According to Osho, we cling to the mind because the ego fears dissolving into the vastness of Tao. Like a dewdrop before the ocean, we prefer a cramped, suffering identity to losing the small me in bliss. Mind is the ego's process, a wall maintaining separation through struggle and ambition. Flow happens in no-mind and love, but the ego invents safe substitutes to avoid the freedom of surrender.
Because melting into the big everything feels scary, our little ego chooses thinking and control, building walls instead of relaxing into loving openness.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, tao is greater than mind. Then why do we keep choosing the mind instead of flowing with the tao?
It is precisely because of that. Tao is so vast that one is afraid to lose one's identity in it. We are like dewdrops and Tao is like an ocean. The dewdrop is afraid, very much frightened to get closer to the ocean -- one step in the ocean and he will be lost forever. He wants to cling to his identity; howsoever small, howsoever tiny, howsoever mediocre, but it is HIS identity, it is HIS personality. He is only because he is separate from the ocean. That's the way of the ego: the ego can exist only in separation. Separation creates misery because you become uprooted from the whole, but one is ready to suffer misery rather than to die and disappear into absolute bliss. People only talk about bliss, nobody really wants to be blissful. They talk about bliss as if they can remain the same and bliss…
Question: A friend asks: Osho, what hopes and far-sighted visions moved you to revive Lao Tzu’s twenty-five-hundred-year-old teachings today? Another friend has asked: Please shed light on the directions in which Lao Tzu’s naturalistic, spontaneous, simple, life-applicable path of practice, given twenty-five centuries ago, can be of use to today’s complex and ill-at-ease person. Yet another friend has asked: Seekers have always aspired to ascent; but for practice Lao Tzu holds up water—the symbol of descent—as the ideal. And dharma is the upward growth of life. So please make clearer how spiritual ascent happens through the symbol of water! A fourth question: On the first day’s talk you said that man’s ego is a disease, and that nature and the sages treat our ego like a straw dog. Please explain: ego too is a part of nature.
Question: HOW DOES THE TRUE MAN OF TAO WALK THROUGH WALLS WITHOUT OBSTRUCTION AND STAND IN FIRE WITHOUT BEING BURNT? NOT BECAUSE OF CUNNING OR DARING, NOT BECAUSE HE HAS LEARNED -- BUT BECAUSE HE HAS UNLEARNED. HIS NATURE SINKS TO ITS ROOT IN THE ONE. HIS VITALITY, HIS POWER, HIDE IN SECRET TAO. WHEN HE IS ALL ONE, THERE IS NO FLAW IN HIM BY WHICH A WEDGE CAN ENTER. SO A DRUNKEN MAN WHO FALLS OUT OF A WAGON IS BRUISED, BUT NOT DESTROYED. HIS BONES ARE LIKE THE BONES OF OTHER MEN, BUT HIS FALL IS DIFFERENT. HIS SPIRIT IS ENTIRE. HE IS NOT AWARE OF GETTING INTO A WAGON, OR FALLING OUT OF ONE. LIFE AND DEATH ARE NOTHING TO HIM. HE KNOWS NO ALARM, HE MEETS OBSTACLES WITHOUT THOUGHT, WITHOUT CARE, AND TAKES THEM WITHOUT KNOWING THEY ARE THERE.
Lieh tzu was going to ch'I but turned back half way!. On the road he met po-hun wu-jen who asked him why he had turned back.
LIEH TZU SAID 'I WAS ALARMED BY SOMETHING.' 'WHAT WAS IT?' ASKED THE OLD MAN. 'I ATE AT TEN INNS AND AT FIVE THEY SERVED ME FIRST.' 'WHEN A MAN'S INNER INTEGRITY IS NOT FIRM, SOMETIMES, SOMETHING OOZES FROM HIS BODY AND BECOMES AN AURA, WHICH, OUTSIDE HIM, PRESSES ON THE HEARTS OF OTHERS; IT MAKES OTHER MEN HONOUR HIM MORE THAN HIS ELDERS AND BETTERS, AND GETS HIM INTO DIFFICULTIES.' THE ONLY MOTIVE OF AN INNKEEPER IS TO SELL HIS RICE AND SOUP, AND INCREASE HIS EARNINGS. HIS PROFITS ARE MEAGRE, AND THE CONSIDERATIONS WHICH SWAY HIM HAVE LITTLE WEIGHT. IF MEN WITH SO LITTLE TO GAIN FROM ME VALUE ME SO HIGHLY AS A CUSTOMER, WILL IT NOT BE EVEN WORSE WITH THE LORD OF TEN THOUSAND CHARIOTS WHO HAS WORN OUT HIS BODY AND DRAINED HIS KNOWLEDGE IN STATE AFFAIRS? THE PRINCE OF CH'I WILL APPOINT ME…
The venerable master said:
WHEN MAN ATTAINS THE POWER TO TRANSCEND THAT WHICH CHANGES, ABIDING IN PURITY AND STILLNESS, HEAVEN AND EARTH ARE UNITED IN HIM. THE SOUL OF MAN LOVES PURITY, BUT HIS MIND IS OFTEN REBELLIOUS. THE MIND OF MAN LOVES STILLNESS, BUT HIS DESIRES DRAW HIM INTO ACTIVITY. WHEN A MAN IS CONSTANTLY ABLE TO GOVERN HIS DESIRES, HIS MIND BECOMES SPONTANEOUSLY STILL. WHEN THE MIND IS UNCLOUDED, THE SOUL IS SEEN TO BE PURE. THEN, WITH CERTAINTY THE SIX DESIRES WILL CEASE TO BE BEGOTTEN AND THE THREE POISONS WILL BE ELIMINATED AND DISSOLVED. THE REASON MEN DO NOT POSSESS THE ABILITY TO ACHIEVE THIS IS BECAUSE THEIR MINDS ARE NOT CLEAR AND THEIR DESIRES ARE UNRESTRAINED. HE WHO HAS THE POWER TO TRANSCEND HIS DESIRES, LOOKING WITHIN AND CONTEMPLATING MIND, REALIZES THAT IN HIS MIND, MIND IS NOT; LOOKING WITHOUT AND CONTEMPLATING FORM, HE REALIZES THAT IN FORM, FORM…