According to Osho, when you give more than what is asked—offering even your ‘defeat’ before the fight—you step outside the ego’s game. The opponent’s thrill vanishes, conflict evaporates, and the whole drama is revealed as meaningless play. Such non-resistance ends suffering, saves time and energy, and roots you in awareness rather than in winning or losing.
If someone wants to beat you, let them win; then the game stops being fun and the fight ends.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
A friend has asked: Osho, is it possible for someone to live egoless in this ego-filled world and still be successful? Where everyone is full of ego, wouldn’t living egoless be like swimming against the current? Wouldn’t it bring obstacles, difficulties, failures?
Notice: even the egoist pays respect to the egoless. Even the politician comes and sits at a saint’s feet—this person has stepped out of the arena; one enemy less; he has left the fight; he has begun to flow with the current. So if you think that by becoming egoless you will flow against the current, you are mistaken. As an egoist you are already against life’s current. In egolessness you flow with life’s stream. Yes, you will go opposite to the egoists—but that will create no obstacle. Hindrance only comes if, even through egolessness, you still want wealth, prestige and position in the world. Then there can be trouble. It is said: An emperor was praying in a temple on New Year’s Day. He used to come on the first day of the year to pray. He was saying to God, What am I! The dust of your feet—worse…
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 life merely struggle—struggle and struggle? Or is there something more?
Jesus has said: Whoever seeks to save will lose; whoever gives away will be saved. Jesus has said: Those who are first in this world will be last in my Father’s kingdom; those who are last here will be first there. The arithmetic there is different. Give away money and you will become a beggar; give away meditation and you will become a sovereign. Give away money and today or tomorrow you will be knocking door to door; give away love and the sealed springs within will open. Fresh streams of love will surge in you every day; ever-new fountains of fresh loving energy will arise. A well that is sealed up becomes stagnant. Its springs die. Its water turns poisonous. A well lives by being filled and poured out—keep drawing and keep refilling. Hence the wise say: throw it out with both hands! One hand is not enough—use both!…
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…
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.