Prabhaker

Ego is an illusion, when you are aware there is no identification. Identification happens in unawareness. When you are awareness there is no ego.

To be identified with something which you are not, is the formation of the ego. Ego means to be identified with something you are not. So whenever there is any identification, it means with something else – that you are not. One can be identified with the body, with the mind. But the moment one is identified, one is lost to oneself. This is what ego means.

Ego is a need, without ego a child can't grow, a child needs appreciation, love and care, there is nothing wrong with this situation.

Firstly, two points are to be understood. One, the energy of the third eye is really the same as that which moves in the two ordinary eyes - the same energy. It begins to move in a new center. The third eye is already there, but non-functioning, and it cannot see unless these ordinary eyes become unseeing. The same energy has to move in it. When the energy is not moving in the two eyes it can move in the third, and when it moves in the third the two eyes will become unseeing. They will be there, but you won't be able to see through them. That energy that looks through them will be absent; it will move through a new center. That center is between these two eyes. It is already there, complete; any moment it can function. But it needs energy to function, and that same energy has to be diverted. Secondly, when you are seeing through the two eyes, you are seeing through the physical body. The third eye is not really a part of the physical body. It is part of the second body which is hidden - the subtle body, the SUKSHMA SHARIR. It has a corresponding spot in the physical body, but it is not part of it. That is why physiology cannot believe that there exists a third eye or anything like it, because your skull can be analyzed, penetrated, x-rayed, and there is no point, no physical entity which can be said to be the third eye. The third eye is part of the subtle body, the sukshma sharir. When you die your physical body dies, but your sukshma sharir, your subtle body, moves with you; it takes another birth. Unless the subtle body dies, you can never be freed from the circle of birth- death, rebirth-redeath. The circle moves on. The third eye belongs to the subtle body. When the energy is moving through the physical body, you are looking through the physical eyes. That is why through the physical eyes you cannot look at anything other than the physical, than the material. The two eyes are physical. Through these eyes you cannot look at anything, cannot see anything which is not physical. Only with the third eye functioning can you enter a different dimension. Now you can see things which are invisible to the physical eyes, but are visible to the subtle eyes. Then, with the third eye functioning, if you look at a person you look at his soul, at his spirit, not at his body - just like you look at the physical body through the physical eyes, but you cannot see the soul. The same happens when you look through the third eye: you look and the body is not there, just the one who resides in the body. Remember these two points. Firstly, the same energy has to move. It has to be taken away from the ordinary physical eyes and allowed to move through the third eye. Secondly, the third eye is not part of the physical body. It is part of the subtle body, the second body that is within. Because it is part of the subtle body, the moment you can look through it you look at the subtle world. You are sitting here. If a ghost is sitting here you cannot see it, but if your third eye is functioning you will see the ghost, because subtle existence can be seen only through the subtle eye. How is the third eye related with this technique of looking? It is deeply related. Really, this technique is to open the third eye. If your two eyes stop completely, if they become non-moving, static, like stones, with no movement in these eyes, the energy stops flowing through them. If you stop them, the energy stops flowing through them. The energy flows; that is why they move. The vibration, the movement, is because of the energy. If the energy is not moving, your eyes will become just like a dead man's eyes - stoney, dead. Looking at a spot, staring at it without allowing your eyes to move anywhere else, will give a staticness. Suddenly the energy which was moving through the two eyes will not be moving through these eyes. And energy has to move; energy cannot be static. Eyes can be static, but energy cannot be static. When these eyes are closed to the energy, if suddenly the doors are closed and the energy cannot move through these eyes, it tries to find a new path. And the third eye is just near, just between the two eyebrows, half an inch deep. It is just near - the nearest point. If your energy is released from these eyes, the first thing that can happen is that it will move through the third eye. It is just as if water is flowing and you close one hole: it will find another - the nearest which can be found with the least resistance. It will find it automatically; you do not have to do anything specifically. With these physical eyes, you just have to stop energy from moving through them, and then energy will find its own path and it will move through the third eye. This movement through the third eye transforms you into a different world. You start seeing things you have never seen, you start feeling things you have never felt, you start smelling things you have never smelled. A new world, a subtle world, starts functioning. It is already there. The eye is there; the world, the subtle world, is already there. Both are there, but not revealed. Once you function in that dimension, many things become apparent to you. For example, if a person is going to die, if your third eye is functioning you will become immediately aware that he is going to die. No physical analysis, no physical diagnosis can say that certainly he is going to die. At the most, we can talk about probabilities. We can say perhaps he will die, and this statement will be conditional: "If such and such remains the case, he may die; if something can be done he may not die." Medical diagnosis cannot yet be certain about death. Why? So much development and yet so much uncertainty about death! Really, medical science is trying to deduce death, to infer death, through