Will personality remain only as long as it is choosing or craving?

Osho, you said last night that those who have become void, valley-like, do not react but they respond, and that the responses of these different enlightened ones will be different -- that the valley will reecho in its own unique and individual way. Now a question arises whether those who become absolutely void, nothingness, still have a personality and individuality. If so, then please explain how this becomes possible.

THIS is one of the paradoxes of spiritual life: the more one dissolves into the Divine, the more unique one becomes. The dissolution is not of the individuality but of the self. The dissolution is not of the uniqueness but of the ego. The more you are an ego, the more you are like others, because everyone is an egoist. The ego is the most ordinary thing in the world. Everyone is an egoist; even a newborn child is an egoist -- a perfect egoist. So it is not anyone's achievement; it is not extraordinary. Really, it can be said that to be just ordinary is the most extraordinary thing possible because no one feels just ordinary. So to feel oneself extraordinary is just the most ordinary thing. Everyone feels like that! So ego is not something unique. If you have an ego, it is not something unique. Really, egolessness…

I am confused about the difference between surrender and following my inner light. It seems that when I want to surrender, I am afraid to be responsible for myself, and when I want to follow my inner light, I'm afraid of what you will ask of me in surrender.

You have to be absolutely clear about it: if you already have the inner light there is no need for any surrender, because surrender is only going to help you to bring the inner light. If you have it already, then forget all about surrender. But... you don't have it. Just to avoid surrender you imagine that you have it. If you have it, you have it. Then the question of surrender does not arise. You don't have it. You only have inner darkness, no inner light. So when you go in you find darkness; then you start thinking of surrender. When you start thinking of surrender then you become afraid -- because the ego comes in. It is not the inner light that is hindering you. Inner light never hinders anybody. Let me say it in this way: if you surrender, it is a help to the inner light;…

Jesus and buddha were certainly individuals. Cannot their individuality and its expression be called personality? You too, it could be said, have a personality, yet not an ego. Please clarify the concepts of personality, ego, individuality, and self.

So somebody becomes an individual only when he has become infinite. It will look paradoxical, but let me say it: somebody becomes individual only when he has become universal, when he is one with the whole. Then somebody is an individual. But then to call him an individual will be stretching the meaning of the word too far. It will be a little too outlandish. It is better to call Buddha a nobody -- neither a person nor an individual. All those things have been left far behind. He has transcended all limitations. The question is from Prem Divya. She asks, PLEASE CLARIFY THE CONCEPTS OF PERSONALITY, EGO, INDIVIDUALITY AND SELF. Personality and ego are two aspects of the same coin, just as individuality and self are two aspects of the same coin. The personality has a center -- that center is called the ego. Because personality itself is false,…

Beloved Osho, these days, looking inside, I do not find a personality with certain characteristics, but rather an ever-changing flux, totally unpredictable. It makes life in this body feel very fragile, vulnerable and momentary -- a feeling which extends itself to everything around me, shaking me to the roots.

Settle in that witnessing, and all that you are feeling disturbed by will disappear. It is just the first encounter of entering into oneself. Don't go back; go deeper into it. Ginsberg sits down in a Moscow cafe and orders a glass of tea and a copy of pravda. "I will bring the tea," the waiter tells him, "but I can't bring a copy of pravda. The Soviet regime has been overthrown and pravda is not published anymore." "Alright," says Ginsberg, "just bring the tea." The next day, Ginsberg comes to the same cafe and asks for tea and a copy of pravda. The waiter gives him the same answer. On the third day, Ginsberg orders the same and this time the waiter says to him, "Look, sir, you seem to be an intelligent man. For the past three days you have ordered a copy of pravda and three times…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHEN I DIE, DOES MY INDIVIDUALITY REMAIN? Yes, your individuality remains, but your personality disappears -- and you have to understand the difference between the two. The personality is something that is given by the society, by the religion, by education, by your profession. You have got a certain personality. That will be gone because it is a social product. But you were born with an individuality of your own. With death, you will be taking your individuality with you. Everything else that you have earned on the way will be taken back; it does not belong to you. Your degrees, your prizes, your awards, your Nobel prizes, your prestige, your reputation -- everything will be dropped. That I call your personality. But you have an individuality -- innocent, just the way you were born... utterly clean, a tabula rasa, nothing written on you, no name, nameless.