing." You fall in love and you say, "I love." Really, it is never anything on...
... you. Everything is done by the life force, and everything done by the life force is exploited by the ego. And ego says, "I am doing this," and then feels very elated. This is the parable: THE STORY GOES THAT BRAHMAN OBTAINED A CERTAIN VICTORY FOR THE DEVAS... for the deities. In Indian mythology, all the forces of nature are deities. Fire is a deity - a natural force; air is a deity - a...
... Ganges cannot have an ego, cannot be allowed to have an ego. It is part of a great circle. Again the water will fall into the sea, and again the clouds will come, and again they will pour water down the Ganges, on the Gangotri, and the river will go on flowing. It is a great circle. Clouds, Gangotri, Ganges, the sea - clouds, Gangotri, Ganges, the sea: it is a great circle. You are also just a part of...
... defeat ego cannot be fulfilled. Only through victory can it be fulfilled, so defeat has to be thrown onto the Brahman. If the gods were defeated, they would certainly have said, "The Brahman is against us, destiny is against us, fate is against us. That is why we have been defeated." If you are victorious, then you say that it is because of you. Look at the trick of the ego. Neither is...
... because of you, or both are because of you. Decide and the ego will die. If you say, "Both are not because of me: a greater force is working and I am just a particle, an atomic thing, just a cell, just helpless. Things are happening to me - I am not a doer, so whether victory comes or defeat, both belong to the ultimate," your ego will dissolve. Or say, "Both belong to me, victory and...
... defeat, honor and dishonor" - then too your ego will disappear, because both are contradictory. They negate each other. Victory will give you a little ego and defeat will take that little ego away., You will be just without the ego. These are the two ways. Hindus have followed the first. They say victory and death and everything belongs to the divine, to the order of the cosmos. Jainas and...
... Buddhists have followed the second. They say that there is no God: "Everything belongs to me - the defeat and the victory, the loss and the gain, the birth and death, everything belongs to me." Then these two contradictory things negate each other and the ego is dissolved. In both cases the happening is the same. The ego can persist only if you go on giving all the victories to it and go on...
... giving all the defeats to the world or to the destiny or to the Brahman. Then the ego can exist. This is how the ego exists. The parable says: BRAHMAN CAME TO KNOW THIS, THEIR VANITY. He came to know about their egos, that now they are feeling very elated and they are saying THEY are victorious. It is because of them - victory belongs only to them. HE VERILY APPEARED BEFORE THEM. BUT THEY DID NOT...
... UNDERSTAND WHO THAT YAKSHA - DEMI-GOD - WAS. The second part of the parable: whenever the original, the cosmic source, feels that you are feeling elated, that you are feeling egoistic, it appears before you - but you cannot recognize it. The ego will not allow you to recognize it; it will close your eyes. It comes to you also, not only to those devas. This is a human story, a very psychological parable...
.... Now there was only ego; the source had disappeared. Only the exploiter - that which has never done anything but which goes on thinking that "I can do this and that." Agni could not burn the straw... SO HE WITHDREW FROM THERE AND RETURNED TO THE OTHER GODS SAYING, "I COULD NOT ASCERTAIN WHO THIS SPIRIT WAS." He didn't say that he had been a failure, that he couldn't burn it. He...
... simply said, "I COULDN'T ASCERTAIN WHO THIS SPIRIT WAS." This is how the ego functions. Even if the divine is standing before you, you will go on saying: I couldn't ascertain who this spirit was. Even if life reveals to you that your ego is impotent, you will not realize it. Life goes on revealing to you that your ego is impotent - is it not so? Every moment life goes on saying to you, "...
... ENERGY DO YOU POSSESS, YOU OF SUCH FAME?" ASKED THE SPIRIT. "I CAN VERILY BLOW AWAY EVERYTHING, WHATEVER THERE IS ON THIS EARTH," REPLIED VAYU. THE YAKSHA PLACED A STRAW BEFORE HIM AND SAID, "BLOW THIS AWAY." VAYU APPROACHED IT WITH ALL SPEED; HE WAS, HOWEVER, UNABLE TO BLOW IT AWAY. "WITH ALL SPEED" - your ego can act with all speed but nothing will happen out of it...
.... Your ego can do something with all speed, all effort, but nothing will happen out of it. Remember this; this will be helpful. People come to me and they go on saying, "I am making such an effort to meditate, but nothing is happening." Nothing will happen because the 'I' is making the effort. You are not allowing the divine to happen within. YOU are trying to do something. You are impotent...
.... Whatsoever potency you have comes through the original source, from the cosmos, from the Brahman. It doesn't belong to you. You are just a vehicle. So when the 'I' starts trying something, then nothing happens. In Zen monasteries they teach the seekers only one secret, and the secret is: do something without bringing the 'I' into it. If you can do something without bringing the ego into it, everything will...
... much intellect, too much ego, too much effort. Then the ego came to a point where it said to the German people, "Now you can be victorious all over the world." Hitler was just the expression of all the minds - ego-oriented. Herrigel was unable to understand: "If I do not release the arrow, how can the arrow be released? If I am not making an effort, there will be no effort at all."...
..., and for the first time in three years he could realize that the master was not releasing. It was the life force. The arrow was released by something which was not coming from the ego. It was coming from a deeper energy. He stood as if hypnotized. He came near the master, took the bow from his hand and released the arrow, and the master said, "Right! You have done it." And Herrigel writes...
... - empty. The fire could not burn a straw, the Vayu could not blow a straw. It was so clear to realize that the original source had withdrawn. But they couldn't recognize it. Ego is really so blind that it never recognizes its impotency. Even when the source has moved away, it goes on thinking in old terms. Even when everything is defeated and everything is a failure, it goes on thinking in old terms...
... world, as if the whole world exists for him. And the whole world
is, of course, very small in the beginning: the mother, on the fringe
the father - this is the whole world. And they both love the child. The
child becomes more and more egoistic. He feels himself to be the very
center of all existence. The ego is created. Through dependence, helplessness, the ego is created. In fact the situation is...
... just the contrary; there is no reason to create the ego. But the child is absolutely ignorant, and he is not capable of understanding the complexity of the thing: he cannot feel he is helpless. He feels he is the dictator. And then for his whole life he will try to remain the dictator. He will become a Napoleon, an Alexander, an Adolph Hitler - your presidents, prime ministers, dictators, are all...
... fixed; throughout his whole life he will repeat the same pattern in different situations. But the pattern is there already, complete. By the seventh year the child is perfect: now nothing else is going to happen to him. He has all his attitudes confirmed, his ego settled. Now he moves into the world, and then everywhere there will be problems, millions of problems. And he carries the root within him...
.... Once out of the circle of the family, problems will arise. Because nobody bothers as your mother bothered about you; nobody is concerned as your father was concerned with you. There is total indifference. And the ego is hurt. But now the pattern is set. Whether hurt or not the child cannot change the pattern, it has become the very blueprint of his being. He will play with other children and try to...
... a truth in their proposal, but it is a very dangerous proposal. Because if children are brought up in nurseries without fathers and mothers, without any love, with total indifference, they may not have the problem of the ego, but they will have some other problems, in the same way dangerous, even more so. If a child is brought up in total indifference he will have no center in him. He will be a...
... hotchpotch being, clumsy, not knowing who he is. He will not have any identity. Afraid, scared, he will not be able to take even a single step without fear, because nobody loved him. Of course, the ego will not be there, but, without the ego, he will have no center. He will not become a Buddha; he will be just a dull, inferior being, stupid and always feeling afraid. Love is needed to make you feel...
... the optimum of consciousness. The child gathers ego - it is natural, nothing can be done about it, I accept it. Only later on there is no need to carry it. That ego is needed in the beginning for the child to feel that he is accepted, loved, welcomed; that he is a guest, not uninvited, invited. The father, the mother, the family, the warmth around, help him to grow strong, rooted, grounded. It is...
... needed; the ego gives him a protection. It is good. It is just like the shell of a seed. But the shell should not become the ultimate thing, otherwise the seed will die. The protection can become too much, then it becomes a prison. The protection must remain a protection, and when the moment comes for the shell, the hard shell of the seed to die into the earth, it should die naturally so that the seed...
... can sprout and life can be born. The ego is just a protective shell - the child needs it because he is helpless; the child needs it because he is weak; the child needs it because he is vulnerable and there are millions of forces all around. He needs a protection, a home, a base. The whole world may be indifferent, but he can always look towards the home, from there he can gather significance. But...
... with significance comes the ego. He becomes egoistic. And with this ego arises all the problems, the thousand and one problems. This ego will not allow you to fall in love and millions of problems will arise in your life. This ego would like everybody to surrender to you; this ego will not allow you to surrender to anybody - and love happens only when you surrender. When you force somebody to...
.... Poetry is needed, but for poetry you need surrender. You need to throw off this ego. If you can do it, put it aside, even for moments, your life will have glimpses of the beautiful, of the Divine. Without poetry you cannot really live, you can only exist. Love is poetry. And if love is not possible, how can you pray? Then prayer becomes almost impossible, and, without prayer, you will remain just a...
... becomes discontinuous. The child gathers ego - he cannot love, and he cannot be at ease with anybody. The ego is constantly in fight. You may be sitting silently, but the ego is constantly in fight, just looking, watching how to dominate, how to become dictatorial, how to become the most supreme-most person in the world. This creates problems everywhere. In friendship, sex, prayer, love, society...
