According to Osho, the inferiority complex arises from lifelong comparison and social hierarchy; its remedy is to drop comparison entirely and honor each person’s uniqueness. Personally, stop ranking yourself, follow what you love, and move at your own pace. Socially, redesign education and work to end rankings and prestige ladders, giving equal dignity to diverse talents and professions.
Stop comparing yourself to others; you’re one-of-a-kind—do what you love and grow at your own speed.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, sitting silently, suddenly, softly, slowly, soundlessly, peacefully, something peeled off which I could see was my illusion for a better world and good people. Beloved Osho, can you say something about the difference between a vision and an illusion?
The difference between a vision and an illusion is very delicate and fragile, but the difference is very big. The dream is a mind phenomenon; it happens in your mind. It happens because you repress, and whatever is repressed comes up in the night when the conscious represser is asleep. Then the unconscious releases itself in dreams. Dream is the language of the unconscious. Through the dream, the unconscious is doing many things: one is catharsis, second is giving messages to the conscious. If you don't hear, the same dream will be repeated again. It has happened in very rare cases that a dream was repeated almost every night for years. And it happened to a very intelligent, great creator -- Leo Tolstoy. He used to have a dream -- which was a nightmare, although there was no violence, no torture -- but the set-up of the dream was such…
Is there really something like an inferiority complex?
Man creates comparison because ego is possible only if nourished by comparison continuously. But then you will have two outcomes: sometimes you will feel superior, and sometimes you will feel inferior. And the possibility of feeling inferior is greater than the possibility of feeling superior, because there are millions of people: somebody is more beautiful than you, somebody is taller than you, somebody is stronger than you, somebody seems to be more intelligent than you, somebody is more learned than you, somebody is more successful, somebody is more famous, somebody is this, somebody is that. If you just go on comparing, millions of people... you will gather a great inferiority complex. But it doesn't exist, it is your creation. Those who are more mad, they suffer from a superiority complex. They are so mad that when they compare they cannot see that there are millions of people who are different…
A friend has asked, Osho, why should we be religious when neither the beginning nor the end is known, and there is no trace of God or soul? The enlightened ones speak of truth—if that truth is real, why can’t they make everyone experience it?
No one is telling you to be religious—at least Lao Tzu would not. The so-called religious people have created so much disturbance that it is better you do not become one of them. Lao Tzu does not say, “Be religious.” He simply says: be what you are. You may ask, why should I be what I am? Because that is the only thing you can be. There is no way to be anything else. Yes, you can try to be something else—and in that trying your life can be wasted. You may then say, why not waste life? No one can stop you. And precisely for this reason even the enlightened ones are defeated and cannot give you the knowledge of truth—because you say, why should we know the truth? What can the enlightened do? They can speak. They can try to awaken in you the thirst for the joy…
Osho, is an ambitious mind a mind of fear and suffering from an inferiority complex?
Absolutely. An ambitious mind is a mind filled with fear. And within it there is inferiority—an inferiority complex. So the kind of education I am talking about will try to remove the feeling of inferiority from within each person. At present, our education teaches people to suppress the feeling of inferiority and to cling to a superiority complex. It teaches each person: forget your inferiority; if you are somebody, reach high positions, accumulate wealth—prove that you are somebody. Thus a reversed situation is created: the inferiority complex remains inside, and the race for superiority begins. On the surface one runs after superiority, while inside one remains inferior. True education—call it the education of love—will not create a sense of superiority within a person; it will only teach how the feeling of inferiority can be dissolved. Right now we are the ones who create the feeling of inferiority. Because if we…
Osho, the awareness of one’s smallness before this vast universe can strengthen an inferiority complex in a person and cripple him. And feeling inferior is not egolessness. Please tell us how to dissolve the ego without falling into inferiority.
Understand this well. Many people keep on making effort without caring whether the feeling is pure, the heart is pure; the consequences can be dangerous. A man may not purify his heart and yet cultivate concentration—he can. Even the worst person can become concentrated; concentration has nothing to do with goodness. In fact, a bad man may find concentration easier, because one trait of the bad is that whatever he does, he does madly. He is stubborn; evil cannot be carried out without obstinacy. For such a person hatha yoga is easy: once he gets a notion, he clings to it. He can be cruel to others and to himself. If you practice hatha yoga you will feel, “Why torture this body? Why sit so long? Legs ache; eyes water.” The wicked don’t care. They can torment others and themselves equally. You will be surprised to know that more than…