Why do I keep losing everything but my ego?

Question: BELOVED MASTER, WHY DO I KEEP LOSING EVERYTHING BUT MY EGO? Sughanda.... Odum, an elderly black called before the justice of the peace, was charged with keeping a vicious dog. "That dog bit my girl Bobbie Jo three times," complained the mother. "Did your dog bite little Bobbie Jo?" asked the judge. "No, sir," said Odum. "My dog, he never bit any little girl." "Well," said the judge to the mother, "this man says that the dog did not bite your little girl." "I will go home and bring Bobbie Jo here and show you," said the woman. "Hold on," said the black man. "In the first place, the dog is so old he ain't got no teeth and he can't bite. In the second place, the dog is blind and could not see Bobbie Jo anyhow.

Osho, according to what you say and what all enlightened ones say, the ego has no existence—and yet you tell us to witness the ego! Please kindly help us understand this baffling riddle.

To live through that moment is tapascharya, spiritual austerity. It is a great austerity when you have absolutely no sense of who you are. When all the palaces built by your concepts have collapsed, when you stand in dense darkness, in emptiness, with not a single ray of light about who you are—the Christian mystics have aptly named this the Dark Night of the Soul. And only after this dark night does the dawn come. Whoever is afraid to pass through it never reaches the morning. So first the false notions have to be dropped, false identifications abandoned. A time will come when you will forget who you are; it will be a state like madness. If you are courageous and pass through this, then another time will come when the morning sun rises; for the first time you will know who you are. When it is revealed to you…

Beloved Osho, I feel that through developing an attitude of endurance towards difficulties, I have become resigned to much of life. This resignation feels like a weight pushing against my effort to become more alive in meditation. Does this mean that I have suppressed my ego, and that I must find it again before I can really lose it?

If you are simply ignorant because you never attained to any knowledge, your ignorance cannot be wise, it cannot be wisdom -- it is simply absence of knowledge. And the hankering will be inside: How to gain more knowledge? How to gain more information? When you know too much -- you have known the scriptures, you have known the past, the tradition, you have known all that can be known -- then suddenly you become aware of the futility of it all, suddenly you become aware that this is not knowledge. This is borrowed! This is not your own existential experience, this is not what you have come to know. Others may have known it, you have simply gathered it. Your gathering is mechanical. It has not arisen out of you, it is not a growth. It is just rubbish gathered from other doors, borrowed, dead. Remember, knowing is alive…

Osho, do I have to forget myself to lose my ego?

Eva, IT IS NOT A QUESTION OF FORGETTING YOURSELF -- on the contrary, it is a question of remembering yourself.What is the ego? Ego exists because you have forgotten yourself, because you don't remember who you are. And it is very difficult to live without SOME idea of who you are. Not knowing the reality of your being, you have to create a false substitute. What is the ego? Ego is the false substitute that you have created for the self. It is not your self, but it is very difficult to live without a self -- it will be almost impossible to live without a self some kind of self is needed, is a must; otherwise, how will you keep yourself together? You will start falling apart. Even if the center is false, it helps you. Even a false center keeps you at least somehow together. You have forgotten…

Osho, this ego of mine from lifetimes is perhaps the greatest obstacle between you and me. This very ego does not let me bow at your feet, does not let me be effaced. Lord, have compassion on me and erase me; in this very life, absorb me into yourself and make me one.

Put your whole effort into meditation. I am standing with you! And the divine stands with you. The whole existence is with you. Whenever one sets out toward meditation, the whole existence, in bliss, extends help—for someone lost is coming home; someone far away is returning; a seed is sprouting, shooting, leafing. The sky gives it shade, the sun warmth, the clouds water. The earth gives it life. The whole existence becomes a helper. Yes—if you move against existence, then you are alone. The journey of ego is a solitary journey. In the journey of meditation, the whole existence is your ally. But do not leave it all to existence; you must labor. Existence will support. And what you have done so far is auspicious, in the right direction. Your steps are falling in the right direction. Look back and remember your face of five or seven years ago, saint!…