According to Osho, surrender means dropping the imaginary ego—the felt separation from existence—and letting the master remove what was never real. Nothing is taken from you; an illusion ends, like waking from a dream. In surrender you regain what is real: your authenticity, wholeness, and aliveness. The master gains nothing; you simply awaken to your inseparable oneness with the whole.
Let go of the pretend “me” that feels separate, and you wake up to being part of everything; you lose nothing and find your real self.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
The Diamond Sutra · Discourse 6
1977-12-26 · Buddha Hall · English
What is it to be surrendered to you?
Savita, that which you don't have and you think that you have, has to be surrendered to me. You don't really have the ego, the I, the self. You don't have it really. You are living in a kind of illusion that you are separate from existence. That separation is not there. You cannot live for a single split moment as separate. You cannot live like an island. You are part of the whole. The whole goes on participating in your being, the whole goes on showering you with its energy, but you have the idea that "I am separate." That 'I' has to be surrendered to me. And you don't have it, so you will not be really surrendering something to me, just an illusion. Let me repeat: that which you don't have, I want to take it away from you. And that which you have, I want to…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 →
Sabai Sayane Ek Mat · Discourse 8
1975-09-18 · Pune · Hindi · English translation
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…Read the full discourse →
Ecstasy The Forgotten Language · Discourse 2
1976-12-12 · Buddha Hall · English
What is the meaning of surrender? How is surrender?
Coming closer to me, you will be able to imbibe my spirit. That is the meaning of surrender: that you are ready to come close to me, that you are not afraid, that you will not protect yourself against me, that you will not be defensive, that simply you are ready to come closer to me, that you are attracted, that you have heard my call, that something has clicked in your heart and you will try to know who this man really is, what manner of man. You would like to enter into my emptiness and be surrounded by my emptiness. Sannyas is the visible effort of surrender. Many people come to me and they say, "We don't take sannyas. Can't you help us?" I say, "I will try my best, but it won't be of much help because you will continuously protect yourself. You will be defensive." Sannyas…Read the full discourse →
Philosophia Perennis Vol 2 · Discourse 10
1979-01-09 · Buddha Hall · English
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 →