According to Osho, surrender can’t be achieved by doing or by deliberate non‑doing; both hide the same desire. Let desire, hope, and expectation fall away. Forget about surrender and live your ordinary life—eat, sleep, walk, dance, love—without waiting for miracles. In your utter absence, grace happens by itself; surrender flowers as your own nature.
Stop trying (and stop trying to stop trying); just live normally and forget about surrender—when the wanting ends, it appears on its own.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
The Discipline Of Transcendence Vol 3 · Discourse 8
1976-10-28 · Buddha Hall · English
You tell us every day to surrender, yet it still doesn't happen -- why not? I really want to let go, yet trying doesn't work, neither does not trying. What to do and when, if ever, will it happen ?
IT IS NOT A QUESTION OF YOUR DOING or of your not doing -- because not-doing is also your doing. It is not a question of doing at all! -- positively or negatively. When you are neither doing nor not doing, then it happens. You move from one polarity to the other. First you try to do; when it doesn't happen you say, "Okay, so I will not do now -- let us see whether it happens or not." But the expectation is the same. It was behind doing, now it is behind non-doing. You are expecting it to happen. You are desiring it to happen. You are hoping for it to happen. Unless the DESIRE disappears, unless the hope is abandoned, it will not happen. Surrender happens only when the desire, the hope, disappears. In total abandon it happens. So neither your doing nor your non-doing is needed, because…Read the full discourse →
The Heart Sutra · Discourse 2
1977-10-12 · Buddha Hall · English
Beloved Osho, my surrender is goal-oriented. I'm surrendering in order to win freedom, so it is not real surrender at all. I'm watching it, but the problem is: it is always 'I' who is watching. Therefore every realization out of that watching is a reinforcement of the ego. I feel tricked by my ego.
The ego is always goal-oriented. It is always greedy, it is always grabbing. It is always searching for more and more and more; it lives in the more. If you have money it wants to have more money; if you have a house it wants to have a bigger house; if you have a woman it wants to have a beautiful woman, but it always wants more. The ego is constantly hungry. It lives in the future and in the past. In the past it lives as a hoarder -- "I have this and this and this." It gets a great satisfaction: "I have got something" -- power, prestige, money. It gives a kind of reality to it. It gives the notion that, "When I have these things, I must be there." And it lives in the future with the idea of more. It lives as memory and as desire.…Read the full discourse →
Prem Nadi Ke Teera · Discourse 1
1965-10-09 · Pune · Hindi · English translation
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 →
Guida Spirituale · Discourse 14
1980-09-08 · Buddha Hall · English
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 →
The Supreme Doctrine · Discourse 9
1973-07-12 · Mt Abu Meditation Camp · English
Beloved Osho, I have always heard you speaking about surrender, and it seems to me that surrender is the only important factor in achieving transformation. Then how to surrender? What is the meaning, method and process of it? And what contribution does the active meditation make in reaching the state of surrender?
Mahavira succeeded -- the other seeker in the same part of the world. He was doing certain techniques and he succeeded. Through techniques he succeeded in dissolving his ego. That is why Jainas and Buddhists are bonafide enemies. They cannot come to any reconciliation, they cannot come to any compromise, because they are so absolutely opposite. Mahavira succeeded through technique, so the whole teaching of Mahavira is of method. Buddha succeeded through failure, so his whole teaching is of effortlessness: "Do not do anything." These are the two dimensions. Both are good, but my suggestion is to first try to follow technique. If you succeed, it is okay. If you fail, then surrender will be possible. Then it too is okay. I am for both; that is why I look contradictory. One young man reached me today and he said, "You are so contradictory that it is impossible to follow…Read the full discourse →