According to Osho, foresight is Lao Tzu’s capacity to see, millennia ahead, that the masculine mind—logic, aggression, conquest—would fail and that only the feminine consciousness—simplicity, humility, receptivity—could heal humanity. His teachings are revived now because crisis makes them urgent: at the far extreme we’re ready to reverse course, choose Tao, avert total war, and rebuild a sane, familial world.
Foresight means seeing trouble before it happens; Lao Tzu saw our pushy, fighting way would hurt us, so we’re bringing back his gentle, simple way to heal things now.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: what is the fore-sight and what are the hopes that have instigated you to resurrect the 2,500 year old religious teachings of lao tzu?
Bhagwan Sri: Whatever Lao Tzu has said is 2,500 years old. But in a way, it is as fresh as the morning dew. It is new because it has never been put into practice. It is new because the spirit of man has not taken a single step in its direction. The road is absolutely untouched, virgin. It is old because of the fact that Lao Tzu gave news of this path, 2,500 years ago. It is new because his news was not heeded up to now. Today as never before, it has become an urgent necessity to take heed of his message. Man has made use of the masculine-mind and seen the results. Our history of the last 2,000 years, is the history of the experiment of the masculine mind. In 2,500 years, we have made use of logic, struggle, violence, aggression and conquering ambitions. Man became more and…
Question: A friend asks: Osho, what hopes and far-sighted visions moved you to revive Lao Tzu’s twenty-five-hundred-year-old teachings today? Another friend has asked: Please shed light on the directions in which Lao Tzu’s naturalistic, spontaneous, simple, life-applicable path of practice, given twenty-five centuries ago, can be of use to today’s complex and ill-at-ease person. Yet another friend has asked: Seekers have always aspired to ascent; but for practice Lao Tzu holds up water—the symbol of descent—as the ideal. And dharma is the upward growth of life. So please make clearer how spiritual ascent happens through the symbol of water! A fourth question: On the first day’s talk you said that man’s ego is a disease, and that nature and the sages treat our ego like a straw dog. Please explain: ego too is a part of nature.
All these things sound like fables. But the event that occurred in 1959 cannot be a fable, and it has thousands of observers, witnesses. For exactly as long as it took the Dalai Lama to enter India, a mist enveloped the entire Himalayas. And a hundred planes searched, but it was not possible to see below. That mist arose the very day the Dalai Lama left the Potala; and it ended the very day the Dalai Lama entered India. And such a mist had never been seen over the Himalayas before. That was the first time. So for those who understand the esoteric intimations of religion, this was great evidence. Evidence that whatsoever is most precious in life—if it is on the verge of being destroyed—then the whole of nature also rises to protect it. Lao Tzu’s entire lineage is near extinction.