According to Osho, saints speak of “upward” transcendence as the destination, while Lao Tzu prescribes the “downward” path—the method of rooting, humility, and sinking to the lowest like water. Life moves by inverse logic: deepen your roots and the heights arrive by themselves. Abandon striving for peaks; nourish the roots—presence, surrender, groundedness—and nature blooms the flower of transcendence without effortful ambition.
To rise high like a mountain, first sink low like water: stop chasing the top, grow deep roots in humility, and the height will come by itself.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Another friend has asked that: saints have always talked about transcendence, of going upwards, whereas lao tzu talks of going downwards -- why?
Life is misty. If you feel that you will achieve happiness by loving someone, you will never be happy. Although there is joy in loving but this joy is for him only who drowns himself in love and does not worry about the bliss. He who desires bliss from love, does love but his attention is all on the bliss thereof. Then he finds himself holding the beloved's hand but does not find bliss in it. He will never find it also. And yet those who say there is bliss in love are absolutely correct. Actually love and bliss are not correlated. There is no causal link between them. It is not as if you heat water and it turns to vapour. The deeper you go into existence, the lesser the causality becomes; and the more spontaneous and natural are the results attained. All that is deep and profound in…
Another friend has asked: Osho, what is the relationship between the method of meditation and jati-smaran (recollection of past lives)?
But the one who becomes skilled in this—who can fully awaken any day’s memory up to the age of five—will find that the memories begin to awaken completely. And you should test it. As today passes, note down some events and lock them up. After two years, try to recall today. Most of it will have been forgotten. Then remember—and after remembering, break the lock and compare whether what you recalled matches what you had written. You will be amazed—astonished—that besides what you wrote, many more details have come back which you did not even note at the time. They will all be there in memory. Buddha called this alaya-vijnana. There is a corner of the human mind he called the storehouse of consciousness. Like a junk room in the house where we keep all the odds and ends, there is a storehouse that collects memories—where everything from birth after…
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…
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…
Unmani bhaavah paddyam the upward flow of the mind is paddyam -- the water of divine worship.
The thief I was mentioning just fell at the feet of Rinzai, and he said, "If you can use such things, allow me to use myself also. You ran like a thief and you are the master of the house. You confounded me. I have been in many, many situations, but never like this. You have hypnotized me also. You are the first man who has not behaved with me as a thief, who has not thought about me as a thief, so I cannot leave you now. Everyone has tried with me that I should leave this profession, and I had my own reactions. But with you I change. Now initiate me into your path." Rinzai said, "How can I initiate you? Really, when I laughed, in that moment I became Enlightened. When I laughed, I became Enlightened! I was trying and trying and trying; I had been meditating…