Stop trying to get somewhere else; what you’re looking for is already here if you simply relax into being.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
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,…Read the full discourse →
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;…Read the full discourse →
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…Read the full discourse →
One friend has asked: "yoga is a path of elevation, of raising the life-energy upwards, whereas lao tzu's method is exactly the opposite: of bringing down the energy to the navel centre. So the question invariably rises: which is the right method?"
There was one disciple of Lao Tzu by the name of Lieh Tzu. Someone said to him, "It is said that Buddha sat under a tree and was enlightened. Also, yogis repeat mantras and attain enlightenment. What do you say?" Lieh Tzu replied, "As far as my understanding goes, the repetition of mantras or the practising of sadhanas and yogasanas is the work of those who cannot remain without something to do." The real thing is not that Buddha attained because of sadhana. Rather, Buddha attained because he sat in one place. It is not that a yogi attained by repeating a mantra, but because he sat in one place. The mantra was only an excuse to do something since he could not remain inactive. Lieh Tzu meant to say that those who have attained did so because of the fact that they left everything and became inactive. There are…Read the full discourse →
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…Read the full discourse →