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Sex, Drugs, and Schizophrenia

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Jonathan Harnisch

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“Question : HOW TO SACRIFICE THE EGO? Osho : IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. THE EGO CANNOT BE SACRIFICED because the ego exists not. The ego is just all idea: it has no substance in it. The ego is a kind of absence. Because you don't know yourself, hence the ego.The ego is like darkness; darkness has no positive existence of its own; it is simply the absence of light. You cannot fight with darkness, or can you? You cannot throw darkness out of the room; you cannot take it out, you cannot take it in. If you put the light on, there is no darkness; if you put the light off, there is darkness. Darkness is only the absence of light -- so is ego: absence of self-knowledge. You cannot sacrifice it. It has been told to you again and again: "Sacrifice your ego" -- and the statement is patently absurd, because something that does not exist cannot be sacrificed. And if you try to sacrifice it, something which is not there in the first place at all, you will be creating a new ego -- the ego of the humble, the ego of the egoless, the ego of the person who thinks he has sacrificed his ego. It will be a new kind of darkness again. No, I don't say to you: Sacrifice the ego. On the contrary, I say: Try to see where the ego is. Look DEEP into it; try to locate it, where it exists, whether it exists at all or not. Before one can sacrifice anything one must be certain about its existence. But don't be against it from the very beginning. If you are against it, you cannot look deep into it. There is no need to be against anything. The ego is your experience -- maybe it is just apparent, but it is still your experience. Your whole life moves around the phenomenon of the ego. It may be a dream. But to you it is so true. There is no need to be against it. Dive deep into it, go into it. Going into it means bringing awareness into your house, bringing light into darkness. Be alert, watchful. Watch the ways of the ego, how it functions, how it manages at all. And you will be surprised: the deeper you go into it, the less it is found. And when you have penetrated to the very core of your being, you will find something totally different which is not ego, which is egolessness. It is self, supreme self -- it is God. You have disappeared as a separate entity; you are no more an island, now you are part of the whole. In that experience of being one with the whole, the ego is sacrificed, but that is only a way of speaking, a metaphor. Don't take it literally. Try to understand the ego. Analyse it, dissect it, watch it, observe it, from as many angles as possible. And don't be in a hurry to sacrifice it, otherwise the greatest egoist is born: the person who thinks he is humble, the person who thinks that he has no ego. Rather, follow a totally different path: meditate on the phenomenon of ego, enquire what it is. And as the enquiry deepens, the ego disappears. Enquiring into the ego you will come to the self. And remember: the self has nothing to do with the ego, because the self has nothing to do with you at all. The self is always the supreme self: AHAM BRAHMASMI! At that point, you (the ego) are not, only God is: Tat-tvam-asi -- thou art that. At that point, there is no distinction between thou and that. The dewdrop has disappeared into the ocean and has become the ocean itself. But no sacrifice -- the non-substantial cannot be sacrificed, it can only be understood. And in the very understanding is the disappearing. And this disappearance is beautiful, because it does not leave any traces behind, no scars, no wounds.”

“I don't know what makes us want to keep on living, what makes us desperately hold on to anything that will allow us to remain on this earth just a little longer despite the pain that comes with it, but I do know that, whatever it is, selfishness resides at its core; selfishness is its black, dangerous heart.”

“Lights” Lights of churches, monasteries, Christmas trees, and magnificent mosques. The dim lights inside warm houses in every foreign city where I wandered alone. The far-away headlights of cars crossing bridges, watched from the windows of dreary hotels on clear, moonlit nights. Candlelight and lanterns, the lights of small shops in ancient, forgotten alleys, the lights of ships sailing to places I will never see, lamp-post lights on dark, rainy winter nights, solitary lighthouses and the lights of unknown fishermen, the glittering lights I saw in the eyes of kind strangers in cities tourists never visit. All these lights I once loved now break me; they remind me of the magical light that was extinguished in your eyes…”

“Question : OSHO, WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO FORGIVE, TO STOP CLINGING TO HURTS LONG SINCE PAST? Osho : The ego exists on misery - the more misery the more nourishment for it. In blissful moments the ego totally disappears, and vice versa: if the ego disappears, bliss starts showering on you. Joy is like poison to the ego, and misery is like vitamins. You will have to understand the whole mechanism of the ego. If you try to forgive, that is not real forgiveness. With effort, you will only repress. You can forgive only when you understand the stupidity of the whole game that goes on within your mind. You will repress in one form; it will assert in another form - sometimes so subtle that it is almost impossible to recognize it, that it is the same old structure, so renovated, refurnished, redecorated, that it looks almost new. The ego lives on the negative, because the ego is basically a negative phenomenon; it exists on saying no. No is the soul of the ego. And how can you say no to bliss? You can say no to misery, you can say no to the agony of life. How can you say no to the flowers and the stars and the sunsets and all that is beautiful, divine? And the whole existence is full of it - it is full of roses - but you go on picking the thorns; you have a great investment in those thorns. The first thing to remember is: ego is the most negative phenomenon in existence. It is like darkness. Darkness has no positive existence; it is simply absence of light...that's why you cannot do anything directly with darkness. If you try to fight with it, you will be defeated. Darkness cannot be defeated by fighting. It is impossible, for the simple reason that darkness does not exist. If you want to do anything with darkness you will have to go via light. If you don't want darkness, bring light in. If you want darkness, then put the light off. But do something with light; nothing can be done with darkness directly. I don't say to you: Don't hate; love. I don't say to you that drop all your sins and become virtuous. I say: Bring light into your being. Don't be bothered by all these fragments of darkness. And at the very center of darkness is ego. Ego is the center of darkness. You bring light - the method is meditation - you become more aware, you become more alert. Otherwise you will go on repressing, and whatsoever is repressed has to be repressed again and again and again. That I have to do; that's the function of the Master, to destroy your ego. And you can become very revengeful, and you can carry deep wounds through it. People go on carrying things that they hate. They live in their hatred. They go on fingering their wounds so they don't heal; they don't ALLOW them to heal - their whole life depends on their past. Unless you start living in the present, you will not be able to forget and forgive the past. I don't say to you: Forget and forgive all that has happened in the past; that is not my approach. I say: Live in the present that is the positive way to approach existence. Live in the present. That is another way of saying: Be more meditative, more aware, more alert, because when you are alert, aware, you are in the present. Awareness cannot be in the past and cannot be in the future. Awareness knows only the present. Awareness knows no past, no future; it has only one tense, the present. Be aware, and as you will start enjoying the present more and more, as you will feel the bliss of being in the present..You will stop going into the past. You will not have to forget and forgive, it will simply disappear on its own accord. You will be surprised - where it has gone? To be free from past and future is to taste freedom for the first time, is to taste God. And in that experience one becomes whole, healthy; all wounds are healed. Suddenly there are no more any wounds; you start feeling a deep well-being arising in you. That well-being is the beginning of transformation.”