physical symptoms, and death is a subtle phenomenon, not physical. It is an invisible phenomenon of a different dimension. But with the third eye functioning, you suddenly feel that a man is going to die. How do you feel it? Death has an impact. If the man is going to die, then death has already cast its shadow there, and that shadow can be felt with the third eye at any time. When a child is born, those who have had much deep practice using the third eye can see the time of his death that very moment. But then the shadow is very subtle. When a person is going to die in six months, then anyone whose third eye functions a little can see the death six months before it comes. The shadow darkens. Really, around you a dark shadow settles down and that can be felt, but not with these two eyes. With the third eye, you begin to see auras. A person comes to you; he cannot deceive you, because whatever he says is meaningless unless it corresponds to his aura. He may say he is a person who never gets angry, but the red aura will show that he is filled with anger. He cannot deceive as far as his aura is concerned, because he is completely unaware about the aura. Whatsoever he says can be judged through his aura, whether it is right or wrong. With the third eye you start seeing radiations, auras. In the old days, that was how someone was initiated. Unless the aura was right, the master would wait, because your wish fulfillment was not the question. You may have wanted to be initiated, but that was not enough unless your aura said that you were ready. So for years the disciple had to wait until the aura was ready; it had nothing to do with his desire to be initiated - that is futile. Sometimes even for lives, one had to wait. For example, Buddha resisted the temptation to initiate women for many years. So much pressure was put upon him; still he would reject this. Ultimately he agreed to initiate women, but then he said, "Now my religion will not be alive after five hundred years; I have compromised. But because you are forcing me, I will initiate women." What was the reason why he would not initiate women? One basic reason was this: with man, sexual energy can be regulated very easily. A man can become a celibate very easily. With a woman's body it is difficult because menses is a regular phenomenon - unconscious, uncontrollable, non-voluntary. Semen ejaculation can be controlled, but menses cannot be controlled. Or, if one tries to control it, then it will have very bad effects on the body. The moment a woman enters her period of menses, her aura changes completely: it becomes sexual, aggressive, depressed, all that is negative surrounds the woman, and this happens every month. Only because of this Buddha was not ready to initiate women. He said that it was difficult because every month the menses moves in a circle, periodically, and nothing can be done voluntarily. Something can be done, but it was difficult to do that in Buddha's time. Now it can be done. Mahavir completely denied any possibility of a woman being liberated from a woman's body. He said that a woman has to be born again as a man, and only then can she be liberated. So all the effort should be channelled for a woman to enter a new birth as a man. Why? It was a problem of the aura. If you initiate a woman, every month she will fall down and the whole effort will be lost. There was no discrimination, no evaluation about whether or not woman and man are equal; that was not the question. But for Mahavir the question was this: how to help? So he found an easier way: to help a woman to be reborn as a man. That was easier. It meant that a woman had to wait for another life, and the whole effort had to be directed toward the goal that she should be born in a male body. This appeared easier to Mahavir than to initiate a woman, because every month she comes back down to the original state and all effort is lost. But these two thousand years have done much. Particularly, tantra has done much. Tantra has found different doors, and tantra is the only system in the world which makes no differentiation between man and woman. Rather, on the contrary, it says that a woman can become easily liberated, and the reason is the same, only looked at from a different angle. Tantra says that because a woman's body is periodically regulated, she can detach herself from her body more easily than man. Because man's mind is more involved in the body, that is why he can regulate it. Man's mind is more involved in the body; that is why he can control his sex. Woman's mind is not so involved in the body. The body functions as an automata - different, on a different layer, and the woman cannot do anything about it. It is like an automatic mechanism; it goes on. Tantra says that because of this woman can detach herself from her body very easily. And if this becomes possible - this detachment, this gap - then there is no problem. So it is a very paradoxical thing: if a woman decides to be celibate and to detach herself from her body, she can maintain her purity more easily than a man. Once the detachment is there, then she can forget the body completely. Man can detach himself very easily, can control very easily, but his mind is more involved in the body. That is why he can control, but then he will have to control every day, continuously. And because feminine sex is passive, it is very easy for a woman to be relaxed about sex. Man's sex is active. It is easy for him to control it, but difficult for him to relax about it. So tantra has been trying to find many, many ways, and tantra is the only system which says there is no difference, that even a feminine structure can be used. So tantra is the only path which gives women equal status. Otherwise, every religion, whatsoever it may say, deep down feels that women are inferior. It may be Christianity, it may be Islam, it may be Jainism, it may be Buddhism, but deep down it feels this, and the reason is the diagnosis through the third eye, the aura - the forming of the aura every month at the time of menses. With the third eye you become capable of seeing things which are there, but which cannot be seen with ordinary eyes. All the methods about looking affect the third eye, because looking means a certain energy moving outward from you toward the world. If blocked, if suddenly blocked, the energy will find another path, and the third eye is just near. In