Be patient and keep learning calmly; when your mind understands and stops fighting, your heart will relax and letting go will happen by itself.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, recently I heard you say that transcendence of life's misery and confusion can occur by either a let-go of life or by fight -- as long as either is done with totality. Mahavira's way was fight, and yours is let-go. Could you say more about let-go and its relationship to intelligence and responsibility? I don't have this understanding, and my life seems to be an odd mixture of let-go and fight. Let-go seems more natural, and fight seems more responsible.
He was standing there just to see her for the last time. It was enough for him that she was happy and healthy -- and he would wait. If his love has any power, she will come back. There was tremendous trust in him. He had seen the love, the same flame that was burning in his heart, in the eyes of Laila too. Laila was also searching and looking all around from the camel she was riding. She knew Majnu must be waiting somewhere on the way, and then she saw him hiding under a tree in its thick foliage. For a moment, without a single word or gesture, they were one; and then the caravan passed. But for Majnu time stopped then and there. He remained standing by the side of the tree waiting and waiting. It is said years passed. Laila came, but came a little late.…
Beloved Osho, recently, you concluded a discourse by saying: "remember, `let-go' is the most important word in existence." it penetrated me like an arrow. Since then your words have been haunting me. Beloved master, could you please speak a little more on the art of letting go? It seems the easiest yet the hardest thing to do. Is there a knack? Could you once again burn my ignorance with the lightning of your arrow?
The king thought, "The man seems to be a little strange. I have asked the question and he is looking at the sea. It seems he has forgotten me and my question." He reminded him -- "Perhaps you don't know that I am king of this country and I have asked you a question and you have not answered it." The poor master said, "I am trying hard to answer it." The king said, "Either you are mad or I am mad. I have not heard a single word." The master said, "Aha! That is the answer -- that you have not heard a single word! You have understood everything. This is it." The king said, "You are certainly mad! You have not said a single word." The master said, "The question is such that not even a single word can be said. But I will try again, although whatever…
Beloved Osho, I am seeing a certain helplessness arising in me. It is a feeling that I had feared and always tried to avoid in the past. Yet, as it begins to overwhelm me, it brings a sense of freedom I have seldom, if ever, experienced before. Beloved master, does this helplessness have something to do with what you call "let-go"?
The rabbi finished quickly -- rabbis are very efficient people -- and he came in his Cadillac, but the bishop was still in the confession booth. It has a small window, and the bishop or the pope or anybody who is representing God is on one side, and on the other side, the person who confesses. A device that the person does not feel awkward, embarrassed; he is not seen by the priest. But there was a long queue. So from the other side, the rabbi entered the cabin and said to the bishop, "It is getting late, and I don't see that you will be able to finish till Judgment Day! Because the queue is so long... and you don't seem to be very efficient. You don't know business." The bishop said, "I am doing it as quickly as possible, but these idiots are such that they don't confess…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO BE IN A STATE OF LET-GO? He said, "That I know. I remember a few people had pushed me in the train. And I was absolutely reluctant, because I didn't want to go anywhere. I was going to my home! I thought perhaps the train is going towards my home. And then finally I found myself in the river. But in a way it is good, because for at least two, three months I have not taken a bath. And the cold water in the river has also made my senses come back. I am a little conscious." The drunkard will not get hurt, because he does not know he is falling, so he does not become tense. He simply falls without becoming tense. It is the tenseness that gives you fractures.
Beloved Osho, I feel as if I am almost letting go, but a part inside me, small but very persistent, is holding on tight. It creates a feeling of anxiety, a cloud of worry, a sense of incompletion. Often, with you, the beauty of a single moment is so intense that it turns into an ache and a longing. Is it because my "yes" is not total yet? And why does this create a sort of existential worry? Nobody else seems worried.
Deva Surabhi, your question has its own answer in it -- but this is how people are unconscious. You have not even thought a second time about what you are writing. You are writing, "I feel as if I am almost letting go." Do you see what it means? The moment let-go happens, it is not almost. Either it happens or it does not happen. Let-go does not come in installments, and it is never "almost" -- that too is "as if." Even the "almost" is not certain -- uncertainty upon uncertainty upon uncertainty. "As if" is also not the beginning. "I feel" -- it is not that I experience. Naturally, you will find yourself in tension and in anxiety. And you ask me, "Is it because my `yes' is not total yet?" What to say of your "yes" and its totality? You have not even dreamt about it; you…