..., everywhere you are in conflict. Even with the parents who have given this ego to you there is conflict. It is rarely that a son forgives his father, rarely that a woman forgives her mother. Rarely. Gurdjieff had a sentence written in his room where he used to see the people. It is simply unbelievable that a man like Gurdjieff should write such a simple sentence on the wall. The sentence was this: If you...
... are not yet at ease with your father and mother, then go away. I cannot help you. Why? Because the problem has arisen there and it has to be solved there. That's why all the old Eastern traditions say love your father, respect your father as deeply as possible, because the ego arises there, that is the soil. Solve it there, otherwise it will haunt you everywhere. Now psycho-analysts have also...
... the whole. That's why I call my SANNYASINS "Ma" - mothers. And the ultimate peak of a man is to become child-like, innocent again like a child and then the whole world and existence become the mother. This is the intrinsic potentiality - but one has to come to terms with the father and mother. Ego is born there; it has to be tackled there. Otherwise you will go on cutting branches and...
... leaves and the root remains untouched. If you have settled with your father and mother, you have become mature. Now there is no ego. Now you understand that you were helpless, now you understand that you depended, that you were not the center of the world. In fact, you were completely dependent: you could not have survived. Understanding this, the ego by and by fades, and, once you are not in conflict...
... Confucius. This is, in fact, a joke. Because Confucius to them is the pinnacle of the legal mind. Confucius is the very paragon of ego - subtle, polished, cultured. The whole Confucius philosophy is how to polish your ego in such a way that you retain it without being in conflict with others. That's what a cultured man is. A cultured man is not humble, no never; a cultured man is a very subtle egoist. He...
... is very cunning, clever. He will not bring his ego into any relationship, he will hide it, and he will try to show that he is very humble. He will smile and bow down, and you can see well that this is just diplomatic. To live in the world, Confucius says, you have to exist with other egos and you should be very, very intelligent about how you behave, otherwise unnecessary troubles are created. So...
... humble. A moralist poses humility all around - it is a pose, it is a gesture, cultivated. A religious person is simply humble, it is not a pose. Finding that the ego is nonsense, finding that the ego has no grounds to exist, finding that the ego is just a childish dream, misconceived in ignorance, the religious man simply becomes egoless. Finding no ground for the ego, the ego evaporates. Not that he...
... becomes humble, no, he simply becomes egoless. How can he become humble when there is no ego? Only ego can become humble, so who will become humble? He simply comes to know that he is not, that he is just a part of this vast organic universe. He is not separate, so who is going to be an egoist and who is going to be humble? He is not. He simply finds there is nothing like a center in him: the center is...
... participate in it, but we cannot claim that center in ourselves. That's why Zen says: Don't be humble, be a no-self. Because humility is a trick of the ego, it is the polished ego, not vulgar. So there are two types of ego. The vulgar ego you will find in the uncultured, uncivilized, uneducated person. Then there is a cultured ego, refined, polished, perfumed, very subtle; you cannot detect it. Always...
...? Confucius believes always in ways, methods, techniques - the way. This is how the ego believes. There are people who come to me and they say: How to fall in love? Is there a way? How to fall in love? They ask for a way, a method, a certain technique. They don't understand what they are asking. Falling in love means that now there is no way, no technique, no method. That's why it is called "falling in...
... experiences. In rivers, particularly when they are flooded, in the rains, many whirlpools are created, very powerful and strong. The water moves round and round like a screw. If you are caught in it, you will be forced, pulled towards the bottom, and the deeper you go, the stronger the whirl becomes. The natural tendency of the ego is to fight with it. Of course, because it looks like death and the ego is...
... very much afraid of death. The ego tries to fight with the whirl, and if you fight with the whirl in a flooded river, or near a waterfall where many whirls exist, you are lost, because the whirl is very strong, you cannot fight it. Violence won't do - the more you fight with it, the weaker you become because the whirl goes on pulling you, and you are fighting. With each effort to fight you are losing...
... person not to fight. If somebody attacks you, you simply absorb the attack. If he hits you on your head, you absorb. When somebody is hitting on your head, a certain amount of energy has come to his hand. If you fight, then two energies fight and are destroyed. If you don't fight, you become receptive. It is a very difficult art. It takes many years to learn because the ego again and again comes in...
...;... PLUNGING IN WITH THE WHIRL, I COME OUT WITH THE SWIRL." I have no way. It is all done by the whirl and the swirl. I don't come in, I move with it - "PLUNGING IN WITH THE WHIRL, I COME OUT WITH THE SWIRL. I ACCOMMODATE MYSELF TO THE WATER, NOT THE WATER TO ME." The ego is trying to accommodate the whole world to itself. This is the trouble. A man who has no ego accommodates himself to the...
... world. In fact, it is not good to say that he accommodates - he simply finds that he is accommodated. The ego tries to accommodate everything to it; this is very childish, just like a child. A child wants everything to be done, instantly; whatsoever he desires should be done immediately. If he desires the moon, the moon should be produced immediately, right now. He cannot even wait. A child wants...
... everything, everybody, to accommodate to him. A child is a dictator, and whenever a child is born into a family, he changes the whole atmosphere. He makes everybody a servant, his dictatorship has no end - and the ego is born in that childhood. The ego is the most immature phenomenon: it is childish, immature, not knowing what it is doing. Who are you? Why should the whole accommodate to you? You are just...
... like a wave on the ocean and you are trying to make the ocean accommodate to you. Foolish. Patently foolish. There is no need for the whole to accommodate to you. It cannot be possible; it is not possible. You can go on thinking about it, but you will be a failure. Ego is always a failure, because the impossible is asked. Napoleons, Hitlers, Alexanders - ask them. In the end, they are great failures...
.... Rich people - ask them, in the end. They have accumulated much, but they feel a deep failure inside. You can accumulate power in many ways, but you will be a failure. Ego can never be victorious. Mulla Nasrudin was telling stories to his child. I was also listening, and the child was insisting on more, so he invented a story. He said: "There was one worm that was an early- rising worm. He woke...
...; Mulla said: "Yes, he was a late riser, very lazy. But a child found him asleep and killed him." The child was a little confused. He said: "But what is the motto of the story?" Said Nasrudin: "Motto? You cannot win." Whatsoever you do, early riser or not, in the end everybody is killed. This absolutely true about the ego - you cannot win. Whatsoever you do, be it virtuous...
... or good, if this virtue and goodness is based on the ego, you cannot win, you have the very seed of defeat in you. You can serve people, become a great servant of the society, but if the ego is the base, you cannot win. You may do millions of good things, but if the ego is there, poison is there. It will poison everything you do. Be poor, be rich; be religious, be irreligious; theist, atheist...
...; moral, immoral; criminal, a saint - it doesn't matter. You can't win if the ego is there, because the ego is the seed of failure. And if the ego is not there you cannot be defeated. Your victory is absolute. This is the secret-most teaching of Zen. Be in accord with the whole, move with the whole, with the river. Don't even swim. People try to swim against the current, and then they are defeated...
... can you die? The whole always lives: only individuals come and go. Waves come and go: the ocean goes on and on and on. If you don't believe in yourself as a separate wave, ego, then how can you die? You will live always and always in the whole. You lived before, when you were not, you are living right now, when you think you are, and you will live again, when you will not be there. The dream of your...
... being separate is the ego, and the ego creates conflict. Through conflicts you dissipate and die. Through conflicts you are miserable. Through conflicts you lose all that was possible for you. Every moment the benediction is possible; every moment the ecstasy is possible, but you miss. You miss because you are a fighter. The man said: "I ACCOMMODATE MYSELF TO THE WATER, NOT THE WATER TO ME. AND...
... SO I AM ABLE TO DEAL WITH IT AFTER THIS FASHION." But it is not a method, it is not a technique, not a way; it is an understanding. And remember, finally, either ego can exist, or understanding, both cannot exist together. If the ego exists, you have no understanding; you are just an ignorant child believing that you are the center of the whole, and, finding that it is not so, you are...
... miserable. Finding that you are not the center, you create your hell. Understanding means understanding the whole situation. Simply looking at the whole phenomenon of your life, inner and outer, ego disappears. With understanding there exists no ego; understanding is the path, the way. Then you are in accord, in harmony, in rhythm, in step with life. Then suddenly you come to feel that you plunge in with...
... the whirl and you come out with the swirl. And this game is eternal - plunging in with the whirl, coming out with the swirl - this is the eternal game. That's what Hindus have called LEELA, the great cosmic play. You come sometimes as a wave, and then you disappear. Then again you come as a wave, and you disappear. And this goes on and on, there is no beginning to it and no end to it. The ego has a...
... beginning, the ego has an end, but you, without the ego, are beginningless and endless. You are the very eternity, but in the whole, in accord with the whole. Against the whole, you are a nightmare to yourself. So there is either ego or understanding. The choice is yours. There is no need to be humble, just understanding. And it is as if you have lighted a candle in a dark room - suddenly the darkness is...
... not there, because light and darkness cannot exist together. So, ego and understanding cannot exist together. Generated by PreciseInfo ™ ...
... just the contrary; there is no reason to create the ego. But the child is absolutely ignorant, and he is not capable of understanding the complexity of the thing: he cannot feel he is helpless. He feels he is the dictator. And then for his whole life he will try to remain the dictator. He will become a Napoleon, an Alexander, an Adolph Hitler - your presidents, prime ministers, dictators, are all...
