Is surrender to Ishwara and surrender to the Guru the same?

Question: IS SURRENDER TO ISHWARA -- GOD -- AND SURRENDER TO THE GURU THE SAME? Surrender doesn't depend on the object. It is a quality that you bring in your being. To whom you surrender is irrelevant. Any object will do. You can surrender to a tree; you can surrender to a river; you can surrender to anything -- to your wife, to your husband, to your child. The problem is not there in the object, any object will do. The problem is to surrender. The happening happens because of surrendering, not because to whom you have surrendered. And this is the most beautiful thing to understand: whomsoever you surrender, that object becomes the God. There is no question of surrendering to God. Where will you find God to surrender? You will never find. Surrender! And to whomsoever you surrender, the God is there.

Osho, wherever there is a feeling of surrender—whether to God or to a master—there must be some concept about the one we surrender to. Then that surrender is also only to a concept, isn’t it? Or is surrender something different? Please explain.

Surrender does not arise from your concept. Where all your concepts fall away, there is surrender. Before the one in whose presence you lay down all your notions. You say, “I have looked through many concepts and found nothing but blindness. Through the lenses of my beliefs I have looked and looked, and nowhere did I see the divine. Now I place all concepts at your feet. Now let me be without concepts. Now, empty, I look at you.” This is the meaning of surrender. To sit by someone in emptiness is surrender. Become empty, and you have surrendered. Surrender is not a declaration to be made with band and drum. Surrender is the tone of zero—shunya. It happens in silence. There is no need to make noise, to stake a claim, to summon witnesses. Wherever you go and sit down empty, there surrender happens. And then what to say…

The ancient scriptures spoke of surrender to the Guru only in this sense: that Paramatman, of whom you have no inner glimpse yet, whom you fail to discover within because of many layers of darkness, thick walls—has become transparent in someone else. In his transparency you can see the inner element shining. Those who saw Paramatman at the feet of Mahavira, Buddha, Nanak, Jesus, Muhammad—who beheld the inner light sparkling through that transparency—surrendered. At first the surrender was to Muhammad or Mahavira; but the inner element is one. It is not Muhammad’s and yours separate! The moment you surrender to that glimpse, your own glimpse begins. As if, with the help of another, your lamp is lit. The Guru is a catalytic agent. Until your inner Guru is awakened, he is a great ally.

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…

Osho, Kabir, Meera, and Ashtavakra all speak of surrender. Please tell us how their approaches to surrender differ.

Those who have the courage can drop it now. Those who feel “I won’t be able to,” or feel that dropping it would be self-deception, or feel that dropping is just an excuse to avoid seeking—don’t be dishonest with yourself. Many will say, “Why take a support? I will walk without it!”—and they don’t walk at all; they just sit. Speak of a support and they say, “Why any support? Why depend on anyone?” Let it not be that your refusal of support is ego. If out of ego you say, “Why take a support?” you are in great danger. If out of witnessing you say there is no need of support, then it is right. Distinguish the two. If it is the ego making this declaration... The more egoistic are unwilling to accept God. That is the difference. Mahavira does not accept God; nor does Charvaka. Marx does not…