What is the fear that prevents us from relaxing into our own self?

Beloved Osho seeing that everyone wants so much to be enlightened, isn't it also true that we are all scared too? What is the fear that prevents us from relaxing into our own self?

But you are not aware of the conspiracy. The man who fasts for twenty-one days becomes authoritative, more powerful than you. He demands that you at least fast for three days, and you cannot say to him that he is asking too much. He is fasting for twenty-one days, and he asks you only to fast for three days. He is perfectly authorized to ask it. He is celibate, he asks you to be celibate. He eats only one time a day, he demands you also eat one time a day. Do you see the mutual conspiracy? You feel you are the disciple of a great master -- of course you are a great disciple as a consequence: a simple arithmetic. Great masters have only great disciples, but those masters are fulfilling their egos, and they are fulfilling your egos. No transformation is possible in such a conspiracy. I don't…

Osho, ever since I took initiation from you, I have also begun to feel afraid of you. Earlier this fear was not in me, though I have been afraid all my life. I also know that the love and freedom I have found in your presence I never found even around my parents. And if, even in the shade of a master as utterly love-filled as you, I do not become free of fear, then where else will I? How is this freedom from fear possible?

Take this as a touchstone: if the reason for which you went to the master is the very reason he accepts and works upon, he too is standing in darkness. You have come to me because of fear—I know. But it is not my task to lessen your fear; it is to awaken abhaya. You did not come for abhaya. You came for nirbhayata, a little courage to fight—you would be satisfied with that. You are easily satisfied; your discontent is not very deep. A drowning man is content with a straw. You are looking for a straw; I know that no one is saved by a straw. Perhaps because of the straw you will drown—whoever takes a straw for a boat stops looking for a real boat. Whoever mistakes a false shore will find the true shore very far. Whatever reason you have come with is not my concern.…

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, why am I still so scared of exposing myself?

Now what have you to lose, Gita? You have nothing to lose and you have everything to gain. You are fortunate that in the last phase of your life you have come in contact with this energy-field. You are fortunate that in the evening of your life a door is opening, and the person who comes back home even in the evening should not be thought lost. That is a proverb in India: Even in the evening when the sun is setting, if somebody comes back home he is not thought to be lost. He has arrived, finally he has arrived. Life has gone down the drain; now don't miss this last phase. And the last is the most important phase, because it will bring death. And if you can die as truth you will not be born again. If you can die with all the falsities dropped, with all…

Beloved Osho, I am always afraid of being alone, because when I am alone I start to wonder who I am. It feels that if I inquire deeper, I will find out that I am not the person who I have believed I was for the past twenty-six years, but a being, present at the moment of birth and maybe also the moment before. For some reason, this scares me completely. It feels like a kind of insanity, and makes me lose myself in outside things in order to feel safer. Osho, who am I, and why the fear?

Keep engaged, do anything stupid. People are running towards the beaches, bumper to bumper, miles-long traffic. And if you ask them where they are going, they are getting away from the crowd -- and the whole crowd is going with them. They are going to find a solitary, silent space -- all of them. In fact, if they had remained home it would have been more solitary and silent -- because all the idiots have gone in search of a solitary place. And they are rushing like mad, because two days will be finished soon, they have to reach -- don't ask where! And on the beaches, you see... they are so crowded, not even marketplaces are so crowded. And strangely enough, people are feeling very much at ease, taking a sunbath. Ten thousand people on a small beach taking a sunbath, relaxing. The same person on the same beach…