Does surrendering to a particular person mean losing one’s personal existence and freedom?

Osho, does surrendering to a particular person mean losing one’s personal existence and freedom? How proper is it to worship the person instead of the personality?

First thing: You can lose only what you have. How will you lose what you don’t have? Understand this. It often happens like this. There’s a saying: the naked man won’t bathe because he says, “If I bathe, where will I wring my clothes? There’s nothing to wring.” The beggar stays awake all night lest something be stolen—there is nothing to steal! You ask, “Does surrender to a particular person mean losing one’s personal existence and freedom?” If you already have freedom, then there is no need to surrender to anyone. What would be the point? You have attained freedom; your personal being is yours—that is what the soul is. What need is there for surrender now? But usually it is neither freedom nor any personal being that you possess—and yet you are afraid that surrender will make you lose them. The naked man is afraid, “If I bathe, where…

You say that religion is total freedom or moksha, and you also stress the importance of surrender in religion. But are not freedom and surrender contradictory in terms?

In Patanjali's 1Yoga Sutras', God is talked about just to help you to surrender. There is no God. Patanjali says there is no God, but it will be difficult for you to surrender to one ; it will be difficult for you to simply surrender. To help surrender, God is talked about. So God is just a method. This is rare, very scientific -- God is just a method to help you surrender. There is no one who is going to take your surrender. If there is someone and you surrender, then it is a slavery, a bondage. This is a very subtle and deep point: there is no God as a person; God is just a way, a method, a technique. Patanjali relates many techniques. One of them is ISHWARA PRANIDHAN -- the idea of God. There are many methods to reach the surrender; one method is the idea…

In surrendering to you, am I surrendering to myself?

Nirvesh, in asking it you have lost the way. Just a few days before, Nirvesh was there in darshan, and was saying to me 'Now it is enough. Enough is enough. For one year I have been wandering. Now I surrender everything to you. Now take possession of me and lead me wherever you want.' Now, this question: IN SURRENDERING TO YOU, AM I SURRENDERING TO MYSELF? Yes, if you really surrender to me, you have surrendered to your real self, because I am one with the real self of all. That is the meaning of God. I am no more separate from the whole, I am where you also should be. I am just a reflection of your innermost core; you cannot see within it yourself because you are not yet able to go into those deeper realms of your being, but you can see it in me. The…

What is it to be surrendered to you?

Savita, that which you don't have and you think that you have, has to be surrendered to me. You don't really have the ego, the I, the self. You don't have it really. You are living in a kind of illusion that you are separate from existence. That separation is not there. You cannot live for a single split moment as separate. You cannot live like an island. You are part of the whole. The whole goes on participating in your being, the whole goes on showering you with its energy, but you have the idea that "I am separate." That 'I' has to be surrendered to me. And you don't have it, so you will not be really surrendering something to me, just an illusion. Let me repeat: that which you don't have, I want to take it away from you. And that which you have, I want to…

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…