Equilibrium

This is an excerpt/story taken from Osho's teachings, which I thought does brings to light something about being in a state of equilibrium when there are crests and troughs under the seasons of the Sun...Read on....

When I was a small child at school there was a wrestling competition for the whole district; I have never been able to forget that incident. There was a wrestler, the most famous wrestler in those parts, who was defeated. He was going to be the champion, the district champion or something, and he was defeated by a totally unknown man!

The whole crowd laughed in ridicule, people enjoyed it like anything! And I was surprised, everybody was surprised; in a second everybody fell silent, because he also clapped and laughed… the man who had been defeated! He laughed so uproariously that the whole crowd fell silent in embarrassment; what was the matter with this man? And when they fell silent he laughed even more!

Later on I went to him; he was staying just in front of my house in a temple. And I said, ’This is strange – and I loved it! It was very unexpected!’. He said, ’It was so unexpected, that’s why I also laughed! It was really unexpected. I had never expected that I would be defeated by an ordinary man of whom nobody has ever heard! The whole thing was ridiculous, that’s why I laughed!’

But I have never been able to forget his face, the way he laughed and the way he clapped and the way the whole crowd fell silent. This man defeated the whole crowd and their ridicule… he participated! But great courage is needed! A great courage is needed in life to be yourself, in failure, in success, in appreciation, in condemnation, when you are going very high and when you are going very low