Osho on Life

The ego is always in search of isolation, because when you are alone, only the ego remains; the ego becomes the whole world. Then there is nobody to fight with your ego; there is nobody to humiliate you; there is nobody with whom you can compare yourself. You become supreme in your own eyes. You can believe in your ego absolutely; there will be no distraction. I am against isolation. In fact you have to dissolve the ego, not to isolate it. You are not to become an island, independent, separate from the whole: you have to become a part of the continent, one with it. How can you be one with reality in isolation? The reality needs participation, not isolation. That’s why the greatest SAMADHI occurs in love, not in isolation. And the greatest of yoga is love, because in love you have to dissolve yourself, in love you have to die, in love you have to melt, merge.

I teach love, not isolation. Isolation is the way of the world, not the way of religion. But it happens: you have been seeking riches, political power, possessions; then you become frustrated; then you turn to the Himalayas — you renounce the world. You don’t renounce the ego, you renounce the world. I teach you: renounce the ego, don’t renounce the world.

The ego is very subtle. You could not attain to political power, then you try to attain to religious power. You call it KUNDALINI, but still it is power, still it is something that will make you separate, unique, independent, an island. If your religion is also a search for power, then isolation is needed.

But religion is not a search for power; it is a search for silence. It is a search for peace; it is a search for inner poverty — what Jesus calls ‘poor in spirit’. It is a search to be, in such a way that there is no difference between to be and not to be. Non-being becomes your only being.

This is possible not through independence, this is possible only if you realize interdependence. These three words have to be remembered: dependence, independence, and interdependence. Dependent you are; independence you seek; interdependence I teach. Dependent you are, because everywhere you will feel you are dependent, everywhere a limitation comes in. If you love somebody you become dependent on him or on her. Everywhere life brings dependence. Then the idea arises that in the world you can never be independent. Escape from the world. You can escape, but independent you can never be: you can only be deceived. Even in the Himalayas you are not independent; you are still dependent on the sun. If the sun does not rise, you will be dead immediately. You will be dependent on the oxygen and air: if the oxygen disappears, you will be dead. You will be dependent on water; you will be dependent on a thousand and one things.

Dependence has to be understood, not to be avoided. If you understand dependence, you will understand immediately that hidden behind it is interdependence. Dependence is just a misinterpretation. Those who have known have also known that you are not dependent on the sun; the sun is also dependent on you. Without you the sun cannot be, as you cannot be without the sun. Even a small blade of grass will be missed from existence; the existence will never be complete without it. A gap, something missing, will be there. So don’t think that the stars are great, and a blade of grass is very small and tiny. In existence, nothing is great and nothing is small, because existence is one. This is what is meant by ecology: interdependence. And ecology is not only of this earth, it is of the totality. Ecology is a spiritual phenomenon.

You are misinterpreting. You are interpreting interdependence as dependence. That is a wrong notion, and because of that wrong notion, a wrong desire arises: how to be independent. Out of one error another error arises. You cannot be; and if somebody teaches you independence — there are people who teach this — they are teaching sheer stupidity. You are part, you are one with the whole, you are a wave in the ocean. The wave cannot be independent. How can you take the wave apart from the ocean? And I tell you, the ocean also cannot be separate from the wave. Without waves the ocean will also disappear. The waves cannot be without the ocean; the ocean cannot be without the waves, because waves are nothing but the ocean waving. Because of language the separation arises. You say the waves and the ocean; in fact, there are not the waves and the ocean, it is all one — the ocean waving. Waves are not things… a process, a movement, a breathing of the ocean. You and your breathing are not two things: you are the breathing, the breathing is you. You breathe and the breathing breathes you — they are inseparable. Life is one. For this oneness, interdependence, God is another name. Love is still another name, and even better than God, because God has been destroyed by the theologians. Love is still pure and virgin.

Source:

Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.

Discourse Series: Come Follow To You, Vol 3 Chapter #8

Question 1

Chapter title: I bring the greatest synthesis that is

18 December 1975 am in Buddha Hall

References:

Osho has spoken on ‘Interdependence, Life, Ecology, Ego, Harmony’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourse titles:

1. The Book of Wisdom
2. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 9
3. The First Principle
4. From Death to Deathlessness
5. The Goose is Out
6. Hari Om Tat Sat
7. Just Like That
8. Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 1