Self-Identity

Osho, when the world questions us, what should we answer? I have gone missing, my Lord; tell me my address. People ask me where I am from.

Buddha added a new chapter to human history: that which cannot be said, don’t say. Say it by silence. Let silence speak. Then leave it to the other. If he thinks you are ignorant, that is his affair. Why be disturbed? But I understand your hitch. If you cannot answer, people think: “Ah, so you are still ignorant! A sannyasi and still ignorant! Donning ochre and still ignorant!” Say: I am indeed ignorant. Make no claim to knowledge. And I tell you: this acceptance of ignorance will become the manure that cracks your seed. This acceptance will become rain upon you. After all, what does the effort to prove to others that “I know” really mean? Only this: that my ego depends on others’ recognition. Ego wants the prop of the other. You cannot be a knower alone; you can be a knower only if someone says so. Go sit…

Beloved Osho, can you please say something about the difference between the spiritual question, "who am I?" and the psychological trauma of "who am I?"?

"Just fine," replied the second rat. "It took a while, but I have finally got him trained. Now, whenever I ring the bell, he brings me my dinner." It is such a strange world. The psychologist, Dr. Smith, must be thinking he is training rats, and the rats are thinking they are training Dr. Smith! The games of the ego... The wife thinks she is training the husband. All wives are training their husbands their whole lives; the husbands are training their wives. It seems life is just to train and to be trained -- for what? A woman reached Pablo Picasso. She wanted a portrait; the portrait was made. She was absolutely satisfied. She said, "Just one thing, you have forgotten to put great diamonds around my neck, a great diamond ring, diamond bracelets." Picasso said, "But you don't have them." She said, "It doesn't matter. I have cancer,…

Osho, you said that you don't know who you are. Don't you really? Do we never know who we are?

But it has been a great problem for the scholars: "Why did Eknath treat his own god in this way?" They don't have any answer. At least he could have looked at him, at least he could have said, "Please sit down on the brick." I have talked with many Maharashtrian scholars who are followers of Eknath; they don't have any answer. I said, "It is so simple. The story may be bogus, and I know that it is bogus. There is no Vithoba; nobody ever comes, whether you keep your door open or locked. But one thing is certain: Eknath was really an authentic man. When he was doing one thing, he was doing it totally. When God comes he says, "Stand there, don't bother me till I am finished with my work." To me this is the implication in my saying that if death comes to my sannyasins…

Osho, how does the cessation of this ego-sense happen? That is, witnessing is not something that is brought in, nor does one make oneself into a witness. It is only because we have become something else that the feeling of witnessing does not arise. So this ego-sense—the “made-ness” we are—how does it come to an end?

No, no—you cannot bring about its cessation. Because the very one who is asking, “How should I end it?”—that itself is the ego. You cannot end it. The ego is so subtle that when it asks, “How do I erase the ego?” it is the ego itself that is asking. The question is not coming from anywhere else. Beyond the ego there is no questioning at all; there, the ego is not. Ego belongs to the mind that asks; it is not part of the consciousness-state of being a witness. Understand it like this: there is water. The water asks, “How can I eliminate my fluidity?” Water can only be by being fluid. It cannot remove fluidity, because in the very definition of water, fluidity is included; it is part of it. We say to it, “Cool down below zero degrees,” or “Heat up to a hundred degrees.” If you…