Am I gone crazy to put these 2 people together and claim they have common roots? How is that possible......... I habitually pick apart everything I see, hear, read or come across. I have the ENTP personality type. I'm also used to spend a great deal of time thinking about things such as Death&Rebirth, meaning of life and amnesia since I was 3 years old. Ideas are like my home. I've spent most of my life thinking alone. I'm good at noticing patterns and I habitually deconstruct things to the primary working of them.

Just get to the root,
Don’t worry about the branches,
For someday
You will come
To have them naturally.
If you have not attained the basis,
Even if you
Consciously study
You cannot attain the outgrowths either.

— Yangshan  

When I look at Rand and OSHO I see similar roots. The primary difference to me is that Ayn Rand was mainly just a reactionary. Her philosophy was against the worst that was going on with the society. She managed to hit the bull's eye on social and economic levels but ultimately when it comes to spirituality she was a failure. 

Ayn Rand never got a real taste of Eastern Philosophy during her life and I thing she just clung to what she knew and was quick to dismiss spirituality as collectivist delusions. All around her she was seeing spirituality being used as collectivist jargon, especially Christianity as it was the most popular religion in the region. This was also around the time Alcohol prohibition and cutting off parts of little boy's penises was used as a masturbation prevention mechanism.

I'm not going to talk about Ayn Rand much in this post. You guys probably know much about her and here are some of my previous writings on her.

https://steemit.com/philosophy/@vimukthi/glaring-impact-of-ayn-rand-turning-piratebay-into-a-subreddit-and-deconstructing-one-of-the-most-nonsensical-conspiracy-theories

https://steemit.com/philosophy/@vimukthi/how-ayn-rand-became-the-greatest-prophet-of-our-time-how-her-philosophy-was-born-it-s-use-in-modern-times-and-criticisms-against

I'm sure you can juxtapose things by yourselves. So I'm going to deconstruct OSHO in a 2 part series. This is part 1. I really don't know much about this OSHO person. I never really care much about the person. What I care about is what I can learn and gain from that person. I first came across OSHO at the age of 15 with an article I stumbled upon titled:  Ego- The False Center  

When I read it I was fully in sync with his words. The article very eloquently explained was in my mind and that's all I cared about. The quotes will be taken from that specific text I read years ago (Even before Rand).

 The first thing to be understood is what ego is. A child is born. A child is born without any knowledge, any consciousness of his own self. And when a child is born the first thing he becomes aware of is not himself; the first thing he becomes aware of is the other. It is natural, because the eyes open outwards, the hands touch others, the ears listen to others, the tongue tastes food and the nose smells the outside. All these senses open outwards.
           That is what birth means. Birth means coming into this world, the world of the outside. So when a child is born, he is born into this world. He opens his eyes, sees others. 'Other' means the thou. He becomes aware of the mother first. Then, by and by, he becomes aware of his own body. That too is the other, that too belongs to the world. He is hungry and he feels the body; his need is satisfied, he forgets the body.
      This is how a child grows. First he becomes aware of you, thou, other, and then by and by, in contrast to you, thou, he becomes aware of himself.
      This awareness is a reflected awareness. He is not aware of who he is. He is simply aware of the mother and what she thinks about him. If she smiles, if she appreciates the child, if she says, "You are beautiful," if she hugs and kisses him, the child feels good about himself. Now an ego is born.
      Through appreciation, love, care, he feels he is good, he feels he is valuable, he feels he has some significance.
      A center is born. 

This is a pretty accurate description IMO. Ayn Rand doesn't address the origin point of the social conscience or whatever you want to call it. She simply jumps straight into the ideological battle. OSHO starts off with the origin point of all forms of collectivism and psycho-spiritual slavery.

  It is not his real being. He does not know who he is; he simply knows what others think about him. And this is the ego: the reflection, what others think. If nobody thinks that he is of any use, nobody appreciates him, nobody smiles, then too an ego is born: an ill ego; sad, rejected, like a wound; feeling inferior, worthless. This too is the ego. This too is a reflection. 

 As a kid growing up, I never really cared about other people's opinions. I never felt much of a need to impress other people. In fact I considered it a weakness. As a kid I was thinking of such people as stupid and/or wasteful.  So I guess I was pretty resistant towards societal structural violence.

The reasons OSHO explain are the reasons that most people do what they do. Most people are simply reacting to positive and negative feedback loops. This is the very thing that leads to the banal forms of Evil which things like the Milgram Experiments revealed. There was a great movie made about the experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimenter_(film) which is pretty decent and not boring at all. It's a recommended watch.

 The ego is an accumulated phenomenon, a by-product of living with others. If a child lives totally alone, he will never come to grow an ego. But that is not going to help. He will remain like an animal. That doesn't mean that he will come to know the real self, no. 

This is what's missed by the idiots who talk about the "society" or some other jargon about "social obligations". There is no such thing as a society or a community. A mound of sands is just......sand. Sand doesn't owe anything to the mound. That would become a reverse causality. It would be people protecting law instead of the the law protecting the people. Society is a mere effect.

Also I highly recommend Frédéric Bastiat's The law(1850) for reading.

