The child was perfectly okay in the womb, there was no problem for the child. The child was absolutely secure, comfortable. Never again in his life will he be so secure and so comfortable. Those nine months in the womb were the last thing in luxury – no worry, no responsibility; all warmth, floating, relaxing; not even the effort to breathe for oneself – the mother was doing all. Then suddenly the child comes out of the womb after nine months. He is absolutely helpless. He will need a mother. He would like to go back to the womb, but that’s not possible; that is not possible in the very nature of things. You have left that home, you cannot go back. You will have to seek your home somewhere further ahead. You will have to create a home and warmth and everything again. The mother will be needed, otherwise the human child will die.

Exactly that is the function of the master; exactly, precisely that is the function of the master. When you come to the Great Doubt, you are leaving one womb – the womb that you had created with society, with people, in relationship, you are leaving that womb. You are entering into silence. You are getting into another dimension: the non-linguistic, the non-verbal, the no-mind dimension. You will again become like a child, very helpless – even more so, because the child’s helplessness was more physical and your helpless will be more of the spiritual. It will be deeper – the deepest possible.

You will need somebody to give you courage, to push you ahead, to seduce you to move forward, to allure you, to promise you a thousand and one things….

Once you have passed the moment of Great Doubt, the silence is no longer threatening; then it is the very benediction. then it is sat-chit-ananda – then it is truth, consciousness, bliss. There is nothing higher than it. But before it, before the last barrier falls down, before you leave your clinging to the past, you will feel almost as if uprooted, as if a tree is being uprooted from its soil where it has become very, very comfortable – a child is being uprooted from the womb. Exactly the same is going to happen…hence, you feel silence as threatening.

But one has to go through it. It is only through the fire of silence that you become purified gold. It is only through the fire of silence that mind burns and no-mind becomes a flame in you. It is a blessing if you understand. On one hand it is a crucifixion, on the other hand it is a resurrection.

The second question:

Osho,
I always either feel superior or inferior to people. I feel ashamed of feeling that way and try to hide it. I wish I could genuinely – not pretend to – feel equal to and love everyone. Why is it so difficult?

Whether you feel superior or inferior or equal, the mind remains the same. You still go on thinking in comparison and the misery will continue. You can think yourself superior – the moment you think yourself superior you are creating possibilities to feel inferior, because somebody somewhere is going to be ahead of you in some way or other. If you think yourself inferior, you are creating the possibilities to feel superior – in some way, somebody is going to be behind you.