Tibet there were even surgical operations for the third eye. Sometimes it happens that your third eye is blocked because you have not used it for millennia. If the third eye is blocked and you stop your eyes, you will feel a certain uneasiness because the energy is there and there is no path where to move. In Tibet they devised certain operations to have the passage cleared. This can be done. And if it is not done, then many things can happen. Just two or three days before, one sannyasin - she is here - came to me. She said, "There is a very hot sensation at the third eye." And not only was there the sensation, the skin had become burned as if really someone had burned it from the outside. The sensation, the burning, was inside, but the skin was affected. It became completely burned. She was afraid - what had happened? The feeling was pleasant, the warmth was very pleasant as if something were melting. Something was happening, but even the physical body had become affected, as if actual fire had touched it. The reason? The third eye had started functioning, the energy began to move in it. It had been cold for lives together; energy never moved through it. When for the first time energy moves there is the warmth. When for the first time energy moves there is the burning sensation. And because the passage has to be created and forced, it may become like fire. It is concentrated energy hammering on the third eye. In India we have been using sandalwood powder and other things, ghee and other things, just on the third eye spot. We call this mark a TILAK. It is put just on the third eye spot in order to give a certain coolness from the outside. So if warmth comes within and fire moves within, it should not affect the skin outside. Not only can the skin be burnt by it, sometimes even holes have appeared on the skull. I was reading one of the most penetrating books about one of the very deep mysteries of human existence on the earth. There have always been proposals that man came from some other star, because there seems to be no possibility that man suddenly evolved on earth. There seems to be no possibility really that man could have evolved from a baboon or a chimpanzee. And there has been no link, because if man evolved from the chimpanzee to be man, there must be links - something that is between man and chimpanzee - but there is no such thing. With all the available data and discoveries, we have not yet found a single body structure, a skull or anything, which we can say is a link between the chimpanzee and man. Evolution means steps. A chimpanzee cannot suddenly become a man - stages must have been followed. But there is no proof, so Darwin's theory remains a hypothesis. There are no in-between links. So there have always been fantastic proposals that man must have appeared on the earth suddenly. A man's skull dating very far back, a hundred thousand years back, has been found. But in comparison with other skulls there is nothing lacking in it. It is the same type of skull, with the same brain, with the same structure. We have not evolved really as far as mind structure is concerned. So it seems man suddenly appeared on earth. He must have come from some other planet. For example, now we are traveling into space, and if we find some planet worth living upon we will populate it; then suddenly man will appear there. I was reading a book about such a proposal, and the author has been finding many things to help his hypothesis. There is one thing that I wanted to tell you about in connection with this matter of looking. He has found one skull in Mexico and one in Tibet. Both of these skulls have holes at the third eye spot, and the holes are such that they could only have been made by a gun bullet. The skulls are at least one-half million to one million years old. If the holes were made by an arrow, they could not be round. They are so round that they could not have been made by an arrow; only a bullet could make such holes. So that author tries to prove by this that bullets existed one million years before. Otherwise how were these two men killed? But really, that doesn't prove anything about bullets. Whenever the third eye is blocked completely and the energy moves suddenly, this hole can appear. The energy is just like a bullet coming from within - just like a bullet. It is concentrated fire; it will create a hole. Those two skulls with holes show not that those men were killed by bullets, but simply that there was a third eye phenomenon. The third eye was blocked completely; energy became concentrated. The eyes were stopped completely; energy could not move, and it became fire. Then it exploded. Just so that there would not be such an accident, in Tibet they discovered and devised methods to make a hole so that the energy could move easily. So whenever you are trying this looking, remember this: if you feel a burning sensation, do not be afraid. But if you feel that the energy has become a great fire as if a live bullet is there and wants to penetrate the skull - stop the method and come immediately to me. Do not do it further. If you feel as if a bullet is there and it wants to penetrate the skull, stop. Open your eyes and move them as much as you can. Immediately the sensation will drop, the energy will have moved through the eyes. And unless I say something to you do not proceed, because sometimes it has happened that the skull is broken. Nothing is wrong even if it happens. Even if one dies in it nothing is wrong, because one has achieved something which is beyond death. But just to be safe, stop whenever you feel that something wrong can happen - with any method, not only with this. With any method, if you feel something wrong is possible, stop. In India now, many methods are being taught and many, many seekers suffer unnecessarily, because those who teach are not even aware of the dangers. And those who follow, they follow in a blind way. They do not know where they are moving or what they are doing. I am talking about these one hundred and twelve methods specifically because of this - so that you become aware of all the methods, all the possibilities, the dangers, and so that you can then find out which will suit you best. Then if you proceed in any method, you will be fully aware of what can happen, what you have to be aware of, and when something happens how you have to tackle it. Osho ~ Vigyan Bhairav Tantra Volume 1

