On the absolute Tao
The Tao that can be told of is not the absolute Tao
On the rise of relative opposites
When the people of the earth all know beauty as beauty, there arises (the recognition of) ugliness.
When the people of the earth all know good as good, there arises (the recognition of) evil.

Therefore:
Being and non-being interdepend in growth; 
Difficult and easy interdepend in completion;
Long and short interdepend in contrast;
High and low interdepend in position;
Tones and voice interdepend in harmony;
Front and behind interdepend in company.
Therefore the sage manages affairs without action;
Preaches the doctrine without words;
All things take their rise,
But he does not turn away from them;
He gives them life, but does not take possession of them;
He acts, but does not appropriate;
Accomplishes, but claims no credit.
It is because he lays claim to no credit
That the credit cannot be taken away from him.
On the absolute Tao

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.
...
This is the first sentence of the book:
THE TAO THAT CAN BE TOLD OF
IS NOT THE ABSOLUTE TAO.

THIS IS THE FIRST THING he has to say: that whatsoever can be said cannot be true. This is the introduction for the book. It simply makes you alert: now words will be following, don't become a victim of the words. Remember the wordless. Remember that which cannot be communicated through language, through words. The Tao can be communicated, but it can only be communicated from being to being. It can be communicated when you are with the Master, just with the Master, doing nothing, not even practicing anything. Just being with the Master it can be communicated.
Why can't the truth be said? What is the difficulty? The truth cannot be said for many reasons. The first and the most basic reason is: truth is always realized in silence. When your inner talk has stopped, then it is realized. And that which is realized in silence, how can you say it through sound? It is an experience. It is not a thought. If it was a thought it could be expressed, there would be no trouble in it. Howsoever complicated or complex a thought may be, a way can be found to express it. The most complex theory of Albert Einstein, the theory of relativity, can also be expressed in a symbol. There is no problem about it. The listener may not be able to understand it; that is not the point. It can be expressed.

It was said when Einstein was alive that only twelve persons, a dozen, in the whole world understood him and what he was saying. But even that is enough. If even a single person can understand, it has been expressed. And even if a single person cannot understand right now, maybe after many centuries there will come a person who can understand it. Then too it has been expressed. The very probability that somebody can understand it, and it has been expressed.

But truth cannot be expressed because the very reaching to it is through silence, soundlessness, thoughtlessness. You reach to it through no-mind, the mind drops. And how can you use something which as a necessary condition has to drop before truth can be reached? Mind cannot understand, mind cannot realize, how can mind express? Remember it as a rule: if mind can attain, mind can express; if mind cannot attain to it, mind cannot express it. All language is futile. Truth cannot be expressed

Then what have all the scriptures been doing? Then what is Lao Tzu doing? Then what are the Upanishads doing? They all try to say something which cannot be said in the hope that a desire may arise in you to know about it. Truth cannot be said but in the very effort of saying it a desire can arise in the hearer to know that which cannot be expressed. A thirst can be provoked. The thirst is there, it needs a little provocation. You are already thirsty - how can it be otherwise? You are not blissful, you are not ecstatic - you are thirsty. Your heart is a burning fire. You are seeking something which can quench the thirst, but, not finding the water, not finding the source, by and by you have tried to suppress your thirst itself. That is the only way, otherwise it is too much, it will not allow you to live at all. So you suppress the thirst.
A Master like Lao Tzu knows well that truth cannot be said, but the very effort to say it will provoke something, will bring the suppressed thirst in you to the surface. And once the thirst surfaces, a search, an inquiry starts. And he has moved you.
...
How can truth be expressed when you have not experienced it? Even in ordinary life an unexperienced thing cannot be told. Only words will be conveyed. The container will reach you but the content will be lost. An empty word will travel towards you; you will hear it and you will think you understand it because you know the literal meaning of it, but you will miss. The real, authentic meaning comes through existential experience. You have to know it, there is no other way. There is no shortcut. Truth cannot be transferred. You cannot steal it, you cannot borrow it, you cannot purchase it, you cannot rob it, you cannot beg it - there is no way. Unless you have it, you cannot have it. So what can be done?
The only way - and I emphasize it - the only way is to live with someone who has attained to the experience. Just being in the presence of someone who has attained to the experience, something mysterious will be transferred to you... not by words - it is a jump of energy. Just as a flame can jump from a lit lamp to an unlit lamp - you bring the unlit lamp closer to the lit lamp, and the flame can jump - the same thing happens between a Master and a disciple: a transmission beyond scriptures - a transmission of energy not of message, a transmission of life not of words.

Osho on Living Tao

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