We start making every child ambitious, and ambition means you cannot love; ambition is anti-love. Ambition needs fight, ambition needs struggle, ambition needs you to use others as a means.
RajneeshRead
You cannot drop the ego. Once you start trying to drop the ego you will get in a very deep mess; you will become more and more worried and puzzled. And this is not the way to get rid of the ego. The only way to get rid of the ego is to look at it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The ego cannot be eliminated by force; understanding it leads to its dissolution.
This quote emphasizes that attempting to suppress or eliminate the ego can lead to confusion and distress. Instead, true understanding and awareness of the ego are necessary for personal growth and the eventual release from its constraints. By observing and acknowledging the ego, one can transcend its limitations and gain a more profound sense of self.
Themes
EgoSelf-AwarenessUnderstandingPersonal GrowthTranscendence
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about personal development, one could reference this quote to illustrate the importance of self-examination.
More from Rajneesh
All quotes →The technique of positive thinking is not a technique that transforms you. It is simply repressing the negative aspects of your personality. It is a method of choice. It cannot help awareness; it goes against awareness. Awareness is always choiceless.
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Only those persons who have lived, really lived, are ready, welcoming, receptive, thankful to death. Then death is not the enemy. Then death becomes the fulfillment.
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Creativity has two possibilities. One is that it arises out of your silence, love, understanding, your clarity of vision, your intimate friendliness with existence - then creativity is healthy. But if it does not arise out of meditation, out of silence and peace and understanding and love, then there is a danger. It may be arising out of your confused mind. It may be arising out of your insanity.
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There is no separate art of life. If you know how to allow poetry, if you know how to allow dance, if you know how to allow love - if you know how to ALLOW, then you know the art of life. In the allowing, in the let-go, in the surrender, is the art of life. How not to be and to let God be - that is the only art of life.
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Love is not a relationship, love is a state of being; it has nothing to do with anybody else. One is not "in love", one is love. And of course when one is love, one is in love – but that is an outcome, a by-product, that is not the source. The source is that one is love.
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