According to Osho, you’re not protecting dignity but defending an illusion: the 'self' is only ego, and 'self-respect' is its respectable mask. Real respect is unaddressed reverence for all life, yourself included. Look within and you won’t find a self to surrender; seeing this, resistance drops and surrender to existence (not a personified God) happens naturally.
Self-respect here is just ego in disguise; when you look inside and see there’s no separate self to protect, letting go to life becomes easy.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
I cannot surrender to god, and it is not my ego but self-respect. Am I wrong?
THERE IS NO SELF. Self is another name for the ego. And what do you mean by 'self-respect'? There is a quality of consciousness -- it can be called 'reverence' -- but it is always unaddressed. It is not for the self, not for the other. It is simply reverence for life. When it is addressed it is just a rationalization. And man is clever at finding beautiful words for ugly things. We can always hide our wounds and put flowers on them. And that's what you are doing -- and you are also aware of it. That's why you ask: AM I WRONG? You know you ARE wrong. And I am not saying don't respect life -- be full of respect for ALL life. Your life is included in it! You are not excluded from it. But it has to be reverence for all life. When it is only…
Question: OSHO, WHAT IS THE PLACE OF SURRENDER IN YOUR RELIGION? That is the meaning of respect. It is one of the most beautiful words in the English language. It does not mean what it has come to mean: honor. No -- respect simply means re-spect, to look again. That's the literal meaning of the word; there is no place for honor. Just look again, look back, look deep. "Spect" means honor. "Spect" means to see, look; "re" means again. And once you knew the real self Before you entered and became part of a society, a culture, a civilization, you knew it. It is not a coincidence that people go on thinking that their childhood was the most beautiful part of their life.
Osho, you said that if even a little thirst has arisen and even a little courage, surrender to God. But how can a surrender done out of fear lead to fearlessness?
Resolve is the effort of a miserly mind. Surrender is a wholly different matter. Resolve stands near the ego. And now and then a rare person has reached by resolve. One can arrive by resolve too; but in the last moment he must drop his immense ego—and that is very difficult. Once in a while some Mahavira succeeds; that is why I say it is right to call Mahavira by that name—for hardly anyone ever succeeds on that journey. It is very difficult. Difficult because first you build up the ego, refine it; you take everything into your own hands. And in the final moment, when all has ripened, when the ego has been fashioned in its subtlest form, hard as a diamond—so that it can cut through all things and nothing can cut through it—at that very moment you must surrender. At that moment you have to let go…
Osho, what is surrender and how to do it to god? Please elucidate.
You are just living with rumours, and those rumours have passed through so many ignorant people that those rumours have become utter lies. Even if you hear it from a Buddha, the moment he has said anything and you have heard it, it is no more the same thing. He was saying something else, and you are BOUND TO hear something else. Even a Buddha, who knows the truth, cannot transfer it to you; it is untransferable. No verbal communication is possible. So what about your parents and the priests? Those who have not even known, they are teaching you what God is. And you go on carrying those stupid ideas about God. And you go on trying to surrender. In the first place, those Gods are false; in the second place, surrender is not something to be done. And this is where millions of people are caught: a false…
Osho, neither does surrender happen to me, nor do I have the power of resolve; I am entangled in between. You have created quite a predicament for me. As it is, I cannot even bear distance from you—what should I do? Unbidden, I prayed for the well-being of your cruelties; now my hands no longer rise, even after the act of prayer.
To abandon yourself to a river like a corpse requires a profound mastery of swimming. Only a great swimmer can truly let himself go into the stream. Because a great swimmer is free of fear. He knows: if need be, I can swim. If a difficulty arises, swimming is in my hands. The greater the swimmer, the more motionless he can leave himself; he does not even move hands and feet. “What is there to fear? My hands are with me, I am always here—if a moment comes, I will swim.” Such a moment does not haunt him. Tell one who does not know how to swim, “Jump into the river—give yourself up,” and he may jump in a moment of inspiration, in some joyous surge, excitement, intoxication—my song may seize him—and he jumps. The instant he jumps, he forgets what I said. Instantly his arms and legs will flail.…