Self-Consciousness

 

 

Self-consciousness is a disease. Consciousness is health. Self-consciousness is disease, something has gone wrong. Some tie has arisen, some complex; the river of consciousness is not flowing naturally. Something foreign has entered the river of consciousness, something alien, something that cannot be absorbed by the river, something that cannot become part of the river, something that resists becoming part of the river.

 

Self-consciousness is morbidity. Self-consciousness is a frozen state, blocked. It is like a dirty pool, going nowhere – just drying, evaporating and dying. Of course, it stinks.

 

So the first thing to be understood is the difference between self-consciousness and consciousness.

 

Consciousness has no idea of “I,” of ego. It has no idea of one’s separation from existence. It does not know any barrier, it knows no boundaries. It is one with existence; it is in a deep at-onement. There is no conflict between the individual and the whole. One is simply flowing into the whole, and the whole is flowing into one. It is like breathing: you breathe in, you breathe out. When you breathe in, the whole enters you; when you breathe out, you enter the whole. It is a constant flow, a constant sharing. The whole goes on giving to you and you go on giving to the whole. The balance is never lost.

 

But in a self-conscious man something has gone wrong. He takes in, but he never gives out. He goes on accumulating and he has become incapable of sharing. He goes on making boundaries around himself so nobody can trespass. He goes on putting boards around his being: No Trespassing Allowed. By and by, he becomes a grave, a dead being – because life is in sharing.

 

A self is a dead thing, alive only for the name’s sake. Consciousness is infinite life, life abundant. It knows no boundaries. But ordinarily, everybody is self-conscious.

 

To be self-conscious is to be unconscious. This paradox has to be understood: to be self-conscious is to be unconscious. And to be unself-conscious, or to be self-unconscious, is to become conscious. And when there is no self, when this small, tiny self disappears, you attain the real self with a capital S – call it the supreme self, the self of all.

 

So the real self is both: no-self in the sense that it is not only yours, and it is the ultimate self also because it is the self of all. You lose your tiny center and you attain the center of existence itself. Suddenly you become infinite; suddenly you are no longer bound, you have no cage around your being and infinite power starts flowing through you. You become a vehicle – clear, with no obstructions. You become a flute and Krishna can sing through you. You become just a passage – empty, nothing of your own. This is what I call surrender.

 

Self-consciousness is a non-surrendering attitude -- it is the attitude of conflict, fight, struggle. If you are fighting with existence you will be self-conscious and, of course, you will be defeated again and again and again. Each step is going to be a step in more and more defeat -- your frustration is certain. You are doomed from the very beginning because you cannot hold this self against the universe. It is impossible. You cannot exist separately. You cannot be a monk.

 

This word 'monk' is good. You must be aware of similar words like 'monopoly' -- that comes from the same root; or 'monastery' -- that comes from the same root; or 'monologue' -- that comes from the same root. A monk is one who is trying to be himself, who is trying to define his boundaries, and who is trying to exist separate from this total existence. His whole effort is egoistic -- it is bound to fail. No monk can ever succeed.

 

You can succeed only with God, never against Him. You can succeed only with the Whole, never against It. So if you are frustrated, in deep misery, remember: you are creating that misery. And you are creating it by a subtle trick: you are fighting against the Whole. [....]

 

The ego is always an effort to go upstream. People don't like to do easy things. Before they want to do them, they want to make them hard, difficult. People enjoy doing hard things. Why? Because when you face a hard thing, your ego becomes subtle, sharp; there is a challenge.

 

When the first group reached to the top of Everest, somebody asked Edmund Hillary, "Why did you take such a risk? It was dangerous -- many others have died before you and have not been able to reach." And the person who was asking was unable to understand why people go on trying to reach Everest and losing their lives. What is the point of it? What is there to achieve?

 

Edmund Hillary is reported to have said, "We cannot rest as long as this Everest remains unconquered. We have to conquer it!" There is nothing to get in it, but the very presence of Everest unconquered is a challenge. To whom is it a challenge? -- to the ego.

 

You watch your own life: many things you are doing only because of the ego. You want to make a big house. You may be perfectly comfortable in your house as it is, but you want to make a big palace. That big palace is not for you, that big palace is for the ego. You may be perfectly comfortable as you are, but you go on accumulating money. That money is not for you; that money is for the ego. How can you rest unless you have become the richest man in the world? -- but what are you going to do by becoming the richest man in the world? You will become more and more miserable -- because misery comes out of conflict. Misery is an indication that you are in conflict. So don't throw your responsibility on something else.

