Is cowardice an essential part of the ego?

Beloved Osho, why is it that we are all so afraid of a hit from the master? When it is happening, it is proof that it is just what we needed, yet the fear remains. Is cowardice an essential part of the ego?

The more egoist a person is the more he has to remain lonely. And to be lonely is miserable, but one has to pay. You have to pay for a non-existential ego to appear real -- with your misery, with your pain, with your anguish. And anyway, even if you succeed in not allowing anybody to be close to you, you yourself know perfectly well that it is just a soap bubble -- a small pinprick, and it will disappear Napoleon Bonaparte was one of the great egoists in the history of egoism, but he got defeated, and the reason he was defeated is something worth consideration. When he was a small child, just six months old, the nurse who was his caretaker left him in the garden and went for something in the house, and a wild cat jumped on the child. Now a six-month old baby... the cat…

Chi hsing tzu was a trainer of fighting cocks for king hsuan. He was training a fine bird. The king kept asking if the bird were ready for combat.

'NOT YET', SAID THE TRAINER. 'HE IS FULL OF FIRE. HE IS READY TO PICK A FIGHT WITH EVERY OTHER BIRD. HE IS VAIN AND CONFIDENT OF HIS OWN STRENGTH'. AFTER TEN DAYS HE ANSWERED AGAIN: 'NOT YET. HE FLARES UP WHEN HE HEARS ANOTHER BIRD CROW'. AFTER TEN MORE DAYS: 'NOT YET. HE STILL GETS THAT ANGRY LOOK AND RUFFLES HIS FEATHERS'. AGAIN TEN DAYS. THE TRAINER SAID: 'NOW HE IS NEARLY READY. WHEN ANOTHER BIRD CROWS, HIS EYE DOES NOT EVEN FLICKER. HE STANDS IMMOBILE LIKE A COCK OF WOOD. HE IS A MATURE FIGHTER. OTHER BIRDS WILL TAKE ONE LOOK AT HIM AND RUN'. A small boy was visiting a zoo and there was a deer park, full of deer. He asked the keeper: What are these animals called? The keeper replied: The same thing as your mother calls your father in the morning, when they get…

Osho, what is fear made of? It is always there behind a corner, but when I turn to face it, it is only a shadow. If it is non-substantial, how does it manage to have such a power over me?

Fear is the shadow of 'I', and because the 'I' is always alert somewhere deep down that "I will have to disappear in death".... The basic fear is of death; all other fears only reflect the basic one. And the beauty is that death is as nonexistential as ego, and between these two non-existentials -- the ego and death -- the bridge is fear. Fear is very impotent, it has no power. You say, "If IT IS NON-SUBSTANTIAL, THEN HOW DOES IT MANAGE TO HAVE SUCH A POWER OVER ME?" YOU want to believe in it -- that's its power. You are not ready to take a plunge into your inner depth and to face your inner emptiness -- that is its power. Otherwise it is impotent, utterly impotent. Nothing is ever born out of fear. Love gives birth, love is creative; fear is impotent. Mr. and Mrs. Smith were…

Osho, does the ego have some elixir of life? Even on the verge of dying it seems to revive—who knows from where, how, and why?

Haven’t you seen that the harder it is to obtain the woman you fall in love with, the more your love seems to grow? Had Majnu got his Laila, you would never even have heard his name. The whole crux of the Majnu-Laila story is that he never got her. Quite possibly, had he got her, they would have ended in divorce. Stories proceed in strange ways. Because he did not get her, he kept weeping, aching, wandering deserts and mountains, calling “Laila, Laila!” Have you ever seen any husband doing that? Ask a husband and perhaps he hasn’t even properly looked at his wife’s face in twenty years. You too are a husband or a wife—try this: close your eyes and try to recall your spouse’s face. You will find it difficult. The faces of film actresses will come, but your wife’s face will not come clearly. And if…

Osho, what is the fundamental anguish of human life?

There is only one anguish: that a human being cannot become what he was born to be. There is only one anguish: that the seed remains a seed and does not bloom like a flower; that it cannot scatter its fragrance to the infinite winds; cannot converse with the moon and stars; cannot offer its colors to the sky; cannot be expressed. If the poem within the poet cannot be revealed—anguish. If the painter cannot paint—anguish. If the dancer cannot dance—if chains lie on his feet—anguish. Anguish means only this: that what we are meant to be—our innate nature and destiny—does not come to fruition, and we are forced to be something else. Then anguish is born. Then melancholy gathers over life. And all those countless people you see burdened with sorrow, living in a kind of hell—the reason is only this: each has come carrying the seed of becoming…