You go out, learn from life, and then come home to your true self—simple like a child, but awake inside.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, it is said that the human being is the highest point of evolution, and that by evolving the human becomes God. Then is entering Tao a further evolution or a return?
Both. Returning is the further evolution. Going back is going forward—because behind you lies the original source. The very place from which you have come is the ultimate goal. The original origin is the final destination. You become a circle; only then are you complete. When you draw a circle, the point from which you begin is the very point to which you return. And the circle is the symbol of completeness in this world. That is why we have also taken the circle as the symbol of zero. Zero and the whole are two ways of saying the same thing. You have to return to where you came from. And remember: when you return, you will not be the same as when you came. This whole journey—this path—will ripen you, awaken you, fill you with awareness. One must pass through the world and return to the original source. Hence…
Osho, yoga is a method of upward ascent; it seeks to take energy, power, upward. And Lao Tzu’s method seems exactly the opposite—to bring energy downward, toward the navel. So a question naturally arises: between these two methods, which one is right?
A disciple of Lao Tzu, Lieh Tzu, was once asked: We have heard that the Buddha attained enlightenment sitting under a tree. And we have heard that some yogi, chanting a mantra, sitting under a tree, attained truth by his mantra. Lieh Tzu, what is your view? Lieh Tzu said: As we understand it, chanting mantras, doing practices, performing yogasanas—these are for those who cannot remain without doing. But the real point is not that Buddha arrived by practice; he arrived because he sat. The essential thing is: he sat, therefore he arrived. Some yogi kept reciting a mantra and arrived; the mantra is not the essential thing. He arrived because he sat. The mantra is a pretext—for he cannot sit empty, so he keeps reciting. Lieh Tzu is saying: whoever has arrived, has arrived because they sat and left everything. Some can sit having left everything; they will not…
Do they simply have to be endured? They do have to be endured. So his freedom is not license. There is a deep check upon it. He is free in that he can act contrary to nature. But whatever consequences arise from acting contrary—painful ones—he will have to endure them.
This kind of man is not what we ordinarily call a “seeker.” The seeker we speak of is usually a reaction to the householder. If the householder runs a shop, the seeker does not; if the householder earns wealth, the seeker renounces it; if the householder marries, the seeker does not. But his rules are derived from the householder—he is only a reaction. Lao Tzu says, “I am no one’s reaction. It does not matter what others do. I neither follow anyone to do as he does, nor go against anyone to do the opposite. I let happen what arises from within.” Allowing nature to happen means not imitating anyone, not copying anyone, not building one’s personality in opposition to anyone. Whatever can happen from within, whatever wants to happen—we allow it. No obstruction, no condemnation, no opposition, no struggle, no conflict. Let what happens, happen. This means dropping notions…
Osho. I have heard that patanjali and lao tzu came to a stream. Patanjali began to cross the stream by walking on the surface of the water. Lao tzu stood on the bank and called him to come back. "what's the matter?" patanjali inquired. "that is no way to cross a stream," said lao tzu, and led him to a place where the water was shallow, and they waded across together.
The king opened it and found the same grain again -- the same grain of wheat that Zarathustra had given him before. He thought there must be something mysterious and magical in it, so he put it in a golden box and hid it among his treasures. Almost every day he looked at it expecting some miracle to happen, such as the turning of the grain of wheat into something or someone that would teach him all he wished to know. Months went by, and then years, but nothing happened. At last the king lost patience and said. "It seems that Zarathustra has deceived me again. Either he is making a mock of me or else he does not know the answers to my questions, but I will show him that I can find the answers without his help." So the king sent a caravan to a great Indian mystic,…