Bragging

 

 

Don't try to kill the ego -- you cannot. If you try to kill the ego you will become a very very humble man, but remember, "very very" is important. You cannot be an ordinary humble man but very very humble -- and that will be the hiding place of your ego. Then you will claim that you are the humblest man on earth.

 

I was reading an anecdote: Three monks belonging to three Christian monasteries met at a crossroad. Of course they started bragging. One said, “You will have to concede that our monastery has produced the greatest saints. Your monasteries are nothing in that matter. Look at our legendary past – how many saints we have produced!”

 

The second said, “You are right. But you will have to concede that all the great theologians have come from our monastery – the great philosophers, the great knowers, systematizers. You cannot boast even a single theologian of the caliber that we have produced in thousands.”

 

Both looked at the third, and they said, “We feel sorry for you because you have nothing to claim.”

 

The third said, “No, we have not produced great saints, that’s right. And we have not produced great thinkers, theologians, that too is right. But as far as humility is concerned we are the top.”

 

The gestalt has changed. The ego has gone to the bottom, but starts functioning from there. Now you are humble, but at the top. A humble man has to be last, how can he be at the top? But a humble man always claims that he is at the top. The ego is not dead, cannot be dead. It has only gone to the deeper layers of the unconscious and functions from there and controls from there. Humility on the surface and ego deep down, controlling humility. Humbleness is controlled by the ego.

 

Look at people who say and think that they are humble, look in their eyes: you will not find any humbleness there, but a very subtle pride. Pious egoists they are, holy egoists they are. And when ego becomes holy it becomes more poisonous. Poison in itself is bad, but when poison becomes holy then it is very dangerous.

 

You cannot kill the ego. If you try to kill it, two things will happen. One, your life will become monotonous, it will lose the tension of the opposites. It will lose the music. That's why monks are so monotonous.

 

-Osho, “Just Like That, #9“