According to Osho, comparison is the ego’s fuel: it survives between inferiority and superiority. Notice the comparing mind, see its futility, and affirm “I am what I am; they are what they are.” Recognize each person’s uniqueness and drop the inner scale. With watchful awareness, the ego’s grip loosens, competition fades, and peace and authentic growth arise.
When you notice yourself measuring against others, pause, remember everyone’s different, just be you, and the urge to compare will fade.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved master,you say unenlightened persons cannot be compared. But I compare and evaluate myself constantly with other people. I feel this constantly brings clouds and a distance between me and them. What can be done about it?
Veetdharma,I have said that unenlightened people cannot be compared, because they are utterly different from each other. Their histories are different, their biographies are different, their pasts are different. They have moved through different terrains, different lives, in different ways; their karmas are different. They cannot be compared. It will be like comparing a stone with a rose flower, or a rose flower with a star. People are so different from each other, they cannot be compared. Only unenlightened persons can be compared, because they are no longer different at all, because they ARE no more. Emptiness can have only one taste When two rooms are utterly empty, what is there to compare? They are so alike. If you want to compare, you can compare; you can say both are empty. Otherwise there is nothing in them to compare. When both the rooms are full of different furniture and paintings,…
I always either feel superior or inferior to people. I feel ashamed of feeling that way and try to hide it. I wish I could genuinely -- not pretend to -- feel equal to and love everyone. Why is it so difficult?
WHETHER YOU FEEL SUPERIOR OR INFERIOR or equal, the mind remains the same. You still go on thinking in comparison and the misery will continue. You can think yourself superior -- the moment you think yourself superior you are creating possibilities to feel inferior, because somebody somewhere is going to be ahead of you in some way or other. If you think yourself inferior, you are creating the possibilities to feel superior -- in some way, somebody is going to be behind you. We are standing in a queue, and the queue is not linear: it is a circle. Somebody is always ahead of you and somebody is always behind you. Then naturally the idea arises -- because superiority and inferiority bring ego and misery -- why not feel equal? And you think you are asking for a radical change? No, not at all. To feel equal is the same…
A friend has asked: Osho, I lack self-confidence; how can it arise?
Only man has gone mad. His doing has become more important than his rest. Why do we act at all? Man acts so that someday he may rest. And the end is that the chance to rest never comes; he ends while still doing. What, then, is the goal? Diogenes is resting, lying in the sand—naked. Alexander has gone to meet him. Alexander says, “Such ease! Such bliss! Still, I ask, if I can do anything for you, tell me.” Diogenes says, “Step a little to the side. The sunlight was coming, and you have become an obstacle. What more can you do? We were perfectly happy—the fresh morning light was falling—and you came in between. Just move aside.” Alexander felt thoroughly baffled. He had thought he would do something for Diogenes—he could have piled up mountains of wealth. And what did Diogenes ask? Alexander said, “Diogenes, you do not…
Beloved master, do all ordinary people think that others have something more or better than they do?
That's the definition of ordinary people. They are continuously comparing themselves with others. Comparison is their whole life's work. Certainly people have... somebody has a better house, somebody has a better nose, somebody has a better body, somebody has a better mind. There are thousands of things. You can find in every person something better than you. Even a beggar may have something better than you. Just the way he walks may have a grandeur, a carelessness. He has no worries, he has nothing to worry about. He sleeps in the street better than you sleep on the best mattress in the best house. The better the mattress, the worse the sleep. It is very strange but that's how it is, because for sleep what is needed is at least eight hours of hard work. That's the way your physiology is built. It has a built-in program. If you don't…
Osho, you feel, sir, that the education we are giving in schools and universities, which is based on comparison, is harmful. If it is harmful, what measures should we take so that we can bring about a humanity without fear?
Certainly, education based on comparison is extremely harmful—poisonous, toxic. The moment we teach a person to think in terms of comparison, the moment we compare one person with another, we create inferiority, fear, ambition. He becomes afraid. For when we compare, we tell A, “B is superior to you; you must rise above B.” Instantly, we sow fear in A. He becomes frightened of life: how to get ahead of B? And even if he goes beyond B, what is the difference? C is standing ahead. There are thousands in the line ahead. He must be at the very front. The person becomes terrified, anxious. And when we compare a person with someone else, it means we do not accept that person. He is rejected in that very moment. As he is, he is not acceptable; only if he becomes something else will we accept him. We have insulted his…