Love Is Its Own Reward

Individual Talk

From:The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 10

In stock
Osho,
Why do I take myself and everything so seriously?

"The ego can exist only if you take yourself and everything seriously. Nothing kills the ego like playfulness, like laughter. When you start..."
Osho,
Why do I take myself and everything so seriously?

"The ego can exist only if you take yourself and everything seriously. Nothing kills the ego like playfulness, like laughter. When you start..."

Osho continues:
"It is an eternal celebration, it is a festivity.

"Only man is serious, because only man has been trying to create a separation between himself and existence. He doesn't want to be part of the whole, because then he disappears. He wants his own identity, his own name, his own form, his definition. Even if it creates misery it is okay, even if he has to live in hell he is ready for it.

"Once George Bernard Shaw was asked where he would like to go after he dies – to hell or to heaven. He said, 'Wherever I can be the first, I don't want to be the second' – and in heaven there is no chance to be the first, because so many saints have already reached there: Jesus and Zarathustra and Mahavira and Buddha. Who will take note of poor George Bernard Shaw? He is willing to go to hell if he can be the first there.

"Ego wants to be the first, ego wants to put everybody below itself; hence it takes itself seriously. Hence it is perfectionist: it demands perfection, which is impossible. Nobody is perfect; nobody can exist for a single moment if he is perfect. Imperfection is the way of life, because it is possible to grow only if you are imperfect. If you are perfect there is no more growth, no more evolution. If you are perfect you are stuck. Perfection means death; imperfection means flow, growth, movement, dynamism.

"The ego demands perfection of oneself and of others too. It asks for the impossible, and because the impossible cannot be achieved it can go on living. It is not happy with the ordinary; it wants the extraordinary, and life consists only of the ordinary. But the ordinary is beautiful, the ordinary is exquisite. There is no need of anything extraordinary. The ordinary life is sacred, but the ego condemns it as mundane. It demands extraordinary life. Hence all the religions go on inventing stories about their founders which are all untrue: Moses separating the sea, Jesus walking on the waterall these stories are inventions, lies, created by the followers just to prove that their master is extraordinary; he is not an ordinary human being."
More Information
Publisher Osho International
Duration of Talk 98 mins
File Size 18.87 MB
Type Individual Talks