 

People are very rationalizing: if they are miserable they will say, "What can we do? -- the past lives' karmas are making us miserable.“

 

All rubbish! Past life karmas must have made you miserable, but in past lives! Why should they wait up to now? There is no point in waiting. Your present karmas are making you miserable. Throwing it on past lives makes it easy -- what can you do? You have to be the way you are. Now nothing can be done; the past cannot be undone -- you cannot erase it just by waving your hand. There is no magic trick that can help you to erase your past. It has happened and it has happened forever; now it is going to remain absolute; there is no possibility of changing it. That relieves you of the burden, and you think: "So okay, I have to be miserable because of the past karmas."

 

You can throw the responsibility on the Devil as Christians go on doing. Hindus go on throwing the responsibility on past karmas; Christians go on throwing the responsibility on the Devil -- he must be creating traps for you. It is not you -- it is the Devil who goes on trapping you into miseries, and who goes on pulling you down towards hell. Who is bothered with you? Why should this Devil be bothered with you?

 

Then there are Marxists, Communists, Socialists -- they say it is the social structure, the economic system, that makes people miserable. Then there are Freudians, psychoanalysts; they say it is the child and mother relationship. But it is always something else -- it is never you. It is never you in the present.

 

And I would like to tell you: It is you. If you are miserable, you and only you are responsible. Neither the past nor the social structure nor the economic system -- nothing is going to help.

 

If you remain you, in any sort of a society, you will remain miserable; in any economic system you will remain miserable; in any world you will remain miserable -- if you remain you.

 

And the first, basic change happens when you start dropping this conflict with existence. That is the only meaning of all the great religions when they emphasize: Drop the ego! They are saying: Drop the conflict. I would like you to remember it more, because 'drop the ego' seems too metaphysical. 'Ego'? -- where is the ego? what is the ego? The word seems to be known, you seem to be well acquainted with it, but it seems to be very vague, cannot be grasped. I would like to make it more practical: drop the conflict -- because ego is a by-product of your conflicting attitude.

 

People talk of conquering nature, people talk of conquering this and that -- how can you conquer nature? You are part of it. How can the part conquer the Whole? See the foolishness of it, the stupidity. You can be with the Whole in harmony, or you can be in conflict with the Whole in disharmony. Disharmony results in misery; harmony results in bliss.

 

Harmony naturally results in a deep silence, joy, delight. Conflict results in anxiety, anguish, stress, tension.

 

THE EGO IS NOTHING but all the tensions that you have created around yourself. And in the first place there is no need to create it -- but why does man go on creating it? There must be some reason. Why does everybody go on creating the self? The real Self is unknown -- that's why. And it is very difficult to live without a self, so we create a pseudo-self, a substitute self. The real Self is unknown.

 

In fact, the real Self never becomes absolutely known; it remains mysterious, it remains ineffable, indefinable. The real Self is so vast that you cannot define it, and the real Self is so mysterious that you cannot penetrate it to the very core. The real Self is the self of the Whole. It is not possible for human intellect to penetrate, to ponder, to contemplate it. [....]

 

Your Self cannot be created by you; it cannot be man-made. Your Self you have brought with you; it is you. How can you create it? To create it you will have to be there in the first place. That is the meaning when Christians, Mohammedans, Hindus, say that man is a creature. That means that man has not created himself, that's all. The creator is somewhere hidden in the unknown. We have come out of some mysterious life-source. Your Self is not yours!

 

This false self is not yours because you have created it; and your real Self is not yours because it is still in God, you are still rooted in God.

 

THIS FALSE SELF that we go on carrying in our lives like a flag is always in danger of being damaged; it is very fragile, it is very weak -- it has to be: it is man-made. How can man make something deathless? He himself has to pass through many deaths, so whatsoever he produces is always mortal.

 

Hence the fear, continuous fear that: "I may be lost. My self may be destroyed." A continuous fear goes on trembling into your being; you can never be certain about this false self of yours -- you know it is false. You may avoid the fact, but you know it is false. It is gathered together, manufactured, it is mechanical; it is not organic.