... fixed; throughout his whole life he will repeat the same pattern in different situations. But the pattern is there already, complete. By the seventh year the child is perfect: now nothing else is going to happen to him. He has all his attitudes confirmed, his ego settled. Now he moves into the world, and then everywhere there will be problems, millions of problems. And he carries the root within him...
.... Once out of the circle of the family, problems will arise. Because nobody bothers as your mother bothered about you; nobody is concerned as your father was concerned with you. There is total indifference. And the ego is hurt. But now the pattern is set. Whether hurt or not the child cannot change the pattern, it has become the very blueprint of his being. He will play with other children and try to...
... a truth in their proposal, but it is a very dangerous proposal. Because if children are brought up in nurseries without fathers and mothers, without any love, with total indifference, they may not have the problem of the ego, but they will have some other problems, in the same way dangerous, even more so. If a child is brought up in total indifference he will have no center in him. He will be a...
... hotchpotch being, clumsy, not knowing who he is. He will not have any identity. Afraid, scared, he will not be able to take even a single step without fear, because nobody loved him. Of course, the ego will not be there, but, without the ego, he will have no center. He will not become a Buddha; he will be just a dull, inferior being, stupid and always feeling afraid. Love is needed to make you feel...
... the optimum of consciousness. The child gathers ego - it is natural, nothing can be done about it, I accept it. Only later on there is no need to carry it. That ego is needed in the beginning for the child to feel that he is accepted, loved, welcomed; that he is a guest, not uninvited, invited. The father, the mother, the family, the warmth around, help him to grow strong, rooted, grounded. It is...
... needed; the ego gives him a protection. It is good. It is just like the shell of a seed. But the shell should not become the ultimate thing, otherwise the seed will die. The protection can become too much, then it becomes a prison. The protection must remain a protection, and when the moment comes for the shell, the hard shell of the seed to die into the earth, it should die naturally so that the seed...
... can sprout and life can be born. The ego is just a protective shell - the child needs it because he is helpless; the child needs it because he is weak; the child needs it because he is vulnerable and there are millions of forces all around. He needs a protection, a home, a base. The whole world may be indifferent, but he can always look towards the home, from there he can gather significance. But...
... with significance comes the ego. He becomes egoistic. And with this ego arises all the problems, the thousand and one problems. This ego will not allow you to fall in love and millions of problems will arise in your life. This ego would like everybody to surrender to you; this ego will not allow you to surrender to anybody - and love happens only when you surrender. When you force somebody to...
.... Poetry is needed, but for poetry you need surrender. You need to throw off this ego. If you can do it, put it aside, even for moments, your life will have glimpses of the beautiful, of the Divine. Without poetry you cannot really live, you can only exist. Love is poetry. And if love is not possible, how can you pray? Then prayer becomes almost impossible, and, without prayer, you will remain just a...
... becomes discontinuous. The child gathers ego - he cannot love, and he cannot be at ease with anybody. The ego is constantly in fight. You may be sitting silently, but the ego is constantly in fight, just looking, watching how to dominate, how to become dictatorial, how to become the most supreme-most person in the world. This creates problems everywhere. In friendship, sex, prayer, love, society...
..., everywhere you are in conflict. Even with the parents who have given this ego to you there is conflict. It is rarely that a son forgives his father, rarely that a woman forgives her mother. Rarely. Gurdjieff had a sentence written in his room where he used to see the people. It is simply unbelievable that a man like Gurdjieff should write such a simple sentence on the wall. The sentence was this: If you...
... are not yet at ease with your father and mother, then go away. I cannot help you. Why? Because the problem has arisen there and it has to be solved there. That's why all the old Eastern traditions say love your father, respect your father as deeply as possible, because the ego arises there, that is the soil. Solve it there, otherwise it will haunt you everywhere. Now psycho-analysts have also...
... the whole. That's why I call my SANNYASINS "Ma" - mothers. And the ultimate peak of a man is to become child-like, innocent again like a child and then the whole world and existence become the mother. This is the intrinsic potentiality - but one has to come to terms with the father and mother. Ego is born there; it has to be tackled there. Otherwise you will go on cutting branches and...
... leaves and the root remains untouched. If you have settled with your father and mother, you have become mature. Now there is no ego. Now you understand that you were helpless, now you understand that you depended, that you were not the center of the world. In fact, you were completely dependent: you could not have survived. Understanding this, the ego by and by fades, and, once you are not in conflict...
... Confucius. This is, in fact, a joke. Because Confucius to them is the pinnacle of the legal mind. Confucius is the very paragon of ego - subtle, polished, cultured. The whole Confucius philosophy is how to polish your ego in such a way that you retain it without being in conflict with others. That's what a cultured man is. A cultured man is not humble, no never; a cultured man is a very subtle egoist. He...
... is very cunning, clever. He will not bring his ego into any relationship, he will hide it, and he will try to show that he is very humble. He will smile and bow down, and you can see well that this is just diplomatic. To live in the world, Confucius says, you have to exist with other egos and you should be very, very intelligent about how you behave, otherwise unnecessary troubles are created. So...
... humble. A moralist poses humility all around - it is a pose, it is a gesture, cultivated. A religious person is simply humble, it is not a pose. Finding that the ego is nonsense, finding that the ego has no grounds to exist, finding that the ego is just a childish dream, misconceived in ignorance, the religious man simply becomes egoless. Finding no ground for the ego, the ego evaporates. Not that he...
... becomes humble, no, he simply becomes egoless. How can he become humble when there is no ego? Only ego can become humble, so who will become humble? He simply comes to know that he is not, that he is just a part of this vast organic universe. He is not separate, so who is going to be an egoist and who is going to be humble? He is not. He simply finds there is nothing like a center in him: the center is...
... participate in it, but we cannot claim that center in ourselves. That's why Zen says: Don't be humble, be a no-self. Because humility is a trick of the ego, it is the polished ego, not vulgar. So there are two types of ego. The vulgar ego you will find in the uncultured, uncivilized, uneducated person. Then there is a cultured ego, refined, polished, perfumed, very subtle; you cannot detect it. Always...
...? Confucius believes always in ways, methods, techniques - the way. This is how the ego believes. There are people who come to me and they say: How to fall in love? Is there a way? How to fall in love? They ask for a way, a method, a certain technique. They don't understand what they are asking. Falling in love means that now there is no way, no technique, no method. That's why it is called "falling in...
... experiences. In rivers, particularly when they are flooded, in the rains, many whirlpools are created, very powerful and strong. The water moves round and round like a screw. If you are caught in it, you will be forced, pulled towards the bottom, and the deeper you go, the stronger the whirl becomes. The natural tendency of the ego is to fight with it. Of course, because it looks like death and the ego is...
... very much afraid of death. The ego tries to fight with the whirl, and if you fight with the whirl in a flooded river, or near a waterfall where many whirls exist, you are lost, because the whirl is very strong, you cannot fight it. Violence won't do - the more you fight with it, the weaker you become because the whirl goes on pulling you, and you are fighting. With each effort to fight you are losing...
... person not to fight. If somebody attacks you, you simply absorb the attack. If he hits you on your head, you absorb. When somebody is hitting on your head, a certain amount of energy has come to his hand. If you fight, then two energies fight and are destroyed. If you don't fight, you become receptive. It is a very difficult art. It takes many years to learn because the ego again and again comes in...
...;... PLUNGING IN WITH THE WHIRL, I COME OUT WITH THE SWIRL." I have no way. It is all done by the whirl and the swirl. I don't come in, I move with it - "PLUNGING IN WITH THE WHIRL, I COME OUT WITH THE SWIRL. I ACCOMMODATE MYSELF TO THE WATER, NOT THE WATER TO ME." The ego is trying to accommodate the whole world to itself. This is the trouble. A man who has no ego accommodates himself to the...
... world. In fact, it is not good to say that he accommodates - he simply finds that he is accommodated. The ego tries to accommodate everything to it; this is very childish, just like a child. A child wants everything to be done, instantly; whatsoever he desires should be done immediately. If he desires the moon, the moon should be produced immediately, right now. He cannot even wait. A child wants...
... everything, everybody, to accommodate to him. A child is a dictator, and whenever a child is born into a family, he changes the whole atmosphere. He makes everybody a servant, his dictatorship has no end - and the ego is born in that childhood. The ego is the most immature phenomenon: it is childish, immature, not knowing what it is doing. Who are you? Why should the whole accommodate to you? You are just...
... like a wave on the ocean and you are trying to make the ocean accommodate to you. Foolish. Patently foolish. There is no need for the whole to accommodate to you. It cannot be possible; it is not possible. You can go on thinking about it, but you will be a failure. Ego is always a failure, because the impossible is asked. Napoleons, Hitlers, Alexanders - ask them. In the end, they are great failures...
.... Rich people - ask them, in the end. They have accumulated much, but they feel a deep failure inside. You can accumulate power in many ways, but you will be a failure. Ego can never be victorious. Mulla Nasrudin was telling stories to his child. I was also listening, and the child was insisting on more, so he invented a story. He said: "There was one worm that was an early- rising worm. He woke...
...; Mulla said: "Yes, he was a late riser, very lazy. But a child found him asleep and killed him." The child was a little confused. He said: "But what is the motto of the story?" Said Nasrudin: "Motto? You cannot win." Whatsoever you do, early riser or not, in the end everybody is killed. This absolutely true about the ego - you cannot win. Whatsoever you do, be it virtuous...
