Can a person be established in truth despite the ego?

People want to know and yet they do not want to bow. They want to know truth while saving their ego. This has never happened, nor can it ever be. The ego itself is the obstacle. It is not by bowing at the feet that truth is obtained. Bowing at the feet is only a pretext, a device to drop the ego. If you can drop the ego without bowing at feet, the work will be done. The real question is the fall of ego. Therefore do not take the illusion that truth is attained by touching feet. What truth will be attained by touching feet! But by the fall of ego truth is attained. Touching feet is only one use, one experiment, one method, one medium, one occasion for dropping the ego. As soon as you drop the ego, what happens? Ego means: I am separate from Existence.

Is this asmita a spiritual state or a state of mind? That too has been asked.

It is the mind’s final state, and ego is the mind’s first state. Ego is the grossest state of the mind; asmita is the subtlest. Understand it this way: mind is in the middle—on one side the world, on the other the Divine, and mind between the two. Where mind joins with the world, ego is born; where mind joins with the Divine, asmita stands. These are the two junctions. The junction where mind connects with the world is called ego. And the junction where the human mind connects with the Divine—or must ultimately break as well, because every joining also implies a breaking; wherever things join, they also break—that junction is asmita. Lao Tzu says: the one in whom the first bond has snapped, whose connection with the world is severed, but in whom the second bond still remains—his unity with the Divine has not yet ripened—there, asmita endures.…

These four (truth, knowledge, infinity and bliss) are the characteristics, and that which is changeless, in spite of symbolic objects like space, time, et cetera, is called tat or that, which is the equivalent of paramatma or the supreme self.

Then there are so-called teachers who will say, "Be humble. Be egoless" -- and then we begin to cultivate humility. With the ego on the throne, we begin to cultivate humility; then the ego takes on the garb of humility. And really, it is difficult to find a more egoist person than the so-called humble one. So what to do now? I feel it as a necessity: ego has to be developed. As far as the child is concerned, ego has to be developed -- it is a necessary evil. It has to be developed, but a moment comes where it becomes useless. The moment you are mature, the moment you are conscious, the moment you are alert, grown-up, you need not have the ego -- you can step beyond it. One has to be on the step of the ego, and then one has to step out of it.…

Osho, you said... then you will find that the devotee is God. The question arises: if one devotee prefers to be God and another wants to remain only a devotee, then which of the two is superior?

The one who wants to be God will not be able to be. And the one who wants to remain a devotee will become God. The question of superior or inferior does not arise, because only one of the two will happen. The one who does not want to be will be. The one who wants to be will be deprived. That very wanting is of the ego. But the matter is a little delicate. Sometimes humility too belongs to the ego. Beware that your humility may not be of the ego. Perhaps you are saying, “No, I don’t want to be,” because you know that those who refuse are the ones who attain. Then you are clever. Then your humility is adulterous. Your humility is not pure, not sacred, not virginal—it is like a prostitute. The one who wants to be God, whose ego says, “I must become God,”…

Osho, may the color of that flower fade so that only the fragrance remains; let the head go if it must, but let honor remain. Let Your glory be proven by my negation. May I efface myself so completely that only You remain.

No need to rush. Don’t even start trying to erase the “I.” The “I” is such a clever craftsman that if you set out to erase it, it will hide behind the eraser. One day the ego will rise and proclaim, Look, I have destroyed my ego! Now I am egoless! Who is as humble as I? Such a declaration is the ego’s own. Awaken within. Watch and recognize the routes of ego. There is no need to fight. Fight only if you wish to lose—if you want to be defeated. Then how does ego go? Ego dissolves through awareness alone—just as darkness disappears when a light is lit. You don’t have to shove darkness out! You don’t have to slash it with a sword! You don’t wrestle with darkness. If someone starts wrestling with darkness, thumping his chest, do you think he will ever win? He will die fighting,…