According to Osho, to be in that condition is to have no private interest or desire left—no insistence to live—and to surrender wholly to the will of existence. One lives as a vehicle of the total, beyond karma, allowing life or death, food or fasting, to happen only if the whole consents. Gratitude remains, but personal indebtedness and doership disappear.
It means you stop wanting for yourself and let the universe decide, calmly accepting whatever happens.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: First question: Osho, how can the state of surrender be attained? In life, the most difficult, the most arduous inner state is surrender. The mind is built around the ego. It is easy for the mind to assume, “I am the center of the whole universe,” as if the earth, the sun, the stars all revolve around me, for me; the whole of life is a means, and I am the end. The ego-state means: I am the goal and everything else is a means. Everything exists for me; I exist for no one. I am the target; all that happens is for me. All is an arrangement to serve me. This is the ego-mood. Surrender is exactly the opposite: I am nothing. My being is like a void, and the center lies outside me.
Osho, you have titled this series of talks “Sahaj Yoga.” Do “sahaj” and “yoga” not seem mutually opposed?
Anand Maitreya! They don’t just seem opposed, they are opposed. But no ultimate truth of life can manifest without contradiction. Life is made of opposites—darkness and light, day and night, woman and man, negative electricity and positive electricity, birth and death. The very structure of life is woven of opposites. Hence the opposites are not only opposed; they are complementary to each other. If you have labored hard all day, you will be able to sleep deeply. Labor and rest are opposites, yet only the one who has worked can rest deeply—and the one who has not worked cannot. So the opposites are not only opposed, they complete each other. And only the one who has rested deeply at night can rise in the morning and engage in work again. One who has not rested through the night will not be able to work in the morning. Look closely at…
Osho, “Slay me, O Lord, slay me; I long for death. Slay me with that death by which Rajneesh died upon seeing.” I am so much a stone that I cannot fully melt. I am restless. What should I do?
A man came to Ramakrishna and said, “I am going on pilgrimage, to bathe in the Ganges. What do you say?” Ramakrishna said, “Go, brother, fine—but keep one thing in mind. Have you seen the big trees on the banks of the Ganges?” “Yes.” “Why are they standing there?” “How should I know? Trees stand—what kind of question is that?” Ramakrishna said, “I’ll tell you the secret. You go with the bundle of your sins on your back and take a dip in Mother Ganges. As you dip, by her grace, the sins fall away. But sins don’t leave you so easily; they perch on the trees. They say, ‘Son, how long will you stay under water? Come out, and we’ll ride you again.’ You come out, and they jump back on. So all becomes as before. Keep an eye on those trees—if you dip, don’t come out again!” The…
Another sannyasin friend said, ‘Osho is supremely compassionate,’ ‘Then why this distinction in the sharing of compassion—that only a chosen few receive the prasad of his ambrosial words?’ And hearing that very remark, I was reminded of my own unworthiness and backwardness. And I have begun to fear that perhaps for this very reason Osho may, in his own way, throw me out. Kindly be gracious enough to dispel our doubts and fears.
- “I am special; hence I was chosen.” Then you have gone astray. You miss at the very threshold. - “By grace alone I, unworthy, have been chosen.” Then you are on the right path. The Sufi mystic Junayd used to say in his daily prayer, “I am amazed—there is no worthiness in me, and yet I live. I have earned nothing, and this supremely blessed life has been given to me. I am amazed, for there is no reason why such peace should shower upon me. Where people burn in such restlessness, why does this peace rain on me?” There was a strange line in his prayer: “O God, I cannot believe You are just. You must be partial toward me—showering so much on one so unworthy.” And that was his worthiness. To see oneself as unworthy is worthiness on the path of the spirit. The day you take…
And finally you have asked, “Does this not indicate ‘sanchit’?”
It only indicates that you have understood nothing of what I am telling you. It indicates nothing else. It only shows that I go on playing the flute here, and there you go on ruminating. You do not understand what I am saying. You go on singing your own tune. My purpose and yours seem different. You have come to become something special, and my whole effort is to bring you down to earth—ordinary, natural. Your ambition is to decorate the ego; my wish is that your ego drop—naked, sky‑clad—as it is. If you are to be with me, be with understanding; otherwise you will miss me too. Instead of resolution coming into your life, entanglements will arise—because a conflict will be created. If you want to become a great man, find some other mahatma who will teach you what is auspicious and what is inauspicious, what to do and…