... or good, if this virtue and goodness is based on the ego, you cannot win, you have the very seed of defeat in you. You can serve people, become a great servant of the society, but if the ego is the base, you cannot win. You may do millions of good things, but if the ego is there, poison is there. It will poison everything you do. Be poor, be rich; be religious, be irreligious; theist, atheist...
...; moral, immoral; criminal, a saint - it doesn't matter. You can't win if the ego is there, because the ego is the seed of failure. And if the ego is not there you cannot be defeated. Your victory is absolute. This is the secret-most teaching of Zen. Be in accord with the whole, move with the whole, with the river. Don't even swim. People try to swim against the current, and then they are defeated...
... can you die? The whole always lives: only individuals come and go. Waves come and go: the ocean goes on and on and on. If you don't believe in yourself as a separate wave, ego, then how can you die? You will live always and always in the whole. You lived before, when you were not, you are living right now, when you think you are, and you will live again, when you will not be there. The dream of your...
... being separate is the ego, and the ego creates conflict. Through conflicts you dissipate and die. Through conflicts you are miserable. Through conflicts you lose all that was possible for you. Every moment the benediction is possible; every moment the ecstasy is possible, but you miss. You miss because you are a fighter. The man said: "I ACCOMMODATE MYSELF TO THE WATER, NOT THE WATER TO ME. AND...
... SO I AM ABLE TO DEAL WITH IT AFTER THIS FASHION." But it is not a method, it is not a technique, not a way; it is an understanding. And remember, finally, either ego can exist, or understanding, both cannot exist together. If the ego exists, you have no understanding; you are just an ignorant child believing that you are the center of the whole, and, finding that it is not so, you are...
... miserable. Finding that you are not the center, you create your hell. Understanding means understanding the whole situation. Simply looking at the whole phenomenon of your life, inner and outer, ego disappears. With understanding there exists no ego; understanding is the path, the way. Then you are in accord, in harmony, in rhythm, in step with life. Then suddenly you come to feel that you plunge in with...
... the whirl and you come out with the swirl. And this game is eternal - plunging in with the whirl, coming out with the swirl - this is the eternal game. That's what Hindus have called LEELA, the great cosmic play. You come sometimes as a wave, and then you disappear. Then again you come as a wave, and you disappear. And this goes on and on, there is no beginning to it and no end to it. The ego has a...
... beginning, the ego has an end, but you, without the ego, are beginningless and endless. You are the very eternity, but in the whole, in accord with the whole. Against the whole, you are a nightmare to yourself. So there is either ego or understanding. The choice is yours. There is no need to be humble, just understanding. And it is as if you have lighted a candle in a dark room - suddenly the darkness is...
... not there, because light and darkness cannot exist together. So, ego and understanding cannot exist together. Generated by PreciseInfo ™ ...
.... So the basic, the very basic, teaching of Tao is to be in a
state of non-being, what Buddhists call ANATTA, a state of no-self.
Empty, a deep nothingness, nobody inside... then you really are. But
then you are not: the whole is. The moment you start thinking about
yourself as a separate individual the part is claiming to be the whole;
the part has gone mad. They ego is the only insane thing in the...
... world. The ego is neurosis, and anybody who suffers from the ego suffers from neurosis, becuase he thinks as if the part were the whole. The part is not the whole. If a leaf in the tree starts thinking 'I am', then the leaf has gone mad. The tree is and the leaf exists only as a part, an organic part, of the tree. Even to conceive of the leaf as separate is impossible. The tree is flowing in it. It is...
... you are, and sometimes the ocean remains silent and you disappear. Tao says: The ego is the only barrier. All other religions say the same, but Tao goes deepest in its approach; its insight is the greatest. All religions say that the ego has to be dropped, but if you listen, if you read, if you look into those religious people, you will find that their insight is not very deep and the ego comes up...
... in different forms again and again. About the ego only two persons have touched the very substratum and these two persons are Lao Tzu and Gautam Buddha. Religions go on saying 'Drop the ego. Be egoless', but in a subtle way, somehow, they go on protecting it too. They say 'If you drop the ego, you will become spiritual. If you drop the ego you will be the first in the kingdom of God. If you drop...
... the ego you will be the chosen one. If you drop the ego great is going to be the pay-off in the other world - the heaven, the paradise, MOKSHA.' On the one hand they say 'Drop the ego', on the other hand they persuade you, they bribe you, they buttress your greed. They say 'You will be special. You will be extraordinary.' On the one hand they say 'Drop the ego', on the other hand they go on...
... strengthening the same ego under different names. 'You will become a miracle man. You will have SIDDHIs - you will have spiritual powers, occult forces. You will be able to manipulate the existence more deeply. You will become telepathic. You will be able to read others' minds. You will be clairvoyant. This and that... all the SIDDHIS of the yogis - all the miraculous powers of Yoga.... But again you are...
... decorated, again you become very, very strong. Remember, there are three layers of your being: the body, the mind. and the self. And beyond the three is your no-self. And so there are three possibilities for the ego to assert itself. Either it asserts itself on the layer of body - a beautiful body, a strong body, 'I have the most handsome body, the most powerful body.' Somebody is a beauty queen, a Miss...
... Universe, and somebody is Mohammed Ali, the greatest man, Mr Universe. On the layer of the body the ego can assert itself. If the ego asserts itself on the layer of the body one becomes animalistic. All your wrestlers, great wrestlers, are nothing but too attached to their animal part, so that when you see the body of a Mr Universe you can feel it; he looks more like an animal than like a human being...
.... Certainly he is very strong physically. His ego is asserting itself on that path. He will be very aggressive, brutal, violent. He will be very sexual, indulgent, unconscious. He will move like a robot, like a machine. He will not have any consciousness whatsoever. His whole life will be: Eat, drink and be merry. He will live on the very superficial layer of his life. Civilisations are against it, cultures...
... are against it. They say 'This is not good. Drop this ego.' They go on teaching to every child who is born on this earth 'Drop this ego. Become non-aggressive, become non-violent. Don't be brutal, have kindness, sympathy.' Then ego starts asserting itself on another level, the level of the mind. At the mind level it becomes knowledge, knowledgeability, money. Money is a higher thing than sexuality...
... the energy available. So they repress on the first layer and the ego asserts itself on the second layer. All cultures depend on this. In fact, all cultures use it as a technique: Repress the child's ego on the first layer and he will become egoistic on the second layer. Then he will start hankering for gold medals in the university, to become more knowledgeable, to come first in the university. He...
... glasses from the very beginning; he will be old even while he is young. On the physical level his ego has disappeared. He cannot fight, but he can argue. His fight now asserts itself as argument. He can discuss and debate; he has found a finer instrument to conquer and be aggressive with. He will not become a wrestler, he will become a lawyer. He will live through argument, through his knowledge - say...
... anything against his knowledge and he is ready to fight. Of course his fight will be of words, verbal. If you fight with the body he will call it brutal, animalistic, primitive; if you fight on the level of words and language and logic he will say that this is 'civilised fight'... but the same ego is asserting itself on the second layer. Religions depend on repressing this second layer of ego...
.... Civilisation depends on the first repression: repress the ego on the body level so that it asserts itself on the mind level. Religions depend on repressing on the second level so that the ego starts asserting itself on the third level, the level of the self. So religions say: Knowledge is nothing, politics is nothing, money is nothing, to become a great artist is nothing, to become a great novelist, writer...
..., is nothing. Then what is real power? Real power is SIDDHI. If you can do miracles, if you touch a man and he is healed when he was ill, and if you touch a dead body and the dead body is resurrected, then you have something. If you can produce things out of nothing, if you become a miracle man, then you have something. So religions repress the ego on the second layer, then the ego asserts itself on...
... the third layer. Tao says: The ego has to disappear from all the layers. One has to understand it so totally that it cannot find another way for its existence, so that it cannot find another shelter in your being. When ego disappears completely and there is no way for it to assert itself then YOU ARE NOT in one sense and YOU ARE, for the first time, in another sense. You are not as an individual any...
... more, you are the whole. This is the meaning of a holy man in Taoism: A holy man is one who is not. Very paradoxical. And remember, Tao does not teach you to become humble. If you become humble the ego will continue - it will become the ego of the humble person, it will hide behind humbleness. So a practised humbleness, a cultivated humbleness, is not going to help. Then what is to be done? If you...
... ask Lieh Tzu, Chuang Tzu or Lao Tzu, they will say that nothing has to be done because whatsoever you do will create the ego; ego is created out of doing. Nothing is to be done. One has just to see the ways of the ego, the subtle ways of the ego, the cunning ways of the ego; one has to see them so totally.... One has to follow the ego into one's being from body to mind, from mind to self, one has to...
... seek and see all the hideouts. Once you have known all the possibilities of ego-assertion, in that very understanding, in that very awareness, ego disappears. When ego disappears your body is different, your mind is different, your self is different. When ego disappears, many things happen. First, now you are no more identified with your body. You are in the body, but you are not the body. When the...
... ego disappears you are no more identified with the mind. You use the mind, the mind becomes an instrument - a beautiful instrument - but you are not identified with the mind either. When the ego disappears you use the self. but you are not identified with self either. You remain an individual: you walk and live like an individual. but continuously aware that the wave is just an appearance, the...
