What does it mean to feel like I am more than one person?

Beloved Osho, how come I have always felt, ever since childhood, that I am more than two people? Could you say something please?

Prem Prabhati, everybody is born as one single individual, but by the time he is mature enough to participate in life he has become a crowd. It is not anything special that you are feeling; it is almost the case with everybody. The only difference is that you are becoming aware of it, which is good. People are not aware of it. If you just sit silently and listen to your mind, you will find so many voices. You will be surprised, you can recognize those voices very well. Some voice is from your grandfather, some voice is from your grandmother, some voice is from your father, some voice is from your mother, some voice is from the priest, from the teacher, from the neighbors, from your friends, from your enemies. All these voices are jumbled up in a crowd within you, and if you want to find your own…

Beloved Osho, I have heard you say that we are afraid to come close to you, but how can we come close? Also, I assume that when you gave me a name I was pure noise and a crowd inside. Not so long ago I started to fully recognize at least five totally different people taking over inside at different times. One of them is like a defiant, rebellious, strong, raging, revengeful virgin greek warrior-goddess; another is a very insecure, vulnerable, soft, loving, hurt little girl. There are others, but these are the extremes. How, amongst them, can I recognize the real me, the individual?

They said, "We want to be forgiven. Because you had not come for so many years we thought that you were not going to come back. And we are fools -- uneducated, stupid people. We started using your things and we started claiming to be masters. Of course everybody was the master for only one hour. To avoid clashes, fights, we decided that while you are on duty as the guard, you are the master; your orders will be followed, but only in that hour. After that hour you are just a servant; the other person is the master." Gurdjieff used to say that this story is symbolic of our inner world. There are many personalities -- not only five, a real multitude -- and they go on rotating. It is a kind of Rotary Club. In a Rotary Club, just to avoid competition, every member becomes the president in…

Beloved Osho, these days, looking inside, I do not find a personality with certain characteristics, but rather an ever-changing flux, totally unpredictable. It makes life in this body feel very fragile, vulnerable and momentary -- a feeling which extends itself to everything around me, shaking me to the roots.

Settle in that witnessing, and all that you are feeling disturbed by will disappear. It is just the first encounter of entering into oneself. Don't go back; go deeper into it. Ginsberg sits down in a Moscow cafe and orders a glass of tea and a copy of pravda. "I will bring the tea," the waiter tells him, "but I can't bring a copy of pravda. The Soviet regime has been overthrown and pravda is not published anymore." "Alright," says Ginsberg, "just bring the tea." The next day, Ginsberg comes to the same cafe and asks for tea and a copy of pravda. The waiter gives him the same answer. On the third day, Ginsberg orders the same and this time the waiter says to him, "Look, sir, you seem to be an intelligent man. For the past three days you have ordered a copy of pravda and three times…

Osho, what is more important in your religion -- to be thyself or to know thyself?

Gurdjieff calls them "selves; it is the same. You can call personalities selves or egos, and you can start looking for them -- it is a tremendously charming game to look at them. In the evening, you decide that tomorrow morning you are going to get up at five. This you have been deciding for many years, and you know it -- that every evening you decide.... But this night is different! -- that too, you know. Every night you have been saying, "This night is different; tomorrow I am going to get up. There is a limit to everything!" But all these things you have been saying every night. You are not saying a single new thing, but you are not aware of it. And at five o'clock when the alarm goes, you just press the button; and you are angry at the clock. You may throw the clock,…

And whatsoever the concept, the body fulfills it. This is something to be understood. When in a country the concept is that big breasts are beautiful, women produce big breasts. Just look tomorrow at indian women. Look at their buttocks -- they have big buttocks, because for centuries it has been the idea that a beautiful woman has to have big buttocks. If you read indian novels, ancient stories, always big buttocks are described, but in no western novel are buttocks described. In fact the woman is not described from the back at all. Ordinarily people say that novels, poetry, literature, reflect society. But it works the opposite way also. Novels, poetry, literature, create society also. Once you have a certain idea that gets into people's minds, it works. There is no criterion of who is beautiful and who is not. It is a personal liking, in fact a whim.