Ego - The False Center The first thing to be understood is what 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 first thing he becomes aware of is the other. It is natural, because the eyes open outwards, the hands touch others, the ears listen to others, the tongue tastes food and the nose smells the outside. All these senses open outwards. That is what birth means. Birth means coming into this world, the world of the outside. So when a child is born, he is born into this world. He opens his eyes, sees others. 'Other' means the thou. He becomes aware of the mother first. Then, by and by, he becomes aware of his own body. That too is the other, that too belongs to the world. He is hungry and he feels the body; his need is satisfied, he forgets the body. This is how a child grows. First he becomes aware of you, thou, other, and then by and by, in contrast to you, thou, he becomes aware of himself. This 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 the 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 prisons - not that they have done something wrong, not that by putting them in the prisons we are going to improve them, no. They simply don't fit. They are troublemakers. They have certain types of egos of which the society doesn't approve. If the society approves, everything is good. One man kills somebody - he is a murderer. And the same man in wartime kills thousands - he becomes a great hero. The society is not bothered by a murder, but the murder should be commited for the society - then it is okay. The society doesn't bother about morality. Morality means only that you should fit with the society. If the society is at war, then the morality changes. If the society is at peace, then there is a different morality. Morality is a social politics. It is diplomacy. And each child has to be brought 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. The society creates an ego because the ego can be controlled and manipulated. The self can never be controlled or 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 harder next time, because the center feels shaken. Ego is always shaken, always in search of food, that somebody should appreciate it. That's why you continuously ask for attention. You get the idea of who you are from others. It is not a direct experience. It is from 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, you 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 simply be 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. I have heard: One small child was visiting his grandparents. He was just four years old. In the night when the grandmother was putting him to sleep, he suddenly started crying and weeping and said, "I want to go home. I am afraid of darkness." But the grandmother said, "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. Something to hold to, something to cling to, something underneath the feet; you are not in a vacuum, not in an emptiness. You may be miserable, but at least you ARE. Even being miserable gives you a feeling of 'I am'. Moving from it, fear takes over; you start feeling afraid of the unknown darkness and chaos - because society has managed to clear a small part of your being. It is just like going to a forest. You make a little clearing, you clear a little ground; you make fencing, you make a small hut; you make a small garden, a lawn, and you are okay. Beyond your fence - the forest, the wild. Here everything is okay; you have planned everything. This is how it has happened. Society has made a little clearing in your consciousness. It has cleaned just a little part completely, fenced it. Everything is okay there. That's what all your universities are doing. The whole culture and conditioning is just to clear a part so that you can feel at home there. And then you become afraid. Beyond the fence there is danger. Beyond the fence you are, as within the fence you are - and your conscious mind is just one part, one-tenth of your whole being. Nine-tenths is waiting in the darkness. And in that 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 a hidden center within you that you have been carrying for many lives. That is your soul, the self. Once you come near it, everything changes, everything settles again. But now this settling is not done by the society. Now everything becomes a cosmos, not a chaos; a new order arises. But this is no longer the order of the society - it is the very order of existence itself. It is what Buddha calls Dhamma, Lao Tzu calls Tao, Heraclitus calls Logos. It is not man-made. It is the VERY order of existence itself. Then everything is suddenly beautiful again, and for the first time really beautiful, because man-made things cannot be beautiful. At the most you can hide the ugliness of them, that's all. You can decorate them, but they can never be beautiful. The difference is just like the difference between a real flower and a plastic or 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-petaled-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 alive. So you can have plastic flowers, they are good in a way. They are permanent; they are not eternal, but they are permanent. The real flower outside in the garden is eternal, but not permanent. And the eternal has its own way of being eternal. The way of the eternal is to be born again and again and to die. Through death it refreshes itself, rejuvenates itself. To us it appears that the flower has died - it never dies. It simply changes bodies, so it is ever fresh. It leaves the old body, it enters a new body. It flowers somewhere else; it goes on flowering. But we cannot see the continuity because the continuity is invisible. We see only one flower, another flower; we never see the continuity. It is the same flower which flowered yesterday. It is the same sun, but in a different garb. 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, its 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 to suffer. 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. Is 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? And then others say that there is nothing - and whenever the others say that there is nothing they hit a wound, they say a truth - and nothing hits like the truth. You have to defend, because if you don't defend, if you don't become defensive, then where will you be? You will be lost. The identity will be broken. So you have to defend and fight - that is the clash. A man who attains to the self is never in any clash. Others may come and clash with him, but he is never in clash with anybody. It happened that one Zen master was passing through a street. A man came running and hit him hard. The master fell down. Then he got up and started to walk in the same direction in which he was going before, not even looking back. A disciple was with the master. He was simply shocked. He said, "Who is this man? What is this? If one lives in such a way, then anybody can come and kill you. And you have not even looked at that person, who he is, and why he did it." The master said, "That is his problem, not mine." You can clash with an enlightened man, but that is your problem, not his. And if you are hurt in that clash, that too is your own problem. He cannot hurt you. And it is like knocking against a wall - 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 that you are somebody important, significant, then how will you feed your ego? Other's 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 immediately change so that people pay attention to you. This is a deep begging. A real beggar is one who asks for and demands attention. And a real emperor is one who lives in himself; he has a center of his own, he doesn't depend on anybody else. Buddha sitting under his bodhi tree...if the whole world suddenly disappears, will it make any difference to Buddha? -none. It will not make any difference at all. If the whole world disappears, it will not make any difference because he has attained to the center. But you, if the wife escapes, divorces you, goes to somebody else, you are completely shattered - because she had been paying attention to you, caring, loving, moving around you, helping you to feel that you were somebody. Your whole empire is lost, you are simply shattered. You start thinking 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 you 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 prefer 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's 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." It happened once: A fakir, a beggar, was praying in a mosque, just early in the morning when it was still dark. It was a certain religious day for Mohammedians, and he was praying, and he was saying, "I am nobody. I am the poorest of the poor, the greatest sinner of sinners." Suddenly there was one more person who was praying. He was the emperor of that country, and he was not aware that there 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 our 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 - humbleness, humility, simplicity - nothing will help. Only one thing is possible, and that is just to watch and see that it is the source of all misery. Don't say it. Don't repeat it - WATCH. Because if I say it is the source of all misery and you repeat it, then it is useless. YOU have to come to that understanding. Whenever you are miserable, just close the eyes and don't try to find some cause outside. Try to 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 traveled 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 of Charlie Brown. In one cartoon he is playing with blocks, making a house out of children's blocks. He is sitting in the middle of the blocks building the walls. Then a moment comes when he is enclosed; all around he has made a wall. Then he cries, "Help, help!" He has done the whole thing! Now he is enclosed, imprisoned. This is childish, but this is all that you have done also. You have made a house all around yourself, and now you are crying, "Help, help!" And the misery becomes a millionfold - because there are helpers who are also in the same boat. It happened that one very beautiful woman went to see her psychiatrist for the first time. The psychiatrist said, "Come closer please." When she came closer, he simply jumped and hugged and kissed the woman. She was shocked. Then he said, "Now sit down. This takes care of my problem, now what 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. Rather, you will harm. People who still have their own problems cannot be of much help. Only someone who has no problems of his own can help you. Only then is there the clarity to see, to see through you. A mind that has no problems of its own can see you, you become transparent. A mind that has no problems of its own can see through itself; that's why it becomes capable of seeing through others. In the West, there are many schools of psychoanalysis, many schools, and no help is reaching people, but rather, harm. Because the people who are helping others, or trying to help, or posing as helpers, are in the same boat. ...It is difficult to see one's own ego. It is very easy to see other's 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, simply one day you see the dead leaf dropping. It settles into the ground, dies of its own accord. You have not done anything so you cannot claim that you have dropped it. You see that it has simply disappeared, and then the real center arises. And that real center is the soul, the self, the god, the truth, or whatsoever you want to call it. It is nameless, so all names are good. You can give it any name of your own liking. From Beyond the Frontier of the Mind by Osho