... reality is the ocean; that 'I am just a wave. God is the ocean, Tao is the ocean.' The disappearance of the ego is the disappearance of what Gurdjieff calls identification. That is the right word: identification. We get identified with everything, whatsoever we are close to. You are very close to the body, so you start thinking 'I am the body.' You feel hungry and you say 'I am hungry.' That is not...
... via the mind, so mind has become very polluted, poisoned. If the ego disappears from the body, there are two possibilities. If you repress it, it will assert itself on the mind level. If you don't repress it, if you simply understand it - and through understanding it disappears - then it will not assert itself anywhere, and your body will change. You will attain to new insights. Your body will...
... the body again, how to make your body alive again. The resurrection of the body is needed, and that resurrection is possible only when you are no longer using your body as an ego vehicle. Ego is the greatest drug. LSD is nothing, marijuana is nothing, alcohol is nothing. Ego keeps you so drugged, so asleep, so unconscious. Once the body attains to sensitivity, you will find joy through the body...
... in the river, or Lying down on the sand just taking a shower of sunrays, and everything becomes so joyful. The whole of life takes a new hue of rejoicing. You will be able to dance and sing if the body is resurrected. The ego is the death of the body. The ego has to disappear. But let me repeat again: it has not to be repressed, otherwise it will bubble up on a deeper level. When the ego disappears...
..., otherwise your knowledge will disappear. By continuously repeating, chattering, muttering inside, you maintain your knowledge, otherwise it would disappear; you would not be able to possess it. This is the only way to possess it. Because it is borrowed, the only way to possess it is through constant repetition. But when the ego is no more there in the mind, all the barriers disappear. Mind becomes a...
... is all about. Whenever you are really celebrating, you create something. Whatsoever it is, you create something: you become a participant in the creative process of life. And when on the third level the self, the ego, disappears, a great explosion happens. That's what Zen people call SATORI, Yoga calls SAMADHI. When in the self, the self disappears, when you look inside yourself and you don't find...
... anybody there: just a pure awareness. a witnessing, a no-self, you have arrived home. This is the very basic approach of Tao, that the ego has to disappear on three levels. The ego gone... the body becomes the temple, the mind becomes the innermost shrine, and the self becomes the whole - m now, but it can be transformed into realie religious when your body is a temple, your mind is a shrine and you are...
... nothing but God himself, the whole itself This is the vision to be carried. It is a dream now, but it can be transformed into reality any moment you are courageous enough to go into it. It can be transformed into reality very easily, because the ego-game is just a dream. Once you come out of the dream, the reality will be available. It is available right now - only you are dreaming. It is as if you fall...
..., all the time, been here. You had never gone in reality. The ego is a dream, and whatsoever you have dreamed through the ego is a falsity, it is illusory. That's what Hindus call MAYA. Now this beautiful story. It has to be understood step by step. LIEH TZU WAS GOING TO CH'I BUT TURNED BACK HALF WAY. ON THE ROAD HE MET PO- HUN WU-JEN WHO ASKED HIM WHY HE HAD TURNED BACK. Ch'i was the capital of the...
... disciple of Tao; he understands that this is dangerous. When people start thinking that you are exceptional, there is danger. What is the danger? The danger is that you may move again on an ego-trip; the danger is they may again give you an ambition; the danger is that they will not allow you to relax and to be yourself. When people give importance to you, they start dominating you. That's the whole art...
... have made him great - now you have the key. Now, in a subtle way, he will become your slave. So whenever somebody comes and exaggerates about you, beware! He is trying to catch hold of you, and once you allow it, it will be difficult to go back home. Mind wants to play these games very much. Even when sometimes a person is saying a lie but it is fulfilling to your ego, you accept it. You can try it...
... danger. Danger! If you are not so alert that ego has disappeared from all the layers of your being, there is danger. And Lieh Tzu must have been a disciple when this happened, he was not yet a Master. A Master can afford to be in any situation; a disciple cannot afford to, he has to be very alert because still there are dangers, still he has not arrived. There are tremendous possibilities of getting...
... something. Somewhere, the ego is still there, because only through the ego do your inner energies leak out. 'WHEN A MAN'S INNER INTEGRITY IS NOT FIRM...' And what do they mean by 'inner integrity'? When there is no ego, you are integrated with the whole. When there is ego, you are not integrated with the whole. When there is ego, you are split; when there is ego.... In fact. there are many egos - you are...
... a crowd and there is a constant fight inside. Each ego tries to be more powerful than the others and there is a continuous struggle, and in that struggle your energy starts flowing out: it becomes a sort of aura. Remember, this is not the aura that happens to a Buddha or a Lao Tzu or to Jesus. An aura happens to Buddha, but that aura is not energy coming out - no. His whole being has become so...
... meditated and prayed and his prayer was going deep. Then he became aware that he had great influence over people. The moment he became aware that he had great influence over people, he forgot about his prayers. He became ambitious. The ego asserted itself on the last layer, the self - not on the body. not on the mind, but on the self. And when the ego asserts itself on the third, the deepest, layer, many...
... really integrated. From the body the ego has disappeared, from the mind the ego has disappeared, but from the self it has not disappeared yet. On the most subtle layer, the ego is still hiding.' To see that phenomenon, the old man stood there... ... HE LEANED ON HIS UPRIGHT STAFF AND WRINKLED HIS CHEEK AGAINST IT. AFTER STANDING THERE FOR A WHILE, HE LEFT WITHOUT SPEAKING. What was he doing? He looked...
... Master looked deeply and found that at the third layer the ego was still vibrating. It can be heard. If you listen silently, it is very simple to hear the ego of the other, and a man who has come home can immediately see. 'IT IS NOT WHAT YOU ARE CAPABLE OF ALLOWING THEM TO DO SO...' 'No, it has not yet become possible.' '... YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF PREVENTING THEM.' Your state is negative, not yet...
... when you don't have any desire to influence people - only then will you be of help. If you want to influence people, that simply shows that you are on an ego-trip. Enough! These games you have played long enough; for many lives you have been playing. Now it is time to stop these games. Because of these games you cannot contact reality. Reality is not a game. When you stop all games and all plays...
..., then reality explodes into your being. But all the games have one thing in common and that is the ego; body-games, mind-games, self- games, but all have one thing in common - the ego. That's why I explain to you not to repress the ego, but to disperse it, and that dispersal comes. Find out. Whenever you are feeling some ego arising, just go inside yourself and look at it. See its movement, how it...
... moves from one space to another space, how it takes more and more energy from you, how it takes you on far-away journeys, how it always takes you away from yourself. Just watch. I am not saying 'Fight', I am not saying 'Stop' - no; just watch. First you will become aware of the ego in the body - that is the most gross. Then, by and by, you will start hearing the whisperings of the second layer - the...
... ego in the mind: that is subtle. And if you become capable of listening to that, one day you will understand about even a third layer which is very subtle. You want to become a MAHATMA, you want to become a great saint, you want to become a great yogi, MAHAYOGI, you want to become this and that. You want to become a great benefactor to humanity, you want to become a Buddha - then, again you are...
... playing the same game on a very subtle level. The Zen people have the right word for it, they call it 'the Buddha-disease' when the ego asserts itself on the third level. The body, the mind, the self... one has to go on looking, layer upon layer, into the ego - its functioning. Just looking into it is enough. When you have looked well, when you have looked at all the nooks and corners of your being, one...
... day, you will suddenly find that it has evaporated, it is not there. And when it is not there, God is, Tao is. When you are not, you really are. To die on one plane is to be born on another plane. To die on the plane of games is to be born on the plane of existence. That is the meaning of Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection. Crucify yourself as far as ego is concerned, so that you can be...
... world. The ego is neurosis, and anybody who suffers from the ego suffers from neurosis, becuase he thinks as if the part were the whole. The part is not the whole. If a leaf in the tree starts thinking 'I am', then the leaf has gone mad. The tree is and the leaf exists only as a part, an organic part, of the tree. Even to conceive of the leaf as separate is impossible. The tree is flowing in it. It is...
... you are, and sometimes the ocean remains silent and you disappear. Tao says: The ego is the only barrier. All other religions say the same, but Tao goes deepest in its approach; its insight is the greatest. All religions say that the ego has to be dropped, but if you listen, if you read, if you look into those religious people, you will find that their insight is not very deep and the ego comes up...
... in different forms again and again. About the ego only two persons have touched the very substratum and these two persons are Lao Tzu and Gautam Buddha. Religions go on saying 'Drop the ego. Be egoless', but in a subtle way, somehow, they go on protecting it too. They say 'If you drop the ego, you will become spiritual. If you drop the ego you will be the first in the kingdom of God. If you drop...
... the ego you will be the chosen one. If you drop the ego great is going to be the pay-off in the other world - the heaven, the paradise, MOKSHA.' On the one hand they say 'Drop the ego', on the other hand they persuade you, they bribe you, they buttress your greed. They say 'You will be special. You will be extraordinary.' On the one hand they say 'Drop the ego', on the other hand they go on...
... strengthening the same ego under different names. 'You will become a miracle man. You will have SIDDHIs - you will have spiritual powers, occult forces. You will be able to manipulate the existence more deeply. You will become telepathic. You will be able to read others' minds. You will be clairvoyant. This and that... all the SIDDHIS of the yogis - all the miraculous powers of Yoga.... But again you are...
