Editing Rajneesh (section)

=== Ego and the mind ===
According to Rajneesh every human being is a ''[[Buddha]]'' with the capacity for [[Enlightenment in Buddhism|enlightenment]], capable of unconditional love and of responding rather than reacting to life, although the ego usually prevents this, identifying with social conditioning and creating false needs and conflicts and an illusory sense of identity that is nothing but a barrier of dreams.<ref name="JMF3">{{harvnb|Fox|2002|p=3}}</ref><ref name="HBU-ZTB171">{{harvnb|Urban|1996|p=171}}</ref><ref name=Wallis131>{{harvnb|Wallis|1986|p=}}, reprinted in {{harvnb|Aveling|1999|pp=130–133}}</ref> Otherwise man's innate being can flower in a move from the periphery to the centre.<ref name="JMF3"/><ref name=Wallis131 />

Rajneesh viewed the mind first and foremost as a mechanism for survival, replicating behavioural strategies that have proven successful.<ref name="JMF3"/><ref name="Wallis131" /> However, the mind's appeal to the past, he said, deprives human beings of the ability to live authentically in the present, causing them to repress genuine emotions and to shut themselves off from joyful experiences that arise naturally when embracing the present moment: "The mind has no inherent capacity for joy.{{nbsp}}[...] It only thinks about joy."<ref name=Wallis131 /><ref name="JMF3-4">{{harvnb|Fox|2002|pp=3–4}}</ref> The result is that people poison themselves with all manner of [[neurosis|neuroses]], [[jealousy|jealousies]], and insecurities.<ref name="JMF4" /> He argued that [[psychological repression]], often advocated by religious leaders, makes suppressed feelings re-emerge in another guise, and that sexual repression resulted in societies obsessed with sex.<ref name="JMF4">{{harvnb|Fox|2002|p=4}}</ref> Instead of suppressing, people should trust and accept themselves unconditionally.<ref name=Wallis131 /><ref name="JMF3-4" /> This should not merely be understood intellectually, as the mind could only assimilate it as one more piece of information: instead [[meditation]] was needed.<ref name="JMF4" />