What we call heaven and hell are just deep dream lives. The intensity of the fire burning in hell can never be found in real life, though it is a very inconsistent fire. In scriptures, there are descriptions of the fires of hell, into which you are thrown without being burned. But one is never aware of this inconsistency – that if you were thrown into an intense fire you would not be able to withstand the heat; yet you are not in any way being burned. During that interval, there is no clear awareness of the duration of time. Because of this, Christianity has said that there is hell forever. That is why they said that hell is eternal and it is very difficult to get out of it. Good souls see happy dreams and evil souls see unhappy dreams. Only because of their dreams are they feeling unhappy and miserable. Heaven and hell are also memories of a dream period. Descriptions can be given. It is only on such descriptions that concepts of heaven and hell have been evolved by all religions. The descriptions are different not because the places are different, but because the mental states of the individuals recalling the experiences are different. Therefore, when Christianity describes heaven, it will be different from what Hinduism will describe, because descriptions depend on different states of consciousness. Actually, every person will bring back a different story. It is more or less like when we all sleep in the same room and then get up and describe our dreams. We have slept in the same room; we are at the same place, but our dreams will be different. Everything depends upon the person. Dimensions Beyond the Known ~ Osho

It teaches egolessness , which is very difficult to achieve for a person who wants to adjust in a modern society.

I was not talking about people, I was discussing about eastern spirituality and western psychology.

@Natasha

Read my posts again. I was suggesting her to stay away from eastern spirituality as she is interested in having a healthy ego, I was advocating that western psychology is good for her.

