Don’t try to surrender—just see you’re not a separate self, and letting go happens by itself.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Why and how should surrender happen?
Surrender, because we only appear to be persons—we are not. We only appear separate—we are not. It is a great illusory perception that we are separate. This totality of life—we are connected to it. Like a leaf may be under the illusion that it is separate from the tree. And of course it is under the illusion that it is separate from the other leaves on the same branch. This illusion arises naturally. The neighboring leaf dries up, yet this one does not dry along with it—if they were one, it too would dry. A neighboring leaf gets plucked, this one is not plucked with it—if they were one, it would be plucked too. One leaf is like a child, fresh and new; another like an old man. So it is quite natural that each leaf considers itself separate, though it is not the truth. But if the leaf looks…Read the full discourse →
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…Read the full discourse →
Osho, what is surrender? I used to think I knew. Now it is a mystery.
THE FALSE KNOWLEDGE de-mystifies existence; the true knowledge re-mystifies it. Knowing, if authentic, makes life more of a mystery than it has ever been before. Knowledge certainly covers your eyes with dark clouds, creates a wall of thick smoke, and you start feeling you know. In fact, you are going deeper into ignorance. To be knowledgeable is to be more ignorant than even the ignorant ones. The Upanishads have a tremendously significant statement. They say: The ignorant man is lost in darkness, but the knowledgeable is lost in deeper darkness than the ignorant -- because the knowledgeable lives in an "as if" world. He thinks he knows, but he knows not. He only believes; he has not seen. He believes in God, he believes in love, he believes in surrender, but belief is always a cover-up. Your wound is covered, but it is not healed that way. In fact, the…Read the full discourse →
Question: First question: Osho, how can the state of surrender be attained? She is already a widow.” Nasruddin returned, weeping and sad. His brother asked, “What happened? Where is your sister-in-law?” Nasruddin said, “She became a widow.” The brother said, “Idiot! I am sitting here alive—how can she be a widow?” Nasruddin said, “What difference does your being alive make? When Aunt became a widow, you were alive. When Auntie became a widow, you were alive. Hundreds of women in the village became widows while you were alive. You could not stop any of them from becoming widows. What can you do now? Does anyone’s becoming a widow depend on you?” Nasruddin is right. But inside, the “I” sits as the center all the time. Nasruddin’s satire is perfectly apt: what happens because of your being here? Yet each thinks that everything happens because of him.Read the full discourse →
Osho, you have earlier said, “Live moment to moment, live in the present.” Now you are saying, “Return to the past.” What should we do?
So it is with the mind—there are ruts. The past means endless grooves. However much you understand, your intellect agrees, you make decisions, you resolve—at the moment of resolve you feel something is going to change. But not even an hour passes before your decision breaks. Then only self-condemnation is produced, nothing else. Your saints, your fakirs, your priests and pundits—most of the time they only succeed in producing self-condemnation in you, nothing else. Their words are logically correct. You cannot even say they are wrong; you have to admit they are right. In that admission you take a decision. But against what are you deciding? Inside are grooves carved since who knows when, deep tracks. Walking in them has become a habit. It is easy to walk in them. They will pull you again and again. The meaning of returning into the past is: these grooves must be erased.…Read the full discourse →