According to Osho, there’s nothing wrong with being who you are—Polack, Indian, English, anything—but pride in identity is the ego seeking props. Pride separates you, imagines specialness, and hides an inferiority complex. A sannyasin renounces ego, not the world: remain utterly ordinary, equal with people, trees, rocks, and stars. In this natural ordinariness, true equality and an extraordinary aliveness explode.
It’s fine to belong, but don’t puff up about it—just be natural and equal with everything and everyone.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: OSHO, IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME? I FEEL PROUD TO BE A POLACK! THERE IS nothing wrong to be a Polack. Polacks are as beautiful as anybody else, or a little more, a little more juicy. A sign outside a police station read: Man Wanted For Rape. Next day three Polacks applied for the job. But it is certainly wrong to feel proud. Whether one feels to be proud as an Indian or as a Polack or as an Englishman, it does not matter. These are just excuses. The real thing is that the ego wants some support. The ego cannot stand on its own feet; it needs crutches. It claims that "My country is the best country in the world, my religion the most superior, my culture the most evolved," and so on, so forth.
Osho, what is the difference between surrender and blind imitation?
So be careful: the freedom you allow yourself, allow the other too. You have no right to judge another as blindly credulous or as a surrendered being. Drop that concern. You cannot judge anyway—how will you enter another’s heart? How will you know? Think only about yourself. See within whether, up to now, you have lived by blind belief or by surrender. Decide only there; leave worrying about others. Otherwise, all your judgments will be wrong. Jesus said: Judge not; do not set yourself up as a judge in relation to another. To the friend who has asked: if you are asking for yourself, good. Drop worrying about others. Look within and see: whatever I have been clinging to till now—have I ever staked my life to hold it? Have I meditated for it? Have I loved for it? Or am I just clutching what culture, society, civilization handed me?…
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…
Question: Second question: Osho, I am a Marwari—can I also attain moksha? No one is really a Marwari, or a Hindu, or a Muslim, or an Indian, or a Pakistani. Can anyone tell by blood that “this is Marwari blood,” “this is Jain blood,” “this is Hindu blood”? Blood is just blood; bone is just bone. Go to the cremation ground, sort the bones, and tell which bone is whose—Hindu or Muslim—and you’ll be in trouble. All this is just talk. Don’t give it so much value. It’s trash. Set fire to it. The Marwari has to be freed from being Marwari. The Bengali, from being Bengali. The Bihari, from being Bihari. The Indian, from being Indian. Wherever you are bound, you must be freed from there. Whether the chains are iron or gold makes no difference. You have to be free of chains. What does moksha mean?
Osho, I want to be happy. Whatever I do, I do it in the hope of being happy. Now I have come to practice religion also in that same hope. You say: dissolve the ego. It seems to me that if I dissolve the ego, I myself will be dissolved; then I won’t be there—so how will I be happy? Wouldn’t a miserable existence be preferable to losing my very existence?
They entered the city; people began removing turbans and caps, bowing. But the farmer said nothing. He remained silent. The emperor asked, “What is the matter? Do you understand?” The farmer said, “I am in a fix. You don’t remove your turban—and I don’t remove mine. So who is the emperor—you or I? This is a serious tangle.” Ego is such a delusion. Ego mistakenly believes itself to be the soul. Ego is not the soul—but both ride the same horse, very close. As a man rides a horse, his shadow too rides the horse. Similarly, with the soul rides the ego’s shadow. If the soul does not remove its hat, how will the shadow remove hers? The shadow too has a hat; she too struts, enjoying the full fun. You have taken the shadow to be yourself. When the shadow disappears, you will not. And the shadow must vanish…