According to Osho, you react to management because your ego craves position and power; you project this hunger onto those serving a functional role. Management is utilitarian, not dominance. If you were managing, others would resist you. Drop the ego, be humble, and remember you are here to meditate, not to compete for control.
You’re mad at people in charge because your ego wants that seat—see their job as practical, let go, and focus on why you’re really here.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, why do I react against the management and the people in positions around you?
It is simple. Because you want to be in the management around me, in a powerful position, that's why you react. You are not a humble person. You are not here for meditation. Here too, you are a power seeker. It is so clear that if you cannot see it, then you must be utterly blind. Some kind of management is necessary; it is functional. It is a small place. If one thousand people enter into this house then some kind of management will be needed, and anybody who will be managing will look as if he has power. But what power? It is simply functional, it is utilitarian. And you are reacting to it. You can be put into management -- others will be reacting to you then. Then everybody can be put into management; then whom are you going to manage? So just don't be stupid. The people…
[A sannyasin who is leaving for the west says: My heart tells me to stay and my head says I have to go back and attend to my business, to work and make money. And it's not even that it's a conflict.] Mm mm, it is not a conflict, that I can see. Just a friendly quarrel between the head and the heart; just two friends fighting, almost a loving nagging. That's very good, because any conflict is destructive. So don't make it a conflict. My suggestion is that you go. This is one of the very intricate secrets co be understood. I can say to you to stay, but if you stay, your mind will think of going, and that can be a burden. Then the whole beauty of staying is lost. So I would like you to go so that the hankering of the mind is finished.
What is the reason that I find it difficult to enforce rules? Part of me gets angry and insists that sannyasins follow simple rules like no smoking or eating in the gardens. Teertha has called me "the commandant of the garden," but deep down I hate the whole authority trip; it is the only part of my work that is not enjoyable. How can one be a nobody when put in a position of having to enforce rules? Could chuang tzu lay down his fishing pole and come to poona to play laxmi's role?
A man should be so free that if the situation demands him to be in a power role, he can be in a power role -- without being powerful. If the situation demands it of him, he can easily accommodate himself to the new situation without any trouble. A man should not have a fixed role in life. He should be fluid. And the question is not of roles; the question is of consciousness. So Nirgun, be more conscious, be more loving. Don't allow that urge to dominate to become an unconscious trip, that's all. Become conscious of it. Through consciousness, it will be dropped. Because of this fear, millions of people down the ages became monks and nuns. What was their fear? Why were they afraid of the world? They were afraid not of the world, they were afraid of their unconscious desires. They knew well that if opportunity…
I frequently hear you speak about rebellion. The priests and nuns and relatives that shaped my training are now old and dried up. Most are dead. It seems worthless to rebel against those helpless old people.
I AM NOW THE PRIEST AND THE DOCTRINES. I FEEL THAT TO REBEL AGAINST ANYTHING OUTSIDE MYSELF IS A WASTE OF TIME AND JUST SIMPLY NOT TO THE POINT. THIS MAKES THE SITUATION MUCH MORE FRUSTRATING AND ENTANGLED. IT SEEMS THE SELF MUST REBEL AGAINST THE SELF. I ACCEPT THAT IT IS NOT THE ESSENTIAL SELF -- THE ORIGINAL FACE -- THAT HAS TO DO THE REBELLING. IT IS THE TRAINED SELF -- THE SUBTERFUGE. BUT THAT IS THE ONLY "SELF" I HAVE OR KNOW WITH WHICH TO DO THE REBELLING. HOW DOES THE SUBTERFUGE REBEL AGAINST THE SUBTERFUGE? For example, just sitting with your friends, by the way, you say, "That movie I went to yesterday was not worth seeing." You may have mentioned it just by the way, but then somebody says, "You are wrong. I have also seen the movie. It is one of the most beautiful…
But if people become rebellious, how can society control them?
It is the very concept of control that has made the whole world a mess. The moment you think in terms of control, you begin to suppress and you begin to destroy individuals and create types. And, paradoxically, when you destroy individuals and create patterns and types, much disorder follows. But this disorder is not because of rebellious minds, it is just a reaction against the dead order. If the rebellious mind wins even for a single day, there will be no disorder because there will be no order; order and disorder are two sides of the same coin. A person who tries to create order creates disorder: the attitude, the mind that tries to ordain discipline creates indiscipline, too. Your ego reacts against a person who is trying to discipline you, but this is reaction not rebellion. Rebellion only emerges after satori, so there are not many rebellious persons…