What is the role of method in Lao Tzu's philosophy of life?

Question: what is the place for method in lao tzu's philosophy of life? How can a man reach his goal whose aim is not doing but just floating? And is effort not necessary to reach the goal? Lao tzu's method of no-doing, to be inactive, also establishes a goal. And can we call it wisdom to let ourselves loose on unknown and unfelt ways? Is this the characteristic of a wise man or an unwise man?

Understand this well. Then you will be incapable of clenching the fist. You will suddenly realise that all your efforts to do so will go in vain for you have no energy left. Now you cannot clench; it opens! So methods are to be evolved to make you clench your fist harder and yer harder! All methods are meant to take you to -- the peak of tension, to the climax, after which dispersal starts. Suddenly you discover that the fist has opened and the diamond has fallen! It was never there. We never gathered courage to open the fist and see for fear that it might fall or the neighbour might know about it! Then you feel all the effort of holding on to it, was in vain. So the method says, "Clench your fist!" The methodless way of Lao Tzu says, "You will not attain till vou open.…

Osho, please tell us: are not all of Lao Tzu’s teachings the teachings of a defeated, beaten man? At their root, isn’t there a negative attitude, a kind of escapism? Won’t this policy of tathata—of acceptance—end up encouraging exploitative systems? And finally, can we not call these teachings mere theoretical idealism? They are not practical, nor do they show any way to be free of doing or to be de-hypnotized.

No. If we understand life rightly, Lao Tzu is not running away from life; he is only stepping away from stupidity—from the fire, from the disease. He is going deeper into life. And we, thinking we are advancing in life, go on advancing into sheer stupidity and are deprived of life. What is the final criterion? Compare Lao Tzu’s face with ours. Lao Tzu, untroubled even while dying; we, anxious even while living. Lao Tzu joyously embraces death; we have never embraced life with joy. Lao Tzu laughs even in illness; we keep weeping even in health. What is the measure? Put thorns in Lao Tzu’s hands and he is grateful; put a flower in our hands and no gratitude arises. By what path shall we recognize? What standard? Lao Tzu is no escapist. And if he is, then everyone should be an escapist—then escapism is religion. Because by escaping…

Osho, in Lao Tzu’s vision of life, what place is there for sadhana (spiritual practice)? And one who relies only on drifting, not on swimming—how can he reach his goal? Is effort not necessary to reach the goal? Lao Tzu’s “doing nothing,” being inactive, also seems like a kind of goal. To abandon oneself to unknowing, unknown currents—is that wisdom, a mark of the wise, or is it ignorance and the mark of the ignorant?

No: for those who do not understand and can only understand doing, something must be made for them to do. And they must be made to do so much that by doing and doing they become exhausted and drop it. But the event happens only when they drop. Remember this: the event will not happen before that point of letting go which Lao Tzu speaks of. They must be tired out by doing. They must be made to do so much that they come to such a pitch of tension that there remains no way to maintain it, and the tension falls away. Tension has its laws. Either you drop tension right now—through understanding. One way is to drop tension through understanding. My fist is clenched. One way is that you tell me: “Clenched is not the fist’s nature; therefore you will get tired. Clenched is not the fist’s nature;…

In 1969 followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi invited Osho to talk to them. This was the first occasion on which Osho addressed a western audience, and the first time he talked publicly at length in English. The discourse has been published in OTI January 1 & 16, 1991; and February 1, 1991. Osho: Really, there can be no method as far as meditation is concerned. Meditation is not a method. Through technique, through method, you cannot go beyond mind. When you leave all methods, all techniques, you transcend mind. So meditation itself is not a method. Truth cannot be achieved through method. Method is our own invention. We, who are ignorant, have achieved knowledge through methods constructed, created, projected, in our ignorance. Through method you can achieve a sort of self-hypnosis, a sort of auto-hypnosis. Any method, whatsoever it's name, can only give you an illusory kind of peace.

Question: bhagwan sri, please explain whether these statements of lao tzu are not meant for a defeated existence. For an anguished person? Is there not a negative attitude, a sort of defeatism at the root of these teachings? Would not these ethics, of acceptance of things, as they are, give licence to the government to exploit the people? And finally, can this not be called a pure theoretical idealism? These teachings are not at all practical. There are no means of attaining freedom from desires or of awakening in them.

Then there is certainly some place where we have erred. Buddha says, "Life is sorrow. He who realises this, attains bliss. He who thinks life to be blissful, attains nothing but misery." This calculation of Buddha is very profound. Buddha and Lao Tzu both say: "He who takes life to be happiness, ends up in sorrow, for life is sorrow." If I look upon a thorn as a flower, the thorn is bound to prick me and cause pain, for it is a thorn a nd not a flower; but if I know a thorn to be a thorn, it cannot hurt me. It can only hurt me if I take it to be a flower. Buddha says: "Life is sorrow -- know this. Then no one can snatch your joy away from you." But if you take life as happiness, you will fall into unhappiness for you will have…