Buddha says:
IT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO BE THOROUGH IN LEARNING AND EXHAUSTIVE IN INVESTIGATION.
You have not even been thoroughly aware of your life, which is the most important thing here. You have not even investigated it -- what it is. You have taken it for granted, on the surface. All your knowledge about your life is borrowed. Whatsoever you know is not what you know -- it is from somebody else.
I have heard:
A student nurse was faced with the following question on an examination paper: 'Name five reasons why mothers' milk is better for babies than cows' milk.'
She answered. First: because it is fresher. Second: because it is cleaner. Third: because the cats can't reach it. Fourth: because it is easier to take with you on journeys.
Try as she would, she could not think of a fifth reason. You try... even these four are not reasons. In desperation, she glanced at the paper of a male student sitting next to her, and then wrote, Fifth: because it comes in such cute little containers.
This is the way you borrow knowledge, looking here and there. This is all that you know. You have not looked directly. And unless you look direct, you will remain stupid, you will remain mediocre.
IT IS DIFFICULT TO SUBDUE SELFISH PRIDE.
One of the most arduous things in life is not to think of oneself as extraordinary. Of course, this is the most ordinary thing in the world to think, because everybody thinks he is extraordinary. Everybody thinks he is extraordinary, so the feeling of being extraordinary is the most ordinary thing. Look around — still you go on thinking that you are extraordinary.
Buddha says it is very difficult, but if you really want to move on the path, start feeling… just be ordinary. Don’t claim any extraordinariness. And this is the beauty of the whole thing — the moment you become ordinary, you become extraordinary.
The moment you don’t claim that you are exceptional, you are exceptional… because the claim is so ordinary. Everybody is claiming he is unique, exceptional. People may say, may not say, but deep down they know who they are. Become alert. How can you be extraordinary?
Either everybody is extraordinary, then you are also extraordinary — but what is the point? If extraordinariness is just a common quality of everybody, then what is the point of claiming it? Either everybody is extraordinary, because everybody comes from the same source of existence, or everybody is ordinary, because everybody comes from the same source of existence. Whatsoever you think about you, think about others also.
And whatsoever you think about others, think about yourself also. And then pride will disappear. Pride is always vain. Pride is always for wrong reasons. Pride is like a fever and you can never be healthy with it. It is a temperature.
IT IS DIFFICULT NOT TO FEEL CONTEMPT TOWARDS THE UNLEARNED.
Buddha specifically mentions it. When you see somebody who is more ignorant than you, you suddenly feel a contempt. It is very difficult not to feel that contempt. Because when you see somebody more learned than you, you feel jealous. Both these things go together -- contempt for those who are behind you and jealousy for those who are ahead of you. Contempt and jealousy simply show that you are continuously comparing yourself with others.
Never compare, because all comparison is foolish. Everybody is just like himself. What is the point of comparing? Who are you to compare? And who are you to fix a criterion -- to decide who is learned and who is not learned? Who are you to make a criterion who is beautiful and who is not beautiful? Who are you? Why should you judge? Jesus says, 'Judge ye not.'
- Osho, "The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 2, #1"