What is the difference between mind and ego?

What is the difference between waiting for godot and waiting for god?

It is as if the sun has risen in the morning and you are sitting in your room with closed doors and windows, in darkness. Open the doors, you become available to the sun. The sun was already available -- just the meeting happens. You cannot wait for God. All waiting is for Godot. Godot means the one who never comes, who CANNOT come, whose arrival is impossible. And the only impossible thing is that which has already happened -- how can it happen again? You are alive, and you are waiting for life, Now, this is ridiculous. The real man of religion does not think in terms of God. He thinks in terms of life or, even better, of living -- because life can again become an abstract idea. Living, moment-to-moment living. In that very living, one knows what God is, because one knows who one is. Your idea…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, ARE THESE ILLUSIONS OF GOD AND EGO ONE AND THE SAME? Yes. The moment ego is found illusory, immediately God also disappears. Ego is an imaginary center in individuals, and God is the imaginary center of the whole universe. They are related to each other, dependent on each other. Neither God can exist without ego in you, nor can ego exist without God there above, in heaven. God is the ego of the whole. It is not a coincidence that all the religions emphasize both together -- God and you. They try to make your ego more and more -- at least in appearance -- a reality. To make the ego they have all kinds of disciplines: you have to do this, you have not to do this -- because the ego cannot exist when you are not doing anything.

What is the difference between a crystallized self and a big, strong ego?

THEY LOOK ALIKE, but they are as different as two things can be. Not only different, they are diametrically opposite. The crystallized self is not a self at all. It is called a crystallized "self," but it is not a self at all. And the big, strong ego is neither big nor strong. It is very hollow; how can it be strong? It is very empty; how can it be strong? And how can it be big? It is neither big nor strong, but it has the selfhood in it, the "I-amness," the feeling that "I am." The ego is the self. The real self is not a self at all. We develop the ego just to hide the fact that we don't know who we are. It is very hard to see that we are so ignorant about ourselves, that we don't know. To hide this ignorance, we create…

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…

Osho, please summarise what the ego is.

An egotistical lover met a girl in a drugstore and asked her 'How would you like to sleep with me tonight, baby?' The giri, insulted and angry, used her knowledge of judo and swung him out of the door. Jolted and jilted, the egotistical lover returned. 'But baby,' he said, 'You haven't answered my question!' That's what ego is -- the greatest stupidity. You can't see it because you are it. You can always see it in others, you cannot see it in yourself. A Jew suddenly became very rich and he wanted to show it off to everybody. So he and his wife went to the costliest restaurant dressed in the costliest dresses. The wife was wearing diamonds and emeralds and all that money could purchase -- and they had really become very rich. She was looking very ugly with all those diamonds and emeralds because she had no…