@Toby Adi Shankaracharya, founder of Advaita Vedanta philosophy, travelled all around India engaging scholars in religious debate. During one such debate, Bharati, wife of scholar Madana Mishra, attempted to defeat Adi Shankara in the topic of Kamashastra – sex. To win this debate Adi Shankaracharya performed 'parakaya pravesha' – enter the body of another person. In the debate between Madana Mishra and Adi Shankara, Bharati was appointed the judge as she was a scholar by herself. Madana Mishra was easily defeated in the debate by Adi Shankara. Bharati contented that Adi Shankara had only defeated one half of Madana Mishra. To completely defeat him, Adi Shankara had to defeat his wife too. Bharati soon realized that she could not defeat Adi Shankara in philosophy, so turned the debate towards Kamashastra. As Adi Shankara was a Brahmachari he had no knowledge of sex. Adi Shankara asked Bharati to give him a month’s time to debate this topic with her. Adi Shankaracharya then used his yogic powers to enter the body of Raja Amaruka (King of Varanasi) who had just died. Before entering the body of the king, he hid his physical body in a cave and asked his disciples go guard it. For next one month, in the body of the king, Adi Shankara indulged in sexual activities and learned Kama Shastra. A month later he returned and defeated Bharati in the debate.

@Max_V Self recognition and the rise of what most refer to as personhood.

Karoi Village In (Rajasthan) Bhilwara is famous for some great astrologers. After I completed my engineering degree and I was looking for a job. So I visited a astrologer with my maternal aunt, who visited him once few years before. Astrologer was a young man , very good looking with large and shining eyes. He told us to sit down and wrote something on a writing slate with a chalk. Then he told my maternal aunt to ask question. My maternal aunt asked him a question. He told her to pick the slate on which he wrote something before question was asked, the answer for the question was already written on the slate. My maternal aunt told him that she visited him few years back. He told her the date and time of visit, questions asked by my maternal aunt and answers given by him. Dozens of people visit him every day still he remembered everything. He never charged fees for his services, people used to donate 5-10 rupees if they wish, it was not a compulsion. Then he rubbed the slate with a cloth and wrote something on the slate. The he told me to ask the question. My question was whether I will get a government job or not. He told me to turn the slate. It was written that I will get a job in private sector and then I will get a job in government sector, date of joining of both jobs were also mentioned. I asked him ,"do you practice yoga?" He replied ," meditation". Few years later I found that everything he said was accurate. When I was posted in Bhilwara city during my government job, I visited him once again but he was not using his psychic abilities now, he was telling future by asking date and place of birth, and he was not looking as graceful as he was looking before. After I visited the astrologer with my maternal aunt, I discussed it with a friend in Bhilwara, he told me about another astrologer in a nearby village. He was a old man living in a hut, before asking him a question I said to him," should I tell you my date of birth", he said , "What's the need?", he wrote my date of birth on a paper. Then I asked him , "How can I achieve mental peace?", he said, "you are the first person who has asked such question", after this I discussed few other things with him. I was a hardcore atheist raised in atheistic family, but my belief in atheism shattered after few more such incidents.

What else can you do ?

Patanjali Yoga Sutras, Chapter 3 Vibhuti Pada https://www.ashtangayoga.info/philosophy/yoga-sutra/chapter-3/ Sadhguru Nithyananda Osho Yoga_The_Alpha_and_the_Omega_Volume_9 (Page 13) http://www.oshorajneesh.com/download/osho-books/Yoga_Books/Yoga_The_Alpha_and_the_Omega_Volume_9.pdf Bhagavata Purana (Krishna) Five siddhis of yoga and meditation In the Bhagavata Purana, the five siddhis of yoga and meditation are: trikālajñatvam: knowing the past, present and future advandvam: tolerance of heat, cold and other dualities para citta ādi abhijñatā: knowing the minds of others and so on agni arka ambu viṣa ādīnām pratiṣṭambhaḥ: checking the influence of fire, sun, water, poison, and so on aparājayah: remaining unconquered by others Ten secondary siddhis In the Bhagavata Purana, Krishna describes the ten secondary siddhis: anūrmimattvam: Being undisturbed by hunger, thirst, and other bodily appetites dūraśravaṇa: Hearing things far away dūradarśanam: Seeing things far away manojavah: Moving the body wherever thought goes (teleportation/astral projection) kāmarūpam: Assuming any form desired parakāya praveśanam: Entering the bodies of others svachanda mṛtyuh: Dying when one desires devānām saha krīḍā anudarśanam: Witnessing and participating in the pastimes of the gods yathā sańkalpa saḿsiddhiḥ: Perfect accomplishment of one's determination ājñāpratihatā gatiḥ: Orders or commands being unimpeded

You can't do anything with ego, you can only become a witness, a watcher. By witnessing you become more conscious, by watching it drops.

Subtle ego is manageable, it is more difficult than dropping a ripened ego.

Subtle ego is hard to detect, it is not ripened.