... decorated, again you become very, very strong. Remember, there are three layers of your being: the body, the mind. and the self. And beyond the three is your no-self. And so there are three possibilities for the ego to assert itself. Either it asserts itself on the layer of body - a beautiful body, a strong body, 'I have the most handsome body, the most powerful body.' Somebody is a beauty queen, a Miss...
... Universe, and somebody is Mohammed Ali, the greatest man, Mr Universe. On the layer of the body the ego can assert itself. If the ego asserts itself on the layer of the body one becomes animalistic. All your wrestlers, great wrestlers, are nothing but too attached to their animal part, so that when you see the body of a Mr Universe you can feel it; he looks more like an animal than like a human being...
.... Certainly he is very strong physically. His ego is asserting itself on that path. He will be very aggressive, brutal, violent. He will be very sexual, indulgent, unconscious. He will move like a robot, like a machine. He will not have any consciousness whatsoever. His whole life will be: Eat, drink and be merry. He will live on the very superficial layer of his life. Civilisations are against it, cultures...
... are against it. They say 'This is not good. Drop this ego.' They go on teaching to every child who is born on this earth 'Drop this ego. Become non-aggressive, become non-violent. Don't be brutal, have kindness, sympathy.' Then ego starts asserting itself on another level, the level of the mind. At the mind level it becomes knowledge, knowledgeability, money. Money is a higher thing than sexuality...
... the energy available. So they repress on the first layer and the ego asserts itself on the second layer. All cultures depend on this. In fact, all cultures use it as a technique: Repress the child's ego on the first layer and he will become egoistic on the second layer. Then he will start hankering for gold medals in the university, to become more knowledgeable, to come first in the university. He...
... glasses from the very beginning; he will be old even while he is young. On the physical level his ego has disappeared. He cannot fight, but he can argue. His fight now asserts itself as argument. He can discuss and debate; he has found a finer instrument to conquer and be aggressive with. He will not become a wrestler, he will become a lawyer. He will live through argument, through his knowledge - say...
... anything against his knowledge and he is ready to fight. Of course his fight will be of words, verbal. If you fight with the body he will call it brutal, animalistic, primitive; if you fight on the level of words and language and logic he will say that this is 'civilised fight'... but the same ego is asserting itself on the second layer. Religions depend on repressing this second layer of ego...
.... Civilisation depends on the first repression: repress the ego on the body level so that it asserts itself on the mind level. Religions depend on repressing on the second level so that the ego starts asserting itself on the third level, the level of the self. So religions say: Knowledge is nothing, politics is nothing, money is nothing, to become a great artist is nothing, to become a great novelist, writer...
..., is nothing. Then what is real power? Real power is SIDDHI. If you can do miracles, if you touch a man and he is healed when he was ill, and if you touch a dead body and the dead body is resurrected, then you have something. If you can produce things out of nothing, if you become a miracle man, then you have something. So religions repress the ego on the second layer, then the ego asserts itself on...
... the third layer. Tao says: The ego has to disappear from all the layers. One has to understand it so totally that it cannot find another way for its existence, so that it cannot find another shelter in your being. When ego disappears completely and there is no way for it to assert itself then YOU ARE NOT in one sense and YOU ARE, for the first time, in another sense. You are not as an individual any...
... more, you are the whole. This is the meaning of a holy man in Taoism: A holy man is one who is not. Very paradoxical. And remember, Tao does not teach you to become humble. If you become humble the ego will continue - it will become the ego of the humble person, it will hide behind humbleness. So a practised humbleness, a cultivated humbleness, is not going to help. Then what is to be done? If you...
... ask Lieh Tzu, Chuang Tzu or Lao Tzu, they will say that nothing has to be done because whatsoever you do will create the ego; ego is created out of doing. Nothing is to be done. One has just to see the ways of the ego, the subtle ways of the ego, the cunning ways of the ego; one has to see them so totally.... One has to follow the ego into one's being from body to mind, from mind to self, one has to...
... seek and see all the hideouts. Once you have known all the possibilities of ego-assertion, in that very understanding, in that very awareness, ego disappears. When ego disappears your body is different, your mind is different, your self is different. When ego disappears, many things happen. First, now you are no more identified with your body. You are in the body, but you are not the body. When the...
... ego disappears you are no more identified with the mind. You use the mind, the mind becomes an instrument - a beautiful instrument - but you are not identified with the mind either. When the ego disappears you use the self. but you are not identified with self either. You remain an individual: you walk and live like an individual. but continuously aware that the wave is just an appearance, the...
... reality is the ocean; that 'I am just a wave. God is the ocean, Tao is the ocean.' The disappearance of the ego is the disappearance of what Gurdjieff calls identification. That is the right word: identification. We get identified with everything, whatsoever we are close to. You are very close to the body, so you start thinking 'I am the body.' You feel hungry and you say 'I am hungry.' That is not...
... via the mind, so mind has become very polluted, poisoned. If the ego disappears from the body, there are two possibilities. If you repress it, it will assert itself on the mind level. If you don't repress it, if you simply understand it - and through understanding it disappears - then it will not assert itself anywhere, and your body will change. You will attain to new insights. Your body will...
... the body again, how to make your body alive again. The resurrection of the body is needed, and that resurrection is possible only when you are no longer using your body as an ego vehicle. Ego is the greatest drug. LSD is nothing, marijuana is nothing, alcohol is nothing. Ego keeps you so drugged, so asleep, so unconscious. Once the body attains to sensitivity, you will find joy through the body...
... in the river, or Lying down on the sand just taking a shower of sunrays, and everything becomes so joyful. The whole of life takes a new hue of rejoicing. You will be able to dance and sing if the body is resurrected. The ego is the death of the body. The ego has to disappear. But let me repeat again: it has not to be repressed, otherwise it will bubble up on a deeper level. When the ego disappears...
..., otherwise your knowledge will disappear. By continuously repeating, chattering, muttering inside, you maintain your knowledge, otherwise it would disappear; you would not be able to possess it. This is the only way to possess it. Because it is borrowed, the only way to possess it is through constant repetition. But when the ego is no more there in the mind, all the barriers disappear. Mind becomes a...
... is all about. Whenever you are really celebrating, you create something. Whatsoever it is, you create something: you become a participant in the creative process of life. And when on the third level the self, the ego, disappears, a great explosion happens. That's what Zen people call SATORI, Yoga calls SAMADHI. When in the self, the self disappears, when you look inside yourself and you don't find...
... anybody there: just a pure awareness. a witnessing, a no-self, you have arrived home. This is the very basic approach of Tao, that the ego has to disappear on three levels. The ego gone... the body becomes the temple, the mind becomes the innermost shrine, and the self becomes the whole - m now, but it can be transformed into realie religious when your body is a temple, your mind is a shrine and you are...
... nothing but God himself, the whole itself This is the vision to be carried. It is a dream now, but it can be transformed into reality any moment you are courageous enough to go into it. It can be transformed into reality very easily, because the ego-game is just a dream. Once you come out of the dream, the reality will be available. It is available right now - only you are dreaming. It is as if you fall...
..., all the time, been here. You had never gone in reality. The ego is a dream, and whatsoever you have dreamed through the ego is a falsity, it is illusory. That's what Hindus call MAYA. Now this beautiful story. It has to be understood step by step. LIEH TZU WAS GOING TO CH'I BUT TURNED BACK HALF WAY. ON THE ROAD HE MET PO- HUN WU-JEN WHO ASKED HIM WHY HE HAD TURNED BACK. Ch'i was the capital of the...
... disciple of Tao; he understands that this is dangerous. When people start thinking that you are exceptional, there is danger. What is the danger? The danger is that you may move again on an ego-trip; the danger is they may again give you an ambition; the danger is that they will not allow you to relax and to be yourself. When people give importance to you, they start dominating you. That's the whole art...
... have made him great - now you have the key. Now, in a subtle way, he will become your slave. So whenever somebody comes and exaggerates about you, beware! He is trying to catch hold of you, and once you allow it, it will be difficult to go back home. Mind wants to play these games very much. Even when sometimes a person is saying a lie but it is fulfilling to your ego, you accept it. You can try it...
... danger. Danger! If you are not so alert that ego has disappeared from all the layers of your being, there is danger. And Lieh Tzu must have been a disciple when this happened, he was not yet a Master. A Master can afford to be in any situation; a disciple cannot afford to, he has to be very alert because still there are dangers, still he has not arrived. There are tremendous possibilities of getting...
... something. Somewhere, the ego is still there, because only through the ego do your inner energies leak out. 'WHEN A MAN'S INNER INTEGRITY IS NOT FIRM...' And what do they mean by 'inner integrity'? When there is no ego, you are integrated with the whole. When there is ego, you are not integrated with the whole. When there is ego, you are split; when there is ego.... In fact. there are many egos - you are...
... a crowd and there is a constant fight inside. Each ego tries to be more powerful than the others and there is a continuous struggle, and in that struggle your energy starts flowing out: it becomes a sort of aura. Remember, this is not the aura that happens to a Buddha or a Lao Tzu or to Jesus. An aura happens to Buddha, but that aura is not energy coming out - no. His whole being has become so...
... meditated and prayed and his prayer was going deep. Then he became aware that he had great influence over people. The moment he became aware that he had great influence over people, he forgot about his prayers. He became ambitious. The ego asserted itself on the last layer, the self - not on the body. not on the mind, but on the self. And when the ego asserts itself on the third, the deepest, layer, many...
