The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 5. THE KNOWLEDGE THAT IS SELF KNOWLEDGE
your vices one by one, but it will be an arduous task, stretching over many, many lives because the
vice are infinite.
In your effort to destroy one evil you create ten more. When you eradicate one vice and replace it
with virtue, ninety-nine vices still remain within you; they will quickly spoil your one virtue. Then all
your good acts will also appear sinful. If you touch nectar it becomes poison, because the evil within
you quickly contaminates it. Building a temple brings you no humility. On the contrary, it inflates your
ego even further. The ways of the ego enters are very subtle; something useless can nourish it.
Mulla Nasruddin owned a dog. Its pedigree was unknown. It was a thin, ugly, weak creature that
went about with its tail between its legs always scared, always trembling but the Mulla never tired of
praising him. He had named him Adolf Hitler. When I asked him about the dog the Mulla would say,
”There may be doubts about Hitler’s family background, but my dog is a very valuable thoroughbred.
No stranger can pass my house without our knowing it. Hitler lets me know immediately.”
”What does your do Hitler?” I asked. ”Does he bark or bite, what does he do?”
”He rushes in and hides under my bed,” said the Mulla. not ones has it happened that a stranger
has come and i fail to notice it.” Even the cowardice is praised!
Your ego is like Mulla Nasruddin’s Hitler. You don’t know its breed. Do you know from where your
ego is born? How can that which does not exist be born? The ego is an illusion. Its breed is
unknown. You are born of God. From where does your ego come? Have you observed your ego
closely? You may call it the Adolf Hitler, but its feet are made of clay. It is so torn and tattered!
The biggest of egos is weak and miserable. Why? Because even the biggest ego is impotent; it has
no power of its own. Power belongs to the soul. The source of power is different. Therefore the ego
has to be nursed twenty-four hours a day. It needs support. It has no legs to stand on. We have to
prop it up with wealth or position – if nothing works we support it with sin!.
You can visit the prison. Men who are shut up in jail tell stories about crimes they never committed.
A man who has killed one person boasts that he has killed a hundred. This is the only way to inflate
the ego in prison. There the bigger the crime, the bigger is the criminal. The petty criminal has no
prestige, so prisoners compete to establish who is the greatest criminal. Those who are tried under
one section are not respected. Those who are being tried for a number of crimes, are presented in
the court every day are the bosses. They magnify their real crimes and take credit for others that
are wholly fictitious.
The ego can be supported by good deeds, by evil deeds, by wealth, by position – and yet it is a
cripple, death makes it fall. Death destroys that which is not; that which is cannot be destroyed. You
will remain but remember, when I say you will remain, I am talking of that part of which you know
nothing.
That which you believe yourself to be will not remain, because it is nothing but your ego. Your name,
your looks, your wealth, your honor, your abilities, whatever you have earned – nothing of these will
remain. If you find the faintest trace of the connecting link between this and what you actually are –
which you have not laboured for, which you are born with and which is beyond all your ability – you
will find that, that which was with you before you were born will remain with you after death.
The Great Path 88 Osho