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Because both bow, they are endlessly confused — and Osho calls them polar opposites. Submission is obedience under pressure: fear, reward, conditioning, an ego repressed but intact, waiting. Every army and every church runs on it. Surrender is what happens when the ego has been seen through — not broken by another's will but dropped by one's own understanding, the way a hand opens when it realizes it is clutching thorns.
The direction of the bow differs too: the submissive person obeys somebody; the surrendered person disobeys his own ego. One produces slaves and robots, the other lovers and disciples. The sections below give the distinction in Osho's own words, each linked to the full discourse.
The difference, in Osho's words
The short notes are Osho Live's; the quoted passages are his own words, checked against the talk.
Polar Opposites That Look Alike
Asked about surrender and obedience, Osho separates the trained reflex from the trusting heart — the army from the ashram.
ON THE SURFACE they appear alike, but they are polar opposites. One who is surrendered need not be obedient; obedience is needed only if there is no surrender. You will be a little puzzled because you have been told and taught and conditioned that obedience and surrender are synonymous. Obedience means you are not surrendered, so you are forced to be obedient -- there is ego inside you which you are repressing, hence obedience is needed.
Submission and Surrender across his talks
Each year, the share of Osho's talks in which the word is used — counted from 6,627 dated talks on Osho Live.
Lighter bars: years with few dated talks. Counts are of the words themselves, so they show how Osho's vocabulary moved — not every talk on the subject.
| Year | Submission | Surrender | Dated talks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1964 | 1 | 1 | 13 |
| 1965 | 0 | 4 | 19 |
| 1966 | 0 | 0 | 7 |
| 1967 | 10 | 2 | 33 |
| 1968 | 2 | 3 | 30 |
| 1969 | 6 | 24 | 110 |
| 1970 | 5 | 32 | 131 |
| 1971 | 2 | 34 | 111 |
| 1972 | 2 | 46 | 223 |
| 1973 | 3 | 75 | 205 |
| 1974 | 3 | 105 | 271 |
| 1975 | 3 | 155 | 303 |
| 1976 | 15 | 311 | 700 |
| 1977 | 21 | 291 | 679 |
| 1978 | 23 | 301 | 702 |
| 1979 | 14 | 316 | 683 |
| 1980 | 14 | 242 | 674 |
| 1981 | 4 | 27 | 122 |
| 1984 | 5 | 10 | 63 |
| 1985 | 6 | 61 | 356 |
| 1986 | 7 | 47 | 369 |
| 1987 | 8 | 48 | 486 |
| 1988 | 1 | 24 | 276 |
| 1989 | 0 | 13 | 61 |
More in his words
Surrender Is Out of Love, Dependency Out of Fear
How to tell them apart in one's own life? Osho gives the litmus: look for the motive — submission always has one.
Surrender is out of love, dependency is out of fear. Dependency is a relationship in which you are hankering for something, desiring something; there is a motive. You are ready to become dependent -- that's what you are willing to pay for something. Surrender has no desire in it. It is sheer joy, it is trust, it is unmotivated.
Disobey Your Ego — That Is Surrender
To a disciple who finds disobedience and surrender contradictory, Osho shows they aim at different targets.
They are not polar opposites. Just a little awareness.... Be disobedient to your ego -- that is the meaning of surrender. If you want to be disobedient to the person you are surrendering to, then they are opposite, polar opposites. Then why surrender? Surrender simply means you trust the person more than your ego, you trust the person more than your own mind.
Not a Brainless Robot
Isn't total surrender just self-erasure? Osho's answer: it presupposes the opposite — a person who has lived the ego fully enough to see through it.
Surrender means: you have lived through the ego and you have seen the futility of it, you have seen the utter misery of it. You have lived through the ego and you know that you have not been able to live through it. It does not allow you to live, because it does not allow you any expansion.
From the discourses
Where Osho draws this distinction himself — each passage links to the exact place in the talk.
What is the difference between waiting for godot and waiting for god?