... really integrated. From the body the ego has disappeared, from the mind the ego has disappeared, but from the self it has not disappeared yet. On the most subtle layer, the ego is still hiding.' To see that phenomenon, the old man stood there... ... HE LEANED ON HIS UPRIGHT STAFF AND WRINKLED HIS CHEEK AGAINST IT. AFTER STANDING THERE FOR A WHILE, HE LEFT WITHOUT SPEAKING. What was he doing? He looked...
... Master looked deeply and found that at the third layer the ego was still vibrating. It can be heard. If you listen silently, it is very simple to hear the ego of the other, and a man who has come home can immediately see. 'IT IS NOT WHAT YOU ARE CAPABLE OF ALLOWING THEM TO DO SO...' 'No, it has not yet become possible.' '... YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF PREVENTING THEM.' Your state is negative, not yet...
... when you don't have any desire to influence people - only then will you be of help. If you want to influence people, that simply shows that you are on an ego-trip. Enough! These games you have played long enough; for many lives you have been playing. Now it is time to stop these games. Because of these games you cannot contact reality. Reality is not a game. When you stop all games and all plays...
..., then reality explodes into your being. But all the games have one thing in common and that is the ego; body-games, mind-games, self- games, but all have one thing in common - the ego. That's why I explain to you not to repress the ego, but to disperse it, and that dispersal comes. Find out. Whenever you are feeling some ego arising, just go inside yourself and look at it. See its movement, how it...
... moves from one space to another space, how it takes more and more energy from you, how it takes you on far-away journeys, how it always takes you away from yourself. Just watch. I am not saying 'Fight', I am not saying 'Stop' - no; just watch. First you will become aware of the ego in the body - that is the most gross. Then, by and by, you will start hearing the whisperings of the second layer - the...
... ego in the mind: that is subtle. And if you become capable of listening to that, one day you will understand about even a third layer which is very subtle. You want to become a MAHATMA, you want to become a great saint, you want to become a great yogi, MAHAYOGI, you want to become this and that. You want to become a great benefactor to humanity, you want to become a Buddha - then, again you are...
... playing the same game on a very subtle level. The Zen people have the right word for it, they call it 'the Buddha-disease' when the ego asserts itself on the third level. The body, the mind, the self... one has to go on looking, layer upon layer, into the ego - its functioning. Just looking into it is enough. When you have looked well, when you have looked at all the nooks and corners of your being, one...
... day, you will suddenly find that it has evaporated, it is not there. And when it is not there, God is, Tao is. When you are not, you really are. To die on one plane is to be born on another plane. To die on the plane of games is to be born on the plane of existence. That is the meaning of Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection. Crucify yourself as far as ego is concerned, so that you can be...
...: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A.
Question 1: BELOVED OSHO, I FEEL THAT THROUGH DEVELOPING AN ATTITUDE OF
ENDURANCE TOWARDS DIFFICULTIES, I HAVE BECOME RESIGNED TO MUCH OF LIFE.
THIS RESIGNATION FEELS LIKE A WEIGHT PUSHING AGAINST MY EFFORT TO BECOME
MORE ALIVE IN MEDITATION. DOES THIS MEAN THAT I HAVE SUPPRESSED MY EGO, AND THAT I MUST FIND IT AGAIN BEFORE I CAN REALLY...
... LOSE IT? One of the greatest problems...it will appear very paradoxical, but this is true: before you can lose your ego, you must attain it. Only a ripe fruit falls to the ground. Ripeness is all. An unripe ego cannot be thrown, cannot be destroyed. And if you struggle with an unripe ego to destroy and dissolve it, the whole effort is going to be a failure. Rather than destroying it, you will find it...
... more strengthened in new subtle ways. This is something basic to be understood: the ego must come to a peak, it must be strong, it must have attained an integrity - only then can you dissolve it. A weak ego cannot be dissolved. And this becomes a problem. In the East, all the religions preach egolessness. So in the East, everybody is against the ego from the very beginning. Because of this anti...
...-attitude, ego never becomes strong, never comes to a point of integration from where it can be thrown. It is never ripe. So in the East it is very difficult to dissolve the ego, almost impossible. In the West, the whole Western tradition of religion and psychology propounds, preaches, persuades people, to have strong egos - because unless you have a strong ego, how can you survive? Life is a struggle; if...
... you are egoless, you will be destroyed. Then who will resist? Who will fight? Who will compete? And life is a continuous competition. Western psychology says: Attain to the ego, be strong in it. But in the West it is very easy to dissolve the ego. So whenever a Western seeker reaches to an understanding that ego is the problem, he can easily dissolve it, more easily than any Eastern seeker. This is...
... the paradox: in the West ego is taught; in the East egolessness is taught. But in the West it is easy to dissolve the ego; in the East it is very difficult. This is going to be a hard task for you, first to attain and then to lose - because you can lose only something which you possess. If you don't possess it, how can you lose it? You can be poor only if you are rich. If you are not rich your...
... moment when you can say with your totality; I don't know, you have become capable of knowledge. This ignorance is beautiful, but it is attained through knowledge. It is poverty attained through richness. And the same happens with ego - you can lose it if you have it. When Buddha comes down from his throne, becomes a beggar...what is the necessity for Buddha? He was a king, enthroned, at the peak of his...
... ego - why this extreme, moving down from his palace to the streets, becoming a beggar? But Buddha has a beauty in his begging. The earth has never known such a beautiful beggar, such a rich beggar, such a kingly beggar, such an emperor. What happened when he stepped down from his throne? He stepped down from his ego. Thrones are nothing but symbols, symbols of the ego, of power, prestige, status. He...
... anything else but the ego. You talk of humility, but that talk comes from a deep centre of the ego. This will happen, this is how hypocrisy happens. You have the ego, you hide it through the opposite; you become humble on the surface. This surface humbleness cannot deceive anyone. It may deceive you, but it cannot deceive anyone else. From the holes of the dirty dresses, your ego goes on peeping. It is...
... always there. This is a self-deception and nothing more. Nobody else is deceived. This happens if you start throwing the unripe ego. What I teach will look contradictory, but it is true to life. Contradiction is inherent in life. I teach you to be egoists so that you can become egoless. I teach you to be perfect egoists. Don't hide it, otherwise hypocrisy will be born. And don't struggle with the...
... unripe phenomenon. Let it ripen - and help it. Bring it to a peak! Don't be afraid - there is nothing to be afraid of. This is how you will come to realize the agony of the ego. When it comes to its peak, then you will not need a Buddha or me to tell you that the ego is hell. You will know it, because the peak of the ego will be the peak of your hellish experiences, it will be a nightmare. And then...
... there is no need for anybody to tell you: Drop it! It will be difficult to carry it on. One reaches to knowledge only through suffering. You cannot throw anything just by logical argument. You can throw something only when it has become so painful that it cannot be carried any further. Your ego has not become that painful yet - hence you carry it. It is natural! I cannot persuade you to drop it. Even...
... ego also has a time. It needs maturity. So don't be afraid of being egoists. You ARE, otherwise you would have disappeared long ago. This is the mechanism of life: you have to be egoists, you have to fight your way, you have to fight with so many millions of desires around you, you have to struggle, you have to survive. Ego is a survival measure. If a child is born without the ego, he will die. He...
... cannot survive, it is impossible, because if he feels hunger he will not feel: I am hungry. He will feel there is hunger, but not related to him. The moment hunger is felt, the child feels: I am hungry, he starts crying and making efforts to be fed. The child grows through the growth of his ego. So to me, ego is part of natural growth. But that doesn't mean that you have to remain with it forever. It...
... one step more and the dream will become real - and it cannot become real because it is a dream! When it comes so close to reality, sleep is broken, the dream is shattered, you are fully awake. The same happens with all types of fallacies. Ego is the greatest dream. It has its beauty, its agony. It has its ecstasy, its agony. It has its heavens and hells, both are there. Dreams sometimes are...
... beautiful and sometimes nightmares, but both are dreams. So I don't tell you to come out of your dream before the time has come. No, never do anything before the time. Allow things to grow, allow things to have their time, so that everything happens naturally. Ego will drop. It can drop of its own accord also. If you simply allow it to grow and help it to grow, there will be NO need to drop it. This is...
... very deep. If YOU drop it, ego has remained inside. WHO will drop it? If you think YOU will drop it, YOU are the ego - so whatsoever you drop will not be the real thing. The real thing will be preserved and you will have thrown something else. You cannot make yourself egoless. Who will do it? It happens, it is not a doing. You grow into ego and a point comes when the whole thing becomes so hellish...
... that the dream is broken. Suddenly you see the goose is out - it has never been in the bottle. You have never been an ego. It was just a dream around you. A necessary dream, I say, so I don't condemn it, a necessary part of growth. In life everything is necessary. Nothing is unnecessary, nothing can be unnecessary. Whatsoever has happened had to happen. Whatsoever is happening is happening because of...
... certain deep causes. You need it so you can remain in the fallacy. It is just a cocoon that helps you, protects you, helps you to survive. One need not be in the cocoon forever. When you are ready, break the cocoon, come out. The ego is the shell of the egg, it protects you. But when you are ready, break the shell, come out of the egg. The ego is the shell. But wait. Hurry will not be of much help...
...; haste will not help - it may hinder. Allow time, and don't condemn it, because who will condemn it? Go to the so-called saints - they talk of humbleness, humility - and look into their eyes: you will not find such refined egos anywhere else. Now their egos have taken the garb of religion, Yoga, sainthood, but the ego is there. They may not be collecting riches, they may be collecting followers; the...
