"I speak on Lao Tzu totally differently. I am not related to him because even to be related a distance is needed. I don’t love him, because how can you love yourself? When I speak on Lao Tzu I speak as if I am speaking on my own self. With him my being is totally one. When I speak on Lao Tzu it is as if I am looking in a mirror my own face is reflected. When I speak on Lao Tzu, I am absolutely with him. Even to say ‘absolutely with him’ is not true – I am him, he is me.

"Historians are doubtful about his existence. I cannot doubt his existence because how can I doubt my own existence? The moment I became possible, he became true to me. Even if history proves that he never existed it makes no difference to me; he must have existed because I exist – I am the proof. During the following days, when I speak on Lao Tzu, it is not that I speak on somebody else. I speak on myself – as if Lao Tzu is speaking through a different name, a different NAMA’RUPA, a different incarnation.

"Lao Tzu is not like Mahavir, not mathematical at all, yet he is very, very logical in his madness. He has a mad logic! When we penetrate into his sayings you will come to feel it; it is not so obvious and apparent. He has a logic of his own: the logic of absurdity, the logic of paradox, the logic of a madman. He hits hard.

"Mahavir’s logic can be understood even by blind men. To understand Lao Tzu’s logic you will have to create eyes. It is very subtle, it is not the ordinary logic of the logicians – it is the logic of a hidden life, a very subtle life. Whatsoever he says is on the surface absurd; deep down there lives a very great consistency. One has to penetrate it; one has to change his own mind to understand Lao Tzu. Mahavir you can understand without changing your mind at all; as you are, you can understand Mahavir. He is on the same line. Howsoever much ahead of you he may have reached the goal, he is on the same line, the same track.

"When you try to understand Lao Tzu he zigzags. Sometimes you see him going towards the east and sometimes towards the west, because he says east is west and west is east, they are together, they are one. He believes in the unity of the opposites. And that is how life is.

"So Lao Tzu is just a spokesman of life. If life is absurd, Lao Tzu is absurd; if life has an absurd logic to it, Lao Tzu has the same logic to it. Lao Tzu simply reflects life. He doesn’t add anything to it, he doesn’t choose out of it; he simply accepts whatsoever it is.

"It is simple to see the spirituality of a Buddha, very simple; it is impossible to miss it, he is so extraordinary. But it is difficult to see the spirituality of Lao Tzu. He is so ordinary, just like you. You will have to grow in understanding. A Buddha passes by you –you will immediately recognize that a superior human being has passed you. He carries the glamor of a superior human being around him. It is difficult to miss him, almost impossible to miss him. But Lao Tzu… he may be your neighbor. You may have been missing him because he is so ordinary, he is so extraordinarily ordinary. And that is the beauty of it.

"To become extraordinary is simple: only effort is needed, refinement is needed, cultivation is needed. It is a deep inner discipline. You can become very very refined, something absolutely unearthly, but to be ordinary is really the most extraordinary thing. No effort will help – effortlessness is needed. No practice will help, no methods, no means will be of any help only understanding. Even meditation will not be of any help. To become a Buddha, meditation will be of help. To become a Lao Tzu, even meditation won’t help – just understanding. Just understanding life as it is, and living it with courage; not escaping from it, not hiding from it, facing it with courage, whatsoever it is, good or bad, divine or evil, heaven or hell.

"It is very difficult to be a Lao Tzu or to recognize a Lao Tzu. In fact, if you can recognize a Lao Tzu, you are already a Lao Tzu. To recognize a Buddha you need not be a Buddha, but to recognize Lao Tzu you need to be a Lao Tzu – otherwise it is impossible." Osho