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Let me tell you a few anecdotes:

After being promoted to a high position in government, one man visited the town where he was born. “I suppose the folks here have heard of the honor that has been conferred on me?” he asked a former schoolmate. “Yes,” came the gratifying reply. “And what do they say about it?” “They don’t say anything,” was the reply. “They just laugh.”

You think your ego is something valuable? People simply laugh at it. Except you, everybody else is against your ego. Except you, everybody else knows the ridiculousness of it – about your ego; I am not talking about their egos.

What is the ego? It is a very ridiculous standpoint. The ego says, “I am the center of the universe.” The ego says, “The universe exists for me.” Ridiculous standpoints! Just a small understanding will be enough – not much light is needed. Just a small light will be enough. You are not the center of the world – because the world was here when you were not, and the world will be here when you are not here. You cannot be the center. You are not the center.

If there is a God, then only God can say “I,” nobody else. It’s okay as a formal expression, but only God can say “I” because he is the center of the world. But he never says anything like that; he has been keeping quiet. Man goes on saying “I.” Why? Because it is very, very disorienting to feel that you are not the center of the world, that you are not the end and the purpose of the world, that the whole world has not been waiting for you; that without you the world can exist. It is very disorienting. If you feel this, you feel shaken – as if the earth has been pulled from beneath your feet and you are hanging in a bottomless abyss.

The ego gives you a rock to stand on, but the rock is imaginary, it is just a dream. The ego is a declaration that “I am separate from others - separate from the trees, separate from the sky, separate from the sea - I am separate from others.” But are you? Are you really separate from others? In millions of ways you are joined with everything else.

You are joined with your mother, your father, and your father is joined with his father and mother, and so on and so forth. It goes on and on. You are joined with the air every moment. If you don’t breathe, you will die. You are joined with the sun’s rays; if the sun simply forgets one day to rise in the morning, we will be dead within ten minutes. You depend on water, you depend on food. How can you say you are not joined with the trees? We are deeply connected with everything else – that is the meaning of ecology. It is one system.

To say “I” is simply absurd. You cannot be independent – totally independent – then how can you say “I”? Just look at the ridiculousness of the “I.” I am not saying to drop it, because in the first place it is not there, so I cannot tell you to drop it. To tell you to drop it would mean that I accept that it is there. It is not there; it is simply a ridiculous notion, an idea with no substance in it. It is made of the same stuff as dreams are made of. So I cannot say to drop it. I can only say: Wake up! Be awake! I can only shock you so that you can open your eyes and see that it is not there. Awareness is needed – I don’t teach egolessness, no.

For centuries religious people have been teaching egolessness. That doesn’t seem to work out. Then people become egoistic about their humbleness. Then they say, “Nobody is more pious than me and nobody is more religious than me.” Look at the so-called religious people. You will never find sharper egos anywhere else. They go on trying to hide behind words, rituals, prayers, but the ego is there.

Walter Kaufmann has coined a new word; he calls it humbition. Humility, humbleness and ambition he has joined together: humbition. And he says humbition is very good. But humbition is not possible – it is impossible. You can make a word out of two diametrically opposite things, but they cannot be joined. A humble man cannot be ambitious, and an ambitious man cannot be humble. But people go on trying to find some ways to hide – now humbition: I am humble and yet ambitious. This is impossible! A humble man is nonambitious, nonegoistic.

So I am not going to tell you to become humble or humbitious. I only want to point out to you that the ego you are clinging to is not there in the first place. It is just an idea. And everybody knows this about your ego as you know about others’ egos, but the stupidity is that no one becomes aware of one’s own nonsense.

The question is: “I came to a point where I saw that the ego can be dropped right now.”

Then you have not come to that point because when you come to that point, there is no way to stop the ego dropping by itself. When you come to that point of understanding, it is not that you understand that now you can drop the ego. If you come to that point, you suddenly see there is no ego to be dropped or to be carried. You simply start laughing. The jig is up: at last America is discovered! Not that after understanding you have to drop it; in the very understanding it drops.

