The ego goes on agreeing for wrong things, because the ego can exist only with the wrong. It feeds on the wrong. So whenever you feel that your ego is fulfilled, beware! — you have eaten something wrong, you have swallowed something wrong. Whenever you feel egoless, relax — now you have eaten the right, something which is in tune with your nature.

 

Ego arises out of disturbance, but ego has its own logic. It goes on saying that you are important, that you are the most important man in the world, and you have to prove it. And we are all trying to do this one way or the other — somebody by possessing more money, somebody by possessing a beautiful woman, somebody by possessing prestige, power, somebody by becoming a president or a premier, somebody by becoming an artist, a poet, somebody by becoming a MAHATMA — but we are all trying in some way or other to prove our innermost fantasy, that we are the most important person in the world. Then you cannot be a lover.

 

Ambition is poison for love. A lover is not in any need to prove. In fact, he knows that he is loved, and that’s enough. Try to diagnose it very carefully. When you are not loved — and how can you be loved if you don’t love? — when you are not loved and you don’t love, suddenly a great need arises to perform, to do something, to show the world that you are important, that you are needed. There is a great need to be needed. You feel futile, impotent, useless, if you are not needed. The need in itself is not wrong; it is a love need to be needed. If a woman loves you, you are fulfilled — somebody needs you, you are significant. Then you don’t bother about the crowd. You don’t go into the marketplace and shout, “I am important!” Then you are not ambitious; you don’t collect money like an obsession. If somebody loves you, in that love you are dignified, in that love you become a sovereign.

 

Love makes you an emperor, a sovereign. Love fulfills you so deeply and so greatly; then there is no need to perform or do anything. Ego simply does not exist with love. But if that need is unfulfilled, then you will try to fulfill it somehow: you would like to become a very famous man so many people need you.

 

But remember, to be loved by one and to be needed by millions is not the same. Even a single person’s love, even a single glance of love is enough; and you can collect millions of people and they can all look towards you, but that will not be satisfying. That’s what politics is, and what the politician is trying to do.

 

I have never come across a politician whose heart is functioning. The heart is totally dead — but the need is there to be loved, to be needed, somebody to look to. Where to fulfill it? — he gathers crowds. Through the crowds he tries somehow to fulfill the love need. But that crowd does not love him, that crowd is not bothered by him; that crowd is after its own needs. Because he’s in power he seems to be important. They pay their respects to the chair, and the chairman is deceived. Once the chairman is not in the chair, they don’t bother about him.

 

Have you ever observed that once a politician is out of power he is simply forgotten? Nobody remembers him. He may live for thirty or forty years; nobody will know about him. By and by, he will recede into darkness. Only once, when he dies, will there be a small notice in the newspapers — that the ex-president or ex-premier is dead.

 

The man who ruled over Russia before Lenin, Kerensky, lived for fifty years after it like a small New York grocer, and nobody knew about him. He was the Prime Minister of Russia, the most important man — the revolution happened and he was thrown out of power. He escaped. For fifty years he lived. Only when he died did people become aware that Kerensky had been alive for all those fifty years.

 

Power cannot fulfill a love need. You can possess great kingdoms — that will not fulfill your love need. But if you possess one heart which throbs in tune with you, then you are fulfilled.

 

– Osho, “The Beloved, Vol 1, #9”