WebSadhu

Ego is nothing but false image of you. It is not substantial; it is just an idea, a substitute without which it will be difficult for you to live. Because you don’t know who you are, you have to create a certain idea about yourself; otherwise, you will simply go mad. You have to fix certain indicators so that you can know, ‘this is me.’

The ego exists because you don’t know who you are. So a name, an address, a certain face that you have seen reflected in the mirror, in the photographs, the album – these all help. They are balloons fastened to you.

To search for the real seems to be arduous. To create a synthetic, artificial, plastic self seems to be very easy. We have created the ego as a substitute. It is a false center that gives us a feeling that we know who we are. But this false self is constantly in danger. It is false – it has to be continuously supported.

The real cannot be gone; there is no way where it can go. The real remains. Just see: Human beings have not looked into themselves for million of lives – still they exist. It doesn’t need any support, it is the very ground. It supports you! Deep inside there is a space which is eternal, which never changes. There is space in us which is timeless, is never affected by any changes in time, through time; remain transcendental, beyond. There is space in us which is life, pure life, and knows nothing of death.

But the ego needs support. If you have a certain amount of money in the bank, you have to go on increasing that amount; otherwise, your ego starts feeling suffocated. If you have certain prestige in the society, you have to retain it. You have to go on puffing up your ego continuously; if you stop puffing, it starts dying. It is like pedaling a bicycle – you have to continuously pedal it. If you stop pedaling you will fail. The ego needs continuous effort; it has to be created again and again. Thus, real is the one that supports you and false is the one that needs your support.

Today every one is living life full of ego – people are wasting their life in such things which they really don’t need. People go on accumulating things which they don’t need. People go on putting their money into things which they will never need, to impress people whom they don’t like. People have such big balloons, balloons of ego that one starts feeling inadequate. Somebody is having this, somebody is having that – and you start feeling poor.

So, in today’s world, people’s biggest grief, misery is Ego. Ego is the one that brings comparison, it is the one that makes you feel inadequate, it is the one that brings the concept of rich and poor.

 - Osho