 Ego is a need; it is a social need, it is a social by-product. The society means all that is around you - not you, but all that is around you. All, minus you, is the society. And everybody reflects. You will go to school and the teacher will reflect who you are. You will be in friendship with other children and they will reflect who you are. By and by, everybody is adding to your ego, and everybody is trying to modify it in such a way that you don't become a problem to the society. 

Now I think you should be seeing parallels with Ayn Rand. The difference is that OSHO used better wording. What OSHO calls Ego- The False Center is exactly the opposite of what Ayn Rand called the Ego. So in a sense OSHO is kind of Ayn Rand 2.0

Since you are already familiar with Rand (cuz you should have read the posts I linked), I'll use more of Bastiat for the sake of tangential learning.

 

The bait is the means
To get the fish where you want it;
Catch the fish
And you discard the bait.
Words are the means
To get the idea where you want it;
Catch on to the idea
And you forget about the words.

— Zhuangzi  

Don't waste your time chasing words. Chase the meanings and develop insight. Ayn Rand talked about a kind of a beast who's nature is hard to understand and name. The opposite of that was the individuality that is sacrosanct and thus she went ahead and called it the Ego. OSHO saw this society endowed liability that manifested as the beast and called it Ego- The False Center and avoided much confusion caused by Rand's not so great choice of words. (She was a Russian and English was a second language for her.)

 They are not concerned with you.
      They are concerned with the society.
      Society is concerned with itself, and that's how it should be.
      They are not concerned that you should become a self-knower. They are concerned that you should become an efficient part in the mechanism of the society. You should fit into the pattern. So they are trying to give you an ego that fits with the society. They teach you morality. Morality means giving you an ego which will fit with the society. If you are immoral, you will always be a misfit somewhere or other. That's why we put criminals in the prisons - not that they have done something wrong, not that by putting them in the prisons we are going to improve them, no. They simply don't fit. They are troublemakers. They have certain types of egos of which the society doesn't approve. If the society approves, everything is good.
 

Look around you and tell me what's happening. Tell me those who predicted all this and those who opposed it. You libertarians, anarchists, minarchists, objectivists, Austrian Economists should know many names. Allow me to present someone who eloquently presented the workings behind all that is wrong on socio-economic landscape.

Mind and thought comes before anything else. Understanding yourself is a spiritual experience. Spirituality precedes social and economic matter. Understanding you mind means to understanding the inner workings behind everything. Why chase molecules when you can study atoms and sub-atomic particles or straight up studying quantum mechanics.

 One man kills somebody - he is a murderer.
      And the same man in wartime kills thousands - he becomes a great hero. The society is not bothered by a murder, but the murder should be commited for the society - then it is okay. The society doesn't bother about morality.
      Morality means only that you should fit with the society.
      If the society is at war, then the morality changes.
      If the society is at peace, then there is a different morality.
      Morality is a social politics. It is diplomacy. And each child has to be brought up in such a way that he fits into the society, that's all. Because society is interested in efficient members. Society is not interested that you should attain to self-knowledge. 

 The society creates an ego because the ego can be controlled and manipulated. The self can never be controlled or manipulated. Nobody has ever heard of the society controlling a self - not possible. 

This is the nature of the metaphysical beast that's almost impossible to describe. It creates this avatar within the individual which the individual wrongfully identify as oneself. This creates an upside down inverted existence where the creator is controlled by and through the creation. This is the mound claiming the existence of sand that created the phenomena of the mound. The collective claims the importance over the individuals. Such lunatic behavior can only be described as trying to mess with molecules to dictates the atoms within it.

It's not going to end well. You don't have to trust me on that. Simply look out of the window. Read news or reflect upon your own life. Individuality is sacrosanct and it's the building block of existence and civilization.

 If you don't decide for yourself, things will be decided for you and you'll simply be a nobody. I see a person's worth in his/her ability to be unaffected by forces. A person who is influenced is always a less of a person by definition. 

As a Buddhist I'd like to take some quotes from The Dhammapada  which is called the handbook of the Buddhists (at least in Theravada tradition). The translations are honestly not that great. But I'd use them without editing.

 

Verse 157. Safeguard Your Own Self

If one holds oneself as dear,
protected, one protects oneself.
One who’s wise should be aware
through all the watches three.

Explanation: If you are aware that you are fond of your own self then protecting it is the best safeguard. You must take measures to protect your self in one of the three stages of life - namely childhood, youth and old age. The best safeguard is the acquisition of virtue. 

 

Verse 160. One Is One’s Best Saviour

Oneself is refuge of oneself,
who else indeed could refuge be?
By good training of oneself
one gains a refuge hard to gain.

Explanation: The saviour of oneself is one’s own self. What other person could be your saviour? This is a difficult kind of help - being your own saviour. It can be achieved only through self discipline. 

 

Verse 161. The Unwise Person Comes To Grief On His Own

By oneself is evil done,
it’s born of self and self-produced.
Evil grinds the unwise one
as diamond does the hardest gem.

Explanation: The diamond is born of, produced and is sprung from stone. But it cut the precious stone. The evil action is born of, produced by, and sprung from the evil doer. 

