Identity

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TO SURVIVE, AND TO STRUGGLE for survival in the fight of life, everybody needs a

certain idea of who they are. And nobody has any idea. In fact nobody can ever

have any idea, because at the deepest core you are a mystery. You can't have any

idea of it. At the deepest core you are not individual, you are universal.

 

That's why if you ask the Buddha, "Who are you?" he remains silent, he does not

answer it. He cannot, because now he is no more separate. He is the whole. But

in ordinary life even Buddha has to use the word 'I'. If he feels thirsty he has

to say, "I am thirsty. Ananda, bring me a little water, I am thirsty."

 

To be exactly right, he should say, "Ananda, bring some water. The universal

center is a little thirsty." But that will look a little odd. And to say it

again and again -- sometimes the universal center is hungry, and sometimes the

universal center is feeling a little cold, and sometimes the universal center is

tired -- it will be unnecessary, absolutely unnecessary. So he continues to use

the old meaningful word 'I'. It is very meaningful; even though a fiction, it is

still meaningful. But many fictions are meaningful.

 

For example, you have a name. That is a fiction. You came without a name, you

did not bring a name with you, the name was given to you. Then by constant

repetition you start becoming identified with it. You know your name is Rama or

Rahim or Krishna. It goes so deep that if all you three thousand sannyasins fall

asleep here and somebody comes and calls, "Rama, where are you?" nobody will

hear except Rama. Rama will say, "Who has come to disturb my sleep?" Even in

sleep he knows his name; it has reached to the unconscious, it has seeped

through and through. But it is a fiction.

 

But when I say it is a fiction I don't mean it is unnecessary. It is necessary

fiction, it is useful; otherwise how are you going to address people? If you

want to write a letter to somebody, to whom are you going to write?

 

A SMALL CHILD ONCE wrote a letter to God. His mother was ill and his father had

died and they had no money, so he asked God for fifty rupees.

 

When the letter reached the post office they were at a loss -- what to do with

it? Where to send it? It was simply addressed to God. So they opened it. They

felt very sorry for the little boy and they decided to collect some money and

send it to him. They collected some money -- he had asked for fifty rupees but

they could collect only forty.

 

The next letter came, again addressed to God, and the boy had written, "Dear

Sir, please next time when you send the money, send it directly to me, don't

send it through the post office. They have taken their commission -- ten

rupees!"

 

It will be difficult if nobody has a name. Although nobody has a name in

reality, still, it is a beautiful fiction, helpful. Names are needed for others

to call you, 'I' is needed for you to call yourself, but it is just a fiction.

If you go deep into yourself you will find the name has disappeared, the idea of

'I' has disappeared; there is left only a pure am-ness, is-ness, existence,

being.

 

And that being is not separate, it is not yours and mine; that being is the

being of all. Rocks, rivers, mountains, trees, all are included. It is

all-inclusive, it excludes nothing. The whole past, the whole future, this

immense universe, everything is included in it. The deeper you go into yourself,

the more and more you will find that persons don't exist, that individuals don't

exist. Then what exists is a pure universalness. On the circumference we have

names, egos, identities. When we jump from the circumference towards the center,

all those identities disappear,

 

Osho The Book of Wisdom

 

 

 

 

 

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