“THE EGO is you. You cannot move towards surrender; in fact you are the barrier, so whatsoever you do will be wrong. You cannot do anything about it. You simply, without doing anything, have to be aware. This is an inner mechanism: whatsoever you do is done by the ego, and whenever you don’t do anything and remain just a witness, the non ego part of you starts functioning. The witness is the non-ego within you and the doer is the ego. The ego cannot exist without doing anything. Even if you do something to surrender, it will strengthen the ego and your surrender will become again a very subtle egoistic standpoint. You will say, ‘I have surrendered.’ You will claim surrender, and if somebody says that it is not true, you will feel angry, hurt. The ego is now there trying to surrender. The ego can do anything; the only thing that the ego cannot do is non doing, witnessing. So just sit silently, watch the doer, and don’t try in any way to manipulate it. The moment you start manipulating, the ego has come back. Nothing can be done about it; one has just to be a witness to the misery that ego creates, of the false pleasures and gratifications that ego promises. Doings in this world and doings in the other world; the spiritual world, the Divine, the material, whatsoever the realm, the doer will re main the ego. You are not supposed to do anything and if you start doing something you will miss the whole point. Just be there, watch, understand, and don’t do. Don’t ask, ‘How to drop the ego?’ Who will drop it? Who will drop whom? When you don’t do anything, suddenly the witnessing part is separate from the doer; a gap arises. The doer goes on doing and the seer goes on seeing. Suddenly, you are filled with a new light, a new benediction: you are not the ego, you have never been the ego; how foolish that you ever believed in it. There are people who are trying to fulfill their egos; they are wrong. There are people who are trying to drop their egos; they are wrong. Because when the witness arises you simply see the whole game. There is nothing to be fulfilled and nothing to be dropped. The ego is not of any substance. It is made of the same stuff that dreams are made of. It is just an idea, an air bubble — just hot air within you and nothing else. You need not drop it, because in the very dropping or in asking how to drop it, you believe in it, you are still clinging to it. The Alchemy Of Yoga ~ Osho It is impossible. The ego cannot be sacrificed because the ego exists not. The ego is just all idea: it has no substance in it. It is not something – it is just pure nothing. You give it reality by believing in it. You can withdraw belief and the reality disappears, evaporates. The ego is a kind of absence. Because you don’t know yourself, hence the ego. The moment you know yourself, no ego is found. The ego is like darkness; darkness has no positive existence of its own; it is simply the absence of light. You cannot fight with darkness, or can you? You cannot throw darkness out of the room; you cannot take it out, you cannot take it in. You cannot do anything with darkness directly. If you want to do anything with darkness, you will have to do something with light. If you put the light on, there is no darkness; if you put the light off, there is darkness. Darkness is only the absence of light, so is ego: absence of self-knowledge. You cannot sacrifice it. It has been told to you again and again: “Sacrifice your ego” – and the statement is patently absurd, because something that does not exist cannot be sacrificed. And if you try to sacrifice it, something which is not there in the first place at all, you will be creating a new ego – the ego of the humble, the ego of the egoless, the ego of the person who thinks he has sacrificed his ego. It will be a new kind of darkness again. No, I don’t say to you sacrifice the ego. On the contrary, I say try to see where the ego is. Look deep into it; try to locate it, where it exists, whether it exists at all or not. Before one can sacrifice anything one must be certain about its existence. But don’t be against it from the very beginning. If you are against it, you cannot look deep into it. There is no need to be against anything. The ego is your experience – maybe it is just apparent, but it is still your experience. Your whole life moves around the phenomenon of the ego. It may be a dream, but to you it is so true. There is no need to be against it. Dive deep into it, go into it. Going into it means bringing awareness into your house, bringing light into darkness. Be alert, watchful. Watch the ways of the ego, how it functions, how it manages at all. And you will be surprised: the deeper you go into it, the less it is found. And when you have penetrated to the very core of your being, you will find something totally different which is not ego, which is egolessness. It is self, supreme self – it is godliness. You have disappeared as a separate entity; you are no more an island. Now you are part of the whole. Osho, The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty, Talk #12 If the ego is unmanageable, and a seeker of truth reaches an understanding that ego is the problem he can easily dissolve a ripened ego, not by efforts to drop but by watching. If your ego is not strong, it is manageable , still you can drop , but it is more difficult than dropping a ripened ego. Don't be in a hurry to drop it, just watch it.

We are not born enlightened, we are born sinful, to live unconsciously is sinful, living consciously is our achievement. All sufferings happen due to our unconsciousness, which is a sin. If we are not born sinners, why anybody will need a spiritual journey ? She is studying western psychology, she wants to have a healthy ego, to adjust in society, maintain healthy relationships, eastern spirituality will create only confusion. I know her views and I love her, it was my friendly advise.

