Osho – You should not try to influence anybody, and you should be alert that you are not influenced by others. The ego can do both but it cannot remain in the middle. The ego can try to influence, then it feels good, dominating, but remember that the ego also feels good being dominated. The masters feel good because so many slaves are dominated, and the slaves also feel good being dominated.
There are two types of mind in the world: the mind of those who dominate – the male mind, and the mind of those who like to be dominated – the female mind. By female I don’t mean women, or by male, men. There are women who have masculine minds and there are men who have feminine minds. They are not always the same.
These are the two types of mind: one which likes to dominate and one which likes to be dominated. In both ways ego is fulfilled because whether you dominate or are dominated YOU are important. If someone dominates you, then too you are important, because his domination depends on you. Without you, where will he be? Without you, where will his kingdom be, his domination, his possession? Without you, he will be nobody.
Ego is fulfilled at both the extremes, only in the middle does ego die. Don’t be dominated and don’t try to dominate. Just think what will happen to you. You are not important in any way, not significant in any way, neither as a master nor as a slave. Masters cannot live without slaves and slaves cannot live without masters – they need each other, they are complementary. Just like men and women, they are complementary. The other is required for their fulfillment.
Don’t be either. Then who are you? Suddenly you disappear because then you are not significant at all, nobody depends on you, you are not needed. There is a great need to be needed. Remember, you feel good whenever you are needed. Sometimes, even if it brings misery to you, even then you love to be needed.
A crippled child is confined to bed and its mother is constantly worried about what to do: I have to serve this child and my whole life is being wasted. But still, if this child dies, the mother will feel lost, because at least this child needs her so totally that she has become important. If there is nobody who needs you, who are you? You create the need to be needed. Even slaves are needed.
Source – from Osho Book “The Empty Boat”