... satisfied by momentary pleasures. They want eternal pleasures. Unless something is eternal they are not gratified. Their greed is deep, their greed is absolute and greed belongs to the ego. Greed is the hunger of the ego. So it happens sometimes that saints are more egoistic than sinners, and then they are far away from the divine. And sometimes sinners can attain to the god more easily than those so...
...-called saints, because ego is the barrier. This has been my experience that sinners can drop their egos more easily than saints, because sinners have never been against the ego. They have been feeding it, they have been enjoying it, they have lived with it totally. And saints have always been fighting the ego, so they never allowed it to become ripe. So this is my attitude: ego HAS to be dropped, but...
..., and then life says: Lose! Be rich, and then life says: Become poor! Be a peak, an Everest of the ego, and then become an abyss of egolessness. Then you have known both - the illusory and the real, the maya and the Brahma. Almost every day it happens: somebody comes to be initiated into sannyas, and then his mind starts functioning and he says to me: Wearing orange will make me more egoistic, because...
... then I will feel that I am somebody different, distinct - I am a sannyasin, one who has renounced. So wearing orange will make me more egoistic he says, and I say to him: Become! Become egoistic, but consciously. Ego is a disease if you are unconscious about it, if you hide it in the unconscious. Ego is a game if you are conscious about it. You can enjoy it. You can play it. Be conscious, mindful...
..., refined. Go on working on your ego and make it a beautiful statue, because before you give it back to the god, it must be something worth giving, it must be a present.
... LOSE IT? One of the greatest problems...it will appear very paradoxical, but this is true: before you can lose your ego, you must attain it. Only a ripe fruit falls to the ground. Ripeness is all. An unripe ego cannot be thrown, cannot be destroyed. And if you struggle with an unripe ego to destroy and dissolve it, the whole effort is going to be a failure. Rather than destroying it, you will find it...
... more strengthened in new subtle ways. This is something basic to be understood: the ego must come to a peak, it must be strong, it must have attained an integrity - only then can you dissolve it. A weak ego cannot be dissolved. And this becomes a problem. In the East, all the religions preach egolessness. So in the East, everybody is against the ego from the very beginning. Because of this anti...
...-attitude, ego never becomes strong, never comes to a point of integration from where it can be thrown. It is never ripe. So in the East it is very difficult to dissolve the ego, almost impossible. In the West, the whole Western tradition of religion and psychology propounds, preaches, persuades people, to have strong egos - because unless you have a strong ego, how can you survive? Life is a struggle; if...
... you are egoless, you will be destroyed. Then who will resist? Who will fight? Who will compete? And life is a continuous competition. Western psychology says: Attain to the ego, be strong in it. But in the West it is very easy to dissolve the ego. So whenever a Western seeker reaches to an understanding that ego is the problem, he can easily dissolve it, more easily than any Eastern seeker. This is...
... the paradox: in the West ego is taught; in the East egolessness is taught. But in the West it is easy to dissolve the ego; in the East it is very difficult. This is going to be a hard task for you, first to attain and then to lose - because you can lose only something which you possess. If you don't possess it, how can you lose it? You can be poor only if you are rich. If you are not rich your...
... moment when you can say with your totality; I don't know, you have become capable of knowledge. This ignorance is beautiful, but it is attained through knowledge. It is poverty attained through richness. And the same happens with ego - you can lose it if you have it. When Buddha comes down from his throne, becomes a beggar...what is the necessity for Buddha? He was a king, enthroned, at the peak of his...
... ego - why this extreme, moving down from his palace to the streets, becoming a beggar? But Buddha has a beauty in his begging. The earth has never known such a beautiful beggar, such a rich beggar, such a kingly beggar, such an emperor. What happened when he stepped down from his throne? He stepped down from his ego. Thrones are nothing but symbols, symbols of the ego, of power, prestige, status. He...
... anything else but the ego. You talk of humility, but that talk comes from a deep centre of the ego. This will happen, this is how hypocrisy happens. You have the ego, you hide it through the opposite; you become humble on the surface. This surface humbleness cannot deceive anyone. It may deceive you, but it cannot deceive anyone else. From the holes of the dirty dresses, your ego goes on peeping. It is...
... always there. This is a self-deception and nothing more. Nobody else is deceived. This happens if you start throwing the unripe ego. What I teach will look contradictory, but it is true to life. Contradiction is inherent in life. I teach you to be egoists so that you can become egoless. I teach you to be perfect egoists. Don't hide it, otherwise hypocrisy will be born. And don't struggle with the...
... unripe phenomenon. Let it ripen - and help it. Bring it to a peak! Don't be afraid - there is nothing to be afraid of. This is how you will come to realize the agony of the ego. When it comes to its peak, then you will not need a Buddha or me to tell you that the ego is hell. You will know it, because the peak of the ego will be the peak of your hellish experiences, it will be a nightmare. And then...
... there is no need for anybody to tell you: Drop it! It will be difficult to carry it on. One reaches to knowledge only through suffering. You cannot throw anything just by logical argument. You can throw something only when it has become so painful that it cannot be carried any further. Your ego has not become that painful yet - hence you carry it. It is natural! I cannot persuade you to drop it. Even...
... ego also has a time. It needs maturity. So don't be afraid of being egoists. You ARE, otherwise you would have disappeared long ago. This is the mechanism of life: you have to be egoists, you have to fight your way, you have to fight with so many millions of desires around you, you have to struggle, you have to survive. Ego is a survival measure. If a child is born without the ego, he will die. He...
... cannot survive, it is impossible, because if he feels hunger he will not feel: I am hungry. He will feel there is hunger, but not related to him. The moment hunger is felt, the child feels: I am hungry, he starts crying and making efforts to be fed. The child grows through the growth of his ego. So to me, ego is part of natural growth. But that doesn't mean that you have to remain with it forever. It...
... one step more and the dream will become real - and it cannot become real because it is a dream! When it comes so close to reality, sleep is broken, the dream is shattered, you are fully awake. The same happens with all types of fallacies. Ego is the greatest dream. It has its beauty, its agony. It has its ecstasy, its agony. It has its heavens and hells, both are there. Dreams sometimes are...
... beautiful and sometimes nightmares, but both are dreams. So I don't tell you to come out of your dream before the time has come. No, never do anything before the time. Allow things to grow, allow things to have their time, so that everything happens naturally. Ego will drop. It can drop of its own accord also. If you simply allow it to grow and help it to grow, there will be NO need to drop it. This is...
... very deep. If YOU drop it, ego has remained inside. WHO will drop it? If you think YOU will drop it, YOU are the ego - so whatsoever you drop will not be the real thing. The real thing will be preserved and you will have thrown something else. You cannot make yourself egoless. Who will do it? It happens, it is not a doing. You grow into ego and a point comes when the whole thing becomes so hellish...
... that the dream is broken. Suddenly you see the goose is out - it has never been in the bottle. You have never been an ego. It was just a dream around you. A necessary dream, I say, so I don't condemn it, a necessary part of growth. In life everything is necessary. Nothing is unnecessary, nothing can be unnecessary. Whatsoever has happened had to happen. Whatsoever is happening is happening because of...
... certain deep causes. You need it so you can remain in the fallacy. It is just a cocoon that helps you, protects you, helps you to survive. One need not be in the cocoon forever. When you are ready, break the cocoon, come out. The ego is the shell of the egg, it protects you. But when you are ready, break the shell, come out of the egg. The ego is the shell. But wait. Hurry will not be of much help...
...; haste will not help - it may hinder. Allow time, and don't condemn it, because who will condemn it? Go to the so-called saints - they talk of humbleness, humility - and look into their eyes: you will not find such refined egos anywhere else. Now their egos have taken the garb of religion, Yoga, sainthood, but the ego is there. They may not be collecting riches, they may be collecting followers; the...
... satisfied by momentary pleasures. They want eternal pleasures. Unless something is eternal they are not gratified. Their greed is deep, their greed is absolute and greed belongs to the ego. Greed is the hunger of the ego. So it happens sometimes that saints are more egoistic than sinners, and then they are far away from the divine. And sometimes sinners can attain to the god more easily than those so...
...-called saints, because ego is the barrier. This has been my experience that sinners can drop their egos more easily than saints, because sinners have never been against the ego. They have been feeding it, they have been enjoying it, they have lived with it totally. And saints have always been fighting the ego, so they never allowed it to become ripe. So this is my attitude: ego HAS to be dropped, but...
..., and then life says: Lose! Be rich, and then life says: Become poor! Be a peak, an Everest of the ego, and then become an abyss of egolessness. Then you have known both - the illusory and the real, the maya and the Brahma. Almost every day it happens: somebody comes to be initiated into sannyas, and then his mind starts functioning and he says to me: Wearing orange will make me more egoistic, because...
... then I will feel that I am somebody different, distinct - I am a sannyasin, one who has renounced. So wearing orange will make me more egoistic he says, and I say to him: Become! Become egoistic, but consciously. Ego is a disease if you are unconscious about it, if you hide it in the unconscious. Ego is a game if you are conscious about it. You can enjoy it. You can play it. Be conscious, mindful...
..., refined. Go on working on your ego and make it a beautiful statue, because before you give it back to the god, it must be something worth giving, it must be a present.
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