According to Osho, Patanjali would treat the modern mind’s neurosis exactly as he would ancient man’s: by uprooting the ego, the basic neurosis. He would challenge the false 'I am the center' and guide you to drop the I, remember you’re a wave in the ocean, and return to naturalness. Technology changes, the mind doesn’t; dissolve ego and neurosis disappears.
Stop clinging to the loud 'me, me, me' and feel part of everything, and your mind calms down.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
How would patanjali work with the incredible neurosis of the modern mind?
Just like me! What I am doing here? fighting with your neurosis. The ego is the source of all neurosis, because the ego is the center of all falsity, of all perversions. The whole problem is with the ego. If you live with the ego, sooner or later you will become neurotic. You will have to become, because ego is the basic neurosis. Ego says, "I am the center of the world," which is false, mad. Only if there is a God, he can say "I". We are only parts, we cannot say "I". The very assertion "I", is neurotic. Drop the I and all neurosis disappears. In between you and the mad people in the madhouses there is not vast difference -- only a difference of degrees, not of any quality, quantity. You may be ninety-eight degrees, and they have gone beyond hundred. You can go any time; the…
What is neurosis and what is the cure for it?
This was my experience. When I was a student I was surprised at my professors' knowledge because it was thirty years old. It was when they were young that they had gathered it from their teachers. Since then they had not looked at what had happened That knowledge was absolutely useless. I was constantly in conflict with my professors, I was thrown out of many colleges, expelled, because the professors said that they could not cope with me. And I was not creating any trouble, I was simply making them aware that what they were saying was out of date. But that hurts the ego. They had learned it in their own university days and they were thinking that the world had stopped then and there. Now students cannot depend on teachers and children cannot depend on their parents, hence a great rebellion is on the way all over the…
Question: NOW THE DISCIPLINE OF YOGA. YOGA IS THE CESSATION OF MIND. THEN THE WITNESS IS ESTABLISHED IN ITSELF. IN THE OTHER STATES THERE IS IDENTIFICATION WITH THE MODIFICATIONS OF THE MIND. ... Beliefs are like clothes. Nothing substantial is transformed; you remain the same. Dissect a Hindu, dissect a Mohammedan, inside they are the same. He goes to a temple; the Mohammedan hates the temple. The Mohammedan goes to the mosque and the Hindu hates the mosque, but inside they are the same human beings. Belief is easy because you are not required really to do anything -- just a superficial dressing, a decoration, something which you can put aside any moment you like. Yoga is not belief. That's why it is difficult, arduous, and sometimes it seems impossible. It is an existential approach.
Why is modern man so neurotic?
Adolf Hitler shouted from the housetops. He was not whispering. He gave slogans -- clear-cut, well-defined. All that he gave is nonsense, but that is not the point. People are not worried about sense or nonsense, their whole thing is they want somebody who can shout so confidently that they can follow easily without any turmoil in their being. They followed Adolf Hider. It happens again and again in the history of man, intelligent people follow very unintelligent leaders. And this has been a problem for psychoanalysts: why does it happen? Now, just look at India -- a country which has cultivated intelligence for at least ten thousand years, and now following a man like Morarji Desai. This seems just unbelievable. Why should it happen? There is a reason for it. People who think, the MORE they think, the more they become hesitant. They start talking in ifs and buts;…