 

Verse 165. Purity, Impurity Self-Created

By oneself is evil done,
by oneself defiled,
by oneself it’s left undone,
by self alone one purified.
Purity, impurity on oneself depend,
no one can purify another.

Explanation: It is by one’s own self that evil is done. It is one’s own actions that defiles a person. If a person does not commit evil action, one is purified. A person is cleansed entirely by one’s own self. One cannot purify another. Purity and impurity both depend on one’s own self.
 

Verse 166. Help Others - But Promote One’s Own Good

Let none neglect their good
for others’ good however great.
Know well oneself’s own good
and to that good attend.

Explanation: One should not neglect one’s own spiritual progress in the course of many acts of service to others. Be fully aware of one’s own spiritual interest, and promote one’s own higher goals

All of the above quotes are taken from the 12th Chapter of The Dhammapada which is the chapter of self. You yourself is your greatest ally, worst enemy and only savior. Shifting that to something else and creating and relying on a false center for your existence (AKA becoming part of the beast) is only going to make you less of a human being. Things like "Social Responsibility" or "Collective duty/Responsibility" are nothing but perversions and a cancer to the future of all worthwhile existence.

 Ego is always shaken, always in search of food, that somebody should appreciate it. That's why you continuously ask for attention.
      You get the idea of who you are from others.
      It is not a direct experience.
      It is from others that you get the idea of who you are. They shape your center. This center is false, because you carry your real center. That is nobody's business. Nobody shapes it.
      You come with it.
      You are born with it. 

This is a simple truth and you cannot run away from this.

So allow me to clear up the confusions as much as I can. The best analogy I can think of is the digital/online identity. The false center is like your digital Avatars. Even if you fully disclose your identity and reveal personal things..... still what's on net isn't you. Here is a Plato's famous saying I learnt thanks to @haejin:  "What are words, but symbols of symbols; hence, twice removed from reality." 

Even your own biography written by your own hand is not "You". At the very best it'll be like a genetic twin. Just as your digital identity is a false one that can be controlled and tampered with outside forces, there is another false self which OSHO called  Ego- The False Center which is something Ayn Rand failed to name. She went ahead and called the true center as the Ego.

 One center you come with, which is given by existence itself. That is the self. And the other center, which is created by the society, is the ego. It is a false thing - and it is a very great trick. Through the ego the society is controlling you. You have to behave in a certain way, because only then does the society appreciate you. You have to walk in a certain way; you have to laugh in a certain way; you have to follow certain manners, a morality, a code. Only then will the society appreciate you, and if it doesn't, your ego will be shaken. And when the ego is shaken, you don't know where you are, who you are.
      The others have given you the idea.
      That idea is the ego. 

Rand called the true center as Ego as she wanted the individual's sacrosanct individuality to be free from outside tampering and influence. What she missed to bring up (though she understood it) was that the True Center cannot be tampered by anyone at all. You yourself has to give up your own dignity and let the False Center be the center of your life. That's the only way you can loose your dignity; by your own hand.

She really should have done more work to explain the inner mechanics of what she was fighting against. She understood; but didn't explain some aspects well enough.

 Try to understand it as deeply as possible, because this has to be thrown. And unless you throw it you will never be able to attain to the self. Because you are addicted to the center, you cannot move, and you cannot look at the self.
      And remember, there is going to be an interim period, an interval, when the ego will be shattered, when you will not know who you are, when you will not know where you are going, when all boundaries will melt. 

Luckily this interim  period was pretty small for me. I've been doing my mental deconstructions even before I started going to school. I actually enjoyed the transformation I was going through. But I must tell you that it's a true extreme psycho-spiritual experience like an intense secret super-soldier training project. You need to be strong and keep going through the hell you are going through.

  With the ego you feel, "This is MY darkness."
      It may be troublesome, maybe it creates many miseries, but still mine. Something to hold to, something to cling to, something underneath the feet; you are not in a vacuum, not in an emptiness. You may be miserable, but at least you ARE. Even being miserable gives you a feeling of 'I am'. Moving from it, fear takes over; you start feeling afraid of the unknown darkness and chaos - because society has managed to clear a small part of your being.

The most sickening part for me is that even the media and entertainment has grown to glorify suffering and flaws. I'm not much of a Michael Bay fan (Except for "The Island" which was amazing). But one thing that make me respect the guy is that he still make movies about heroism. A person with a disability should still be given the full respect he/she deserve without discrimination. But when those flaws become celebrated or normalized; it spells slow doom to the entire society. 

Nobody should identify themselves with their flaws as "Mine". A person should recognize the imperfection and work to erase those wrinkles; not live with them or let them become an identity. That's how humanity progressed through time. We came to this point of time burning down what was already there and transcending to a higher plane.

Celebrate what you strive to become; not what you already are.

      One has to be daring, courageous.
      One has to take a step into the unknown.
      For a while all boundaries will be lost.
      For a while you will feel dizzy.
      For a while, you will feel very afraid and shaken, as if an earthquake has happened. But if you are courageous and you don't go backwards, if you don't fall back to the ego and you go on and on, there is a hidden center within you that you have been carrying for many lives.
      That is your soul, the self.