The Secrets of Lao Tzu's life 

 

 

When Lao Tzu was about to die, somebody asked him to reveal a few secrets of his life. Lao Tzu said, “The first secret is: no one has ever defeated me in my life.”

 

Hearing this, the disciples became very excited. They said, “You never told us this before! We also wish to be victorious. Please show us the trick.”

 

Lao Tzu answered, “You made a mistake. You heard something different. I said no one could ever defeat me, and you are saying you too want to be victorious. The two things are totally opposite, although they look similar in meaning. In the dictionary, in the world of language, it has one meaning – that a person who has not faced defeat is victorious. I simply said no one could defeat me, while you are talking about becoming victorious. Get out of here! You will never understand what I am saying.”

 

The disciples pleaded, “Even so, please explain to us. Please show us the technique. How were you never defeated?”

 

Lao Tzu said, “No one could defeat me because I always remained defeated. There is no way to defeat a defeated man. I was never defeated because I never wished for victory. In fact, no one could start a fight with me. If anyone ever came to challenge me he found me already defeated, so he couldn’t have any fun defeating me. The joy is in defeating one who desires to be victorious. What fun can there be in defeating someone who doesn’t even want to win?”

 

In fact, it gives us pleasure to destroy somebody’s ego because doing so strengthens our own. But if a man has already effaced himself, what fun can there be in destroying such a person? Our ego wouldn’t get any kick out of it. The more we succeed in breaking the other’s ego, the stronger ours becomes. The other’s broken ego becomes the strength of our own. But the ego of this man we are talking about is already broken.

 

For example, you go out to fight someone, and before you knock him down he lays himself down on the ground; and before you sit on him he invites you and lets you sit on him. What will your state be then? You would want to run away from there! What else could you do? People watching would laugh and say, “Go on, sit on him; sit comfortably. Why are you running away?” Who would look stupid, the one who sat on the man, or the man who kept laughing and whose laughter resounded throughout your life?

 

So whenever somebody went to challenge this man, he would immediately lie down on the ground and say, “Come on, sit on me. You have come for that, haven’t you? So go ahead. Don’t take too much trouble, don’t bother too much; there’s no need to exert yourself – just come and sit on me.”

 

Lao Tzu went on to say, “But you are asking something else. You want me to tell you the technique of winning. If you think of winning, you will lose. One who harbors the thought of winning is always the loser. In fact, defeat begins with the very idea of victory.” And Lao Tzu said further, “And no one has ever been able to insult me.”

 

“Please tell us this secret too, because we don’t like to be insulted either,” a disciple said.

 

“Once again you are making a mistake. No one could insult me because I never desired honor. You will always be insulted because you are filled with the desire for recognition. I was never thrown out from anywhere because I always sat near the entrance where people remove their shoes. I was never asked to move from anywhere because I always stood at the end, where no one could push me further back. I was very happy to be at the end; it saved me from all sorts of trouble. No one ever forced me out of there or pushed me aside; nor did anyone say, ‘Get lost!’ because that was the last place. There was no place beyond that. No one ever wanted to be in that spot. I was the lord of my own place; I have always been the lord of my own place. Where I stood, no one ever came to throw me out.”

 

Jesus also says, “Blessed are those who are ready to stand in the last row.” What does this mean? For example, Jesus says, “If a man slaps your right cheek, offer him the left.” What this means is: don’t even give him the trouble of turning your other cheek – do it for him. Jesus says, “When someone comes to defeat you, be defeated readily. If he makes you lose one round, lose two instead.” And he says, “If a man snatches your coat, also give him your shirt immediately.” Why? – because it is possible the man may feel embarrassed taking the shirt away from you. And Jesus says, “If someone asks you to carry his load for a mile, at the end of the mile ask him if he would like you to carry it further.”

 

What does this mean? This means that by accepting the facts of life totally concerning insecurity, failure, defeat, and finally death, we conquer them all. Otherwise, these facts eventually lead us nowhere but to death. In the final analysis, death is our total defeat. Even in the biggest defeats in life, you still survive; although defeated, you continue to exist. But in death even you are annihilated as well.

 

Death is the biggest defeat of all; that’s why we want to kill our enemy – there is no other reason. Death is the ultimate defeat. After that there is no possibility for the enemy to win, ever. The urge to kill an enemy comes from our desire to inflict on him the ultimate defeat. After that there is no way he can ever be a winner, because then he exists no more.

 

Death is the final defeat and we all want to run away from it. And remember also, the man who attempts to escape his own death will work toward the killing of others. The more he succeeds in killing others, the more alive he will feel. Hence, the reason for all the violence in the world is totally different from what people ordinarily take it to be. The reason for this violence is not because people drink unstrained water or they eat after sunset, no, it is nothing of that sort.

 

The fundamental reason for violence is that man kills others to forget about his own death. Killing others, he believes no one can kill him, because now he himself has the power to kill. Hitler, Genghis Khan, and other such people, killed millions in order to assure themselves that “No one can kill me, since I kill millions myself.” By killing others we try to be free of our own death, we want to confirm our independence. The assumption is that, when we ourselves are capable of killing people, who can kill us?

 

Deep down, this is avoiding death. Deep down, a violent man is an escapist from death. And one who wants to save himself from death can never be nonviolent. Only he who declares, “I accept death, for death is one of the facts of life – it is a reality,” can be a nonviolent person. One can never deny death. Where will you run from it? Where will you go?

 

The sun begins to set the moment it rises. A sunset is as much a reality as the sunrise – the difference is only of direction. At sunset, the sun reaches exactly where it was at sunrise – but at sunrise it is in the east, whereas at sunset it is in the west. Birth is on one side, death is on the other. That which is ascending on one side is declining on the other. The rising and the setting go together – the setting, in fact, lies hidden in the rising. Death lies hidden in birth. There is no way that one who knows that such is the case can ever deny it. Then he accepts everything. Then he lives this truth. He knows it, he sees it, and he accepts it.

 

With acceptance comes transformation. When I say “triumph over death,” I mean that as soon as someone accepts death he laughs, because he comes to know there is no death. Only the outer sheath is formed and unformed. The ocean has always been; it is only the wave which has taken form and then disintegrated. Beauty was always there – the flowers bloomed and withered away. Light always shone – the sun rose and set. And that which shone with the rising and setting of the sun was forever present, before sunrise and after sunset. But this we will come to see only when we have seen death, when we have encountered death face-to-face – never before.

 

-Osho, “And Now and Here, #8”