According to Osho, ‘defeat’ is born from the craving to win; cling to victory and you will feel defeated all your life. Drop the very desire to win, accept defeat, and you win instantly—because there is no ‘other’ to conquer. Surrender dissolves the ego’s endless comparisons; love’s so‑called loss is true victory. Rejoice in what is given, and life becomes prasad rather than an endless shortage.
If you stop trying to beat others and accept things as they are, the feeling of losing disappears—you already feel peaceful and connected.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: Fifth question: Will I have to live my whole life only in defeat? It depends on you. If there is a great longing to win, you will have to live in defeat. Drop the very desire to win—and you win right now. Then what defeat is there! Defeat only means that there is an indomitable craving to win. Because of that craving, the experience of defeat arises. Have you noticed? A little child wrestles with his father. The father pretends a bit, flails an arm or two, then quickly lies down. The child climbs on his chest, shouts, dances with joy, “I threw him! I knocked father flat on his back!” And the father lies underneath, happy—happy in being pinned. What is this? Because the father has accepted defeat. So even in defeat there is no defeat.
Osho, I don’t know what my eyes keep searching for; in the heap of ashes there is neither flame nor spark. There is much in life, and yet by winning I gained nothing, nothing remained. The very thing I keep hoping for—why does it slip away again and again?
Mulla Nasruddin went to an eye doctor. His eyesight had begun to dim. The doctor said he would need glasses. The glasses were made; Mulla went to collect them. He asked the doctor, “Once the glasses are on my eyes, I will be able to read and write, right?” “Certainly,” said the doctor. “That is why they were made. You will read and write perfectly.” Mulla said, “That truly would be a miracle—because I don’t know how to read or write.” If you don’t know how to read and write, will spectacles make you literate? Even if the courtyard were perfectly square, every corner a neat ninety degrees, what would that do if you don’t know how to dance? You may have the most beautiful veena, and not know how to play it! Even if I were to give you Krishna’s very flute, what would you do with it? Krishna’s…
Osho, man just keeps on going—in defeat and in victory; in success and in failure; in love and in separation. What is it that keeps him moving?
Many times man comes very close to awakening. Someone dear to you dies. In that moment you are very close to Buddhahood. When you are in the sorrow of death, Buddhahood is very near. If you grasp the thread, a leap can happen. But you do not grasp the thread; you falsify the sorrow. You explain yourself away, you persuade yourself. You mount again upon the dreams of fresh hopes. Sorrow shakes you, but even that shaking you absorb. You bind up consolations, you think, “Soon all will be well again; spring will return; flowers will bloom again.” It is true too that the one who has departed will not return to you again—but life does not end with that. There are other people, other loved ones, and those who are not dear today can become dear tomorrow. “What has happened—forget it, let it go,” hope says—“leave it; much can…
Osho, is attaining the Divine a human being’s victory or defeat?
Every path has its supports, and every path has its dangers. And it often happens that we ignore the supports and fall into the dangers. Of a hundred knowers, ninety-nine get entangled in ego; and of a hundred devotees, ninety-nine fall into laziness and become dull, inert. Be alert. If you choose the path of knowledge, the path of meditation, remember well that ego must not be allowed to fill you—otherwise all is wasted, all your doing undone. Built with one hand, destroyed with the other. It becomes spiritual suicide. On the path of devotion, ego is no danger. The devotee does not think of himself at all. He keeps no sense of “I.” The danger is different: that he may become slothful, inert, fatalistic—saying, “Whatever will be, will be. Nothing happens through our doing; we are as we are; we shall remain as we are. When His grace descends,…
Osho, sometimes you say, “Live from the feeling within,” and sometimes you say, “Live in tathata with whatever life brings, live in total acceptance.” How can the inner rhythm and the outer situation always be one? Kindly guide.
When your inner instrument gets tuned—have you seen a musician tuning his instrument? He taps, tightens the drum, tightens the strings—likewise, when within you tighten your strings, set your instrument, when music is born within you, when you begin to dance inside, to be ecstatic—then suddenly you see the entire world ready to support you. Helping hands come from all around. In this land we gave God a thousand hands—for this very reason. A lovely image. How can a two-handed God support everyone who needs support? We made Him a thousand-handed God. A thousand is symbolic—for infinite, numberless. And more than a thousand are hard to carve in paintings or statues. The meaning is clear: awaken just once, and with a thousand hands the Divine supports you. From every side His hand reaches for you. His hand has always been reaching—you have been running away. You keep defending yourself from…