How does Osho's perspective on ego differ from the concept of the 'new narcissism'?

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,…

Before it comes into existence one lives moment to moment. Who cares to remember the past? So the child up to the third or fourth year remains spontaneous, wild, natural, outside society, on the fringe. It is a cultivated phenomenon, hence it can be dropped. If it were natural there would be no way to drop it. Because it is put together by society it can be easily dismantled. And that's what sannyas is all about, dismantling the ego. The process is painful because you have to become too attached to it. But once you understand that the ego is the root cause of all your misery, you are ready to go through the surgery. It is better to be finished with it in one stroke rather than to go on being miserable for your whole life.

Osho, ego is the greatest obstacle to taking sannyas. How can it be removed? The ego-sense does not go.

Ego has no reality. Then how to define it? Understand ego in this way: when you look outward, there is ego; when you look inward, ego departs. Enter meditation; drop the very worry of fighting with ego. Fighting the ego is like someone fighting darkness—pushing at it, trying to throw it out. No, I say, light a lamp. Enter meditation, enter prayer; light the lamp—turn within. Close your eyes and begin to look inside—what is there? You will discover one thing: you will never find the ego. And where there is no ego, there is the Divine. The Divine is your true nature; ego is your delusion. As someone sees a rope and takes it for a snake—or sees a snake in a rope—so is ego: a mis-seeing. To see what is, as it is—that is God-experience. And certainly, ego is the greatest obstacle to taking sannyas. But sannyas is…

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…

And whenever there is a man with a sincere enquiry the answer is not very far. In fact the answer is always hidden in the question itself; all that is needed is a sincere heart to enquire. When the question is authentic... Our questions also are not authentic, they come out of borrowed knowledge. For example if a Christian comes he will ask a question that no Hindu is ever going to ask. If a Hindu comes he will ask a question that no Mohammedan is ever going to ask. A Mohammedan asks a question which no Buddhist would ever ask. I have known all these people -- they come with different questions. I was puzzled, puzzled because if the question is real then it can't be that a Christian will not ask something and only a Hindu will ask it. If the question is real it is everybody's question.