You can seek, but you cannot find. But, still, seeking is necessary, because if you don't seek, nothing will happen. Go on seeking, but know that just by seeking you cannot find. It is impossible for the disciple to know who is the right guru for him. It is impossible for the lower to judge the higher. How can one judge that this is the right master? If you can judge, and decide, then you yourself have gone above the master. The disciple can never find the master. Only the master can find the disciple. The disciple has to go on seeking and seeking and seeking just in order to be available for the master, so that when the right master comes, he can choose you. Only the master can choose you; you cannot choose him. In old Egyptian scriptures it is said: When the disciple is ready the master appears. It is so. If you are ready, the master will appear. And your readiness is your availability; it is to be available. Go on seeking. You will meet many teachers. Be humble. Learn, with reverence and gratitude. But remember that every teacher is not your master. You will have to wait for the right master to appear. Go on -- with deep humility, humbleness, receptivity. Move from teacher to teacher. You don't know who the master is, but when you have become ready, through this search, the master will choose you. And the moment someone chooses you, be courageous enough to be chosen. When someone chooses you, don't try to escape. That's what happens. You may be in search of a master, but when the master chooses you and says, "Okay, I accept you," you may try to escape, because the master is like death. I say, the master is like death. There is an old Indian saying: Acharya mrakue; the master is death. He is, because he will destroy you as you are so that someone new can be created. He will kill you in order to give you a rebirth. He will restructure you. He's going to give you rebirth, so death is necessary. That's why when the master chooses you, it appears as if death is coming. You may try to escape, remember. You cannot find the master, but when the master finds you, be ready to die; be ready to surrender. But the fear is there: How am I to know that this man is the right master for me? How am I to know that he is the right one for me and now I should surrender? You cannot know even that. To know the right man you first have to be the right man. Otherwise, how can you know? You have no experience of being right, so how can you feel whether this man is right for you? If you are already capable of knowing who is the right master for you, there is no need for a master. You cannot decide who is the right master for you. Even that is not possible. So what to do? But it is not a question of the right man; it is a question of surrender. Even if you surrender to the wrong man, surrender is helpful. You may not be able to understand what I mean. Even to a false master, surrender is helpful; you are not losing anything. The real thing happens not because of the master; the real thing happens because of the surrender. If you have surrendered to a false master, no harm is going to happen to you. because a surrendered mind is protected by existence itself. No harm can be done to you. If you have surrendered to a false master, by your very surrender that false master may be helped and may become an authentic master. A real disciple changes a false master into an authentic master. The very surrendering is such a deep phenomenon that when it happens you are transformed and the other person is also transformed. But, that is not something to worry about. Remember, no harm is going to happen to you if you surrender. Surrendering, in itself, is a miracle. Even if you have surrendered to a false master, you may learn many things from him. In this existence, nothing is a wastage. Even living with a false master is a learning. You are growing, you are becoming aware of certain things that you would never become aware of with an authentic master. You are maturing, you are becoming adult. And now, after learning from a false master, no false master will ever appeal to you again. At least you will now be able to judge who is false. You may not be able to judge who is true, but the other half has already been learned: you can now judge who is false. And this is something worth learning! Now you can eliminate the false teachers, and the true teacher will be left. Now you know what is false. You will never again be magnetized by it. So be humble even with a false master. Be respectful, be grateful, because you have learned many things from him. And when you leave him, leave with deep gratitude. Under him, you have become more mature. This is the right attitude of the disciple. The question is never of the right master or the wrong master. The question is always of right discipleship. Don't think of the master at all. Just try to become a true disciple: the learning attitude, the receptivity to learn. And be grateful. The world is a great school and the divine force uses every way and every means to create understanding in you. This understanding is helped by both the true and the false. Remember this. It will be helpful to you. Osho~The New Alchemy: To Turn You On

Certainly he's not having a healthy ego !

Buddha was a prince, he renounced his kingdom and became a beggar, What kind of ego he had ?

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? So, India was invaded again and again by foreigners, they couldn't defend themselves. Ego is all that you go on accumulating through education, manners, civilization, culture, schools, colleges, universities. As egolessness was taught eastern man was not as sophisticated , civilized, clever as western man. In the past the East has come very close to creating all the technology that exists today, but they stopped. For example, the printing machine was first developed in China three thousand years ago. Gunpowder was also developed in China three thousand years before, but they never used it. They listened to Lao Tzu, and Chuang Tzu, and Lieh Tzu. Without an strong ego they were not competitive, aggressive. In the ancient Indian medicine, there are such accurate descriptions of all kinds of surgery -- brain surgery included -- but they stopped, they said, "All these things are going to lead man more and more outward. It is better, before man has gone too far away from himself, to stop. That is how a egoless civilization behaves. India accepted foreign invasions, poverty, diseases because they do not have a strong ego. There were no revolutions against establishment/ rulers even when people were suffering, everything was accepted without fight, resistance.

@Loreena The East has become too much concerned with the inner soul and has forgotten objectivity, matter, the world, all the great scientists have come from the west, you can see it all around – the poverty, the starvation. East is very poor outwardly. Egolessness was taught in the east, but it is very difficult to achieve. The result was ego of eastern man was not very strong but except few people they were not ego-less , they have a subtle ego, which is difficult to drop.