It is as if the sun has risen in the morning and you are sitting in your room with closed doors and windows, in darkness. Open the doors, you become available to the sun. The sun was already available -- just the meeting happens. You cannot wait for God. All waiting is for Godot. Godot means the one who never comes, who CANNOT come, whose arrival is impossible. And the only impossible thing is that which has already happened -- how can it happen again? You are alive, and you are waiting for life, Now, this is ridiculous. The real man of religion does not think in terms of God. He thinks in terms of life or, even better, of living -- because life can again become an abstract idea. Living, moment-to-moment living. In that very living, one knows what God is, because one knows who one is. Your idea…
What is the difference between waiting for godot and waiting for god?
It is as if the sun has risen in the morning and you are sitting in your room with closed doors and windows, in darkness. Open the doors, you become available to the sun. The sun was already available -- just the meeting happens. You cannot wait for God. All waiting is for Godot. Godot means the one who never comes, who CANNOT come, whose arrival is impossible. And the only impossible thing is that which has already happened -- how can it happen again? You are alive, and you are waiting for life, Now, this is ridiculous. The real man of religion does not think in terms of God. He thinks in terms of life or, even better, of living -- because life can again become an abstract idea. Living, moment-to-moment living. In that very living, one knows what God is, because one knows who one is. Your idea…
Beloved Osho, to be disobedient and to surrender seem to me polar opposites. Please explain how the two can be lived.
They are not polar opposites. Just a little awareness.... Be disobedient to your ego -- that is the meaning of surrender. If you want to be disobedient to the person you are surrendering to, then they are opposite, polar opposites. Then why surrender? Surrender simply means you trust the person more than your ego, you trust the person more than your own mind. Surrender happens only in a situation where you have found someone whom you can trust more than you can trust yourself. Then disobey your ego. But people never think in that way. They never think of disobeying their ego, they are always disobeying others. And they don't understand that disobeying others may be just obeying their own ego. This is what has happened with J. Krishnamurti. For his whole life he has been a teacher of thousands of people, telling them to disobey, to be rebellious, not…
Question: OSHO, WHAT IS THE PLACE OF SURRENDER IN YOUR RELIGION? I do not teach the ego, hence I cannot teach surrender, because surrender is nothing but the subtlest form of the ego. Surrender is not against the ego, it is in fact an act of the ego. Who surrenders? And by surrendering, who becomes humble? Who becomes meek? It is the ego standing upside down. It makes no difference whether the ego is standing on its legs or on its head. In fact it is more dangerous when it is on its head because then you will not be able to recognize it. Jesus says, "Blessed are the meek," but what is meekness? "Blessed are the humble," but what is humbleness? Can a man who has no ego be humble? How can he be humble? Who will be humble?
What is the difference between waiting for godot and waiting for god?
It is as if the sun has risen in the morning and you are sitting in your room with closed doors and windows, in darkness. Open the doors, you become available to the sun. The sun was already available -- just the meeting happens. You cannot wait for God. All waiting is for Godot. Godot means the one who never comes, who CANNOT come, whose arrival is impossible. And the only impossible thing is that which has already happened -- how can it happen again? You are alive, and you are waiting for life, Now, this is ridiculous. The real man of religion does not think in terms of God. He thinks in terms of life or, even better, of living -- because life can again become an abstract idea. Living, moment-to-moment living. In that very living, one knows what God is, because one knows who one is. Your idea…
Frequently asked
What is the difference between submission and surrender for Osho?
Submission is enforced — obedience produced by fear, reward or conditioning, with the ego repressed but alive underneath. Surrender is voluntary and joyous — the ego dropped through one's own seeing, out of love and trust. Osho calls them polar opposites that merely look alike: the army needs submission; surrender cannot be demanded at all.
Is surrendering to a master a loss of freedom?
Osho inverts the question: what you surrender is the ego — the very thing that keeps you unfree. The surrendered disciple disobeys his own ego, not the master; he trusts someone who has seen further, the way a patient trusts a surgeon. Done out of fear or neediness it becomes dependency, which Osho warns against as sharply as any critic.
How can I tell if my surrender is really submission?
Check for a motive. Dependency always wants something — security, approval, salvation — and so it is a transaction with fear underneath. Surrender is unmotivated: sheer trust, closer to falling in love than to signing a contract. And check what happened to the ego: repressed and resentful means submission; seen through and dropped means surrender.