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
It is one of the greatest problems. It will appear very paradoxical, but this is true - before you can lose your ego, you must attain it. Only a ripe fruit falls to the ground. Ripeness is all. An unripe ego cannot be thrown, cannot be destroyed. And if you struggle with an unripe ego to destroy and dissolve it, the whole effort is going to be a failure. Rather than destroying it, you will find it more strengthened, in new and subtle ways.
Interpretation
What this quote means
To overcome one's ego, it must first be fully developed; attempting to dismantle an immature ego is counterproductive.
This quote by Rajneesh emphasizes the importance of recognizing and fully experiencing one's ego before attempting to transcend it. The metaphor of ripeness illustrates that just like a fruit must mature before it can fall, a person's ego must be acknowledged and allowed to reach its full state in order for one to effectively let go of it. If one tries to dismantle an unripe or immature ego, it may only lead to greater entrenchment rather than liberation.
Themes
EgoRipenessSelf-AwarenessTranscendencePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
During a self-improvement workshop focusing on self-awareness.
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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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