 

Have you observed the difference between an organic unity and a mechanical unity? You make a car engine; you can purchase parts from the market and you can fix those parts, and the engine starts functioning like a unity. Or you can purchase parts of a radio from the market and you can fix them, and the radio starts functioning like a unity. Somehow it comes to have a self. No part in itself can function as a radio; all parts together start functioning like a radio -- but still the unity is mechanical, forced from the outside. Then you throw seeds into the ground, and those seeds die into the soil and a plant arises. This unity is organic; it is not forced from outside -- it was in the seed itself. The seed goes on spreading, goes on gathering a thousand and one things from the earth, from the air, from the sun, from the sky -- but the unity is coming from within. The center comes first and then the circumference. In a mechanical unity the circumference comes first and then the center.

 

Man is an organic unity. You were a seed one day, like any tree; in the soil of your mother's womb you started gathering your circumference. Center came first, center preceded circumference. And now you have forgotten the center completely. You live on the circumference and you think this is your whole life. This circumference, and continuously living on it, creates a sort of self, a pseudo-self, which gives you a feeling that yes, you are somebody. But it is always trembling because it has no organic unity in it.

 

Hence, the fear of death. If you know your real Self you will never be afraid of death-there is no question, because the organic unity never dies. Organic unity is immortal. Only mechanical unities are put together and die. That which is put together, one day will fall apart. Mechanical unity has a beginning and an end. The organic unity has no beginning and no end -- it is an eternal process.

 

Do you know your center? If you don't know it then you will be continuously afraid. Hence, self-consciousness is always afraid, always trembling. And you always need support from others -- somebody to appreciate you; somebody to clap; somebody to say how beautiful you are or how intelligent. You need somebody to say these things to you, like suggestions, so that you can believe that yes, you are intelligent, you are beautiful, you are strong. But see the point: you depend on others.

 

A foolish man comes to you and says you are very intelligent. And in fact, you can look intelligent only to a foolish man. If he is more intelligent than you, of course, you will not look intelligent to him. So a foolish man comes and certifies your intelligence, and you are very happy. You can look beautiful only to an ugly man. If he is more beautiful than you, you will look ugly -- because it is all relative. And you are certified by ugly people that you are beautiful, and you are tremendously happy.

 

What type of intelligence is this which has to be certified by foolish people? What type of beauty is this which has to be certified by ugly people? It is completely false. It is idiotic. But we go on searching. We go on searching in the outside world to find some support for our ego, somebody to give a little support, to become a prop. Otherwise there is always the danger that our ego will collapse. So we have to support it from this side and from that and continuous worry arises.

 

That's why you are more graceful when you are alone -- because you are not worried. Nobody is there to see you. You are more innocent when you are alone -- in your bathroom you are more innocent, you are more like a child. Again you stand before the mirror and make faces, and you enjoy it. But if you become aware that your small child is looking through the keyhole, immediately you are totally different. Now the ego is at stake. That's why people are so much afraid of others. Alone, there is no anxiety. [....]

 

Try to make something perfect and it will remain imperfect. Do it naturally and it is always perfect. Nature is perfect; effort is imperfect. So whenever you are doing something too much, you are destroying.

 

That's why it happens: everybody talks so beautifully; everybody is a talker; people talk their whole life -- but just put them on a platform and tell them to talk to a crowd, and suddenly they become dumb; suddenly they forget everything, suddenly they cannot utter a single word. Or, even if they do utter, it is not graceful, it is not natural, it is not flowing. What has happened? And you have known this man talking so beautifully to his friends, to his wife, to his children. These are also people, the same people -- why are you afraid? You have become self-conscious. Now the ego is at stake: you are trying to perform something.

 

Listen carefully: whenever you try to perform something, you are searching food for the ego. Whenever you are natural and let things happen, they are perfect, and then there is no problem. When you are natural and let things happen, God is at the back with you. When you are afraid, trembling, trying to prove something, you have lost God. In your fear, you have forgotten Him. You are looking more at the people and you have forgotten your source. Self-consciousness becomes a weakness. A person who is unself-conscious is strong, but his strength has nothing to do with himself -- it comes from the beyond.

 

WHEN YOU ARE SELF-CONSCIOUS, you are in trouble. When you are self-conscious, you are really showing symptoms that you don't know who you are. Your very self-consciousness indicates that you have not come home yet.

 

-Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder, #5"