Ego vs Self

What is the difference between waiting for godot and waiting for god?

It is as if the sun has risen in the morning and you are sitting in your room with closed doors and windows, in darkness. Open the doors, you become available to the sun. The sun was already available -- just the meeting happens. You cannot wait for God. All waiting is for Godot. Godot means the one who never comes, who CANNOT come, whose arrival is impossible. And the only impossible thing is that which has already happened -- how can it happen again? You are alive, and you are waiting for life, Now, this is ridiculous. The real man of religion does not think in terms of God. He thinks in terms of life or, even better, of living -- because life can again become an abstract idea. Living, moment-to-moment living. In that very living, one knows what God is, because one knows who one is. Your idea…

Beloved Osho, what is the difference between the emptiness of the child before the formation of the ego and the awakened childlikeness of a buddha?

Whether you are for it or against it doesn't matter -- your concern shows where your ego is hanging. And I will include the capitalist in it also: his whole concern is how to gather money, hoard money -- because money has power over matter. You can purchase any material thing through money. You cannot purchase anything spiritual, you cannot purchase anything that has any intrinsic value; you can purchase only things. If you want to purchase love, you cannot purchase; but you can purchase sex. Sex is the material part of love. Through money, matter can be purchased, possessed. Now you will be surprised: I include the communist and the capitalist both in the same category, and they are enemies, just as I include Charvaka and Mahatma Gandhi in the same category, and they are enemies. They are enemies, but their concern is the same. The capitalist is trying…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, ARE THESE ILLUSIONS OF GOD AND EGO ONE AND THE SAME? Yes. The moment ego is found illusory, immediately God also disappears. Ego is an imaginary center in individuals, and God is the imaginary center of the whole universe. They are related to each other, dependent on each other. Neither God can exist without ego in you, nor can ego exist without God there above, in heaven. God is the ego of the whole. It is not a coincidence that all the religions emphasize both together -- God and you. They try to make your ego more and more -- at least in appearance -- a reality. To make the ego they have all kinds of disciplines: you have to do this, you have not to do this -- because the ego cannot exist when you are not doing anything.

Osho, you said last night that those who have become void, valley-like, do not react but they respond, and that the responses of these different enlightened ones will be different -- that the valley will reecho in its own unique and individual way. Now a question arises whether those who become absolutely void, nothingness, still have a personality and individuality. If so, then please explain how this becomes possible.

THIS is one of the paradoxes of spiritual life: the more one dissolves into the Divine, the more unique one becomes. The dissolution is not of the individuality but of the self. The dissolution is not of the uniqueness but of the ego. The more you are an ego, the more you are like others, because everyone is an egoist. The ego is the most ordinary thing in the world. Everyone is an egoist; even a newborn child is an egoist -- a perfect egoist. So it is not anyone's achievement; it is not extraordinary. Really, it can be said that to be just ordinary is the most extraordinary thing possible because no one feels just ordinary. So to feel oneself extraordinary is just the most ordinary thing. Everyone feels like that! So ego is not something unique. If you have an ego, it is not something unique. Really, egolessness…

Beloved Osho, in your experience, is there any connection between the qualities of the invented self, and those of the real self? Is the ego like a shadow or a distortion of the authentic being; or is there a total discontinuity? Looking back, do you see any traces in the one you are now of the man you once were?

The ego is not a shadow of the self, because in even being a shadow it will have a certain reality, a certain connection with the real self. It is not a distortion of the real self either, because the self cannot be distorted; there is no possibility of that. The ego is simply false, a substitute created by society to give you a feeling that you have a center, that you have a self, that there is no need for any search -- you have already got it. To prevent you from reaching the real self, this is the most cunning device. It is completely made up -- from the very beginning, the child is being fed with things which will make its ego. They will appreciate you, they will say you are beautiful, you are good, you are nice -- but only when you don't assert your real…