Just as in the morning, you awake - do you drop your dreams? Can you say, “In the morning there came a moment of wakefulness where it was absolutely clear to me that if I want, I can drop my dreams”? No, that’s not possible. If you are awake, dreams are no longer there – not that you have to drop them, they simply drop! The very act of waking drops them. There is no need to drop them separately. Here arises understanding - there disappears ego. It is simultaneous; there is not even a single moment’s gap.

“But then I had to see that I don’t want to drop it.”

You missed. In the first place, the understanding was not there. Hence the second part, that you felt that you don’t want to drop it. If understanding arises, there is nobody to drop it or not drop it, and there is nothing to be dropped or not dropped. Whenever you think that understanding will arise, you think that you must be there and understanding will arise. No, there will be no you there. In understanding you disappear, just like the dew on the grass disappears, evaporates, when the sun rises.

You are the ego. About whom are you talking? You are talking as if you are separate from your ego and your ego is something you can drop or carry. When ego is dropped, then who are you? You are dropped.

I have heard about one movie star who claimed he had not slept well for twenty years. He was vacationing at the home of a friend in the Himalayas. One morning the friend noticed the star looked a little more drawn and tired than usual. “Did you get any sleep?” he asked. “Yes, I slept,” was the reply, “but I dreamed that I didn’t.”

People go on playing hide-and-seek with themselves. You think you came to an understanding and then you decided not to drop it. Now you are asking me because you want to want to drop it. Understanding is enough; there is no need to want to want to drop it. It drops when you are in that state of understanding, in that space of understanding.

So I am not worried about your ego. Forget about it! It is a shadow phenomenon; why be bothered? Rather, become more and more aware and understanding. Go on becoming more and more aware, and one day you will come and say to me: Now I am aware and I have been trying to find out where the ego is, and I cannot find it.

Bodhidharma went to China. The emperor said, “I am in deep turmoil within. I am very ambitious. Although I have one of the biggest empires in the world, my ego still feels discontented.” Bodhidharma laughed and said, “You have come to the right person. Do one thing: come early in the morning at four o’clock. But remember to bring your ego with you; otherwise what can I do if you don’t bring it?”

The emperor felt a little confused: What does he mean? He asked again, “What do you mean?” Bodhidharma said, “I mean exactly what I am saying, that’s what I mean. Bring your ego with you and I will be ready to finish it forever. But come alone; no need to bring any guards or anything.”

Four o’clock in the morning? This man seemed very ferocious, and nobody knew what he would do. The emperor could not sleep. He tried to forget the whole thing and not go, but then there was an attraction also: “Maybe this man knows something, and he seems to be so confident.” He had seen many great saints, this and that, and nobody had said so easily, “Bring it, and I will finish it forever!”

So finally he decided to go. He went there. Bodhidharma was sitting with a big staff in his hand. The emperor approached trembling. Bodhidharma asked, “Alone? Where is your ego?” The emperor said, “It is not a thing that I can bring. It is always in me.” Bodhidharma said, “Then it’s okay. Sit down, close your eyes, and find out where it is hiding in you. The moment you catch hold of it, just tell me.”

Trembling, alone in that temple outside the town, the emperor for the first time in his life closed his eyes to meditate and he started looking around: Where is the ego? One hour passed, another hour passed. The sun was rising, and the emperor was sitting in such a blessed state. Bodhidharma shook him and said, “Now, that’s enough – two hours! Where is it?”

And the emperor started laughing. He bowed down and touched Bodhidharma’s feet and he said, “I cannot find it.” Bodhidharma laughed and said, “See! I have finished it. Now whenever you have this wrong notion of ego, don’t go asking other people how to drop it. Just close your eyes and try to find where it is.”

Those who have gone inside have never found it there. It is as if I give you a torch and tell you to go in the room and find where the darkness is hiding. You take the torch, you go into the room, but the darkness is not there. If you take the torch with you, the darkness is not there. If you don’t take the torch, then it is there. Darkness is an absence of light. Ego is an absence of awareness. If you bring awareness to your being, suddenly it is not there.

So I don’t tell you to drop it, and whosoever says it has not understood anything. Whosoever preaches “Drop your ego,” has not understood anything about the ego – it is not there. You cannot drop it, you cannot carry it. It is simply ridiculous.