What is the experience of complete surrender?

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…

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…

Osho, indulgence, love, meditation, understanding, surrender—none of these seems to be helping me. Yet you accepted me; that grace itself is immense. Now, you alone know! Swami Mohan Bharati has asked. So this is exactly what I say: Mohan, plunge in!

If you can do even this much, everything will happen. If you can simply let go, everything will happen. If you can trust at least this much, have this much faith, everything will happen. For faith is a great alchemy, a great revolution. Do not end the story upon finding love; let the plot swell with a rising tide. Ferry the boat of love and then drown; lengthen the life of memories and drown. If you reached the goal on the very first campaign, what was gained? If you never stumbled or strayed, tell me—did you truly walk? Walk in such a way that the goal is proud of you, that your footprints, after you, are honored like lamps. You’ve long been enamored of the storm; after so many blows, you are already wounded. Bedeck the current with anklets—and drown; raise the last gale—and drown. What can I say? Your…

On the path of surrender, how does the seeker come to the right technique out of one hundred and twelve methods?

There are so many stories which have become meaningless for us because we do not know how they happened. Mahakashyap came to Buddha, and Buddha just touched his head with his hand, and the thing happened. And Mahakashyap began to dance. So Ananda asked Buddha, "What has happened to him? And I have been for forty years with you! Is he mad? Or is he just fooling others? What has happened to him? And I have touched your feet thousands and thousands of times." Of course, to Ananda, this Mahakashyap will either look like he is mad or as if he is just deceiving. He was with Buddha for forty years, but there was a problem. He was his elder brother, Buddha's elder brother; that was the problem. When Ananda came to Buddha forty years before, the first thing he said to Buddha was this: "I am your elder brother,…

Osho, what does surrender mean?

Resolve means: I. Surrender means: not-I. Resolve means: the sense of doership. Surrender means: the sense of non-doership. Resolve means: only through what I do can anything happen; without my doing, nothing will happen—effort is everything. Surrender means: grace is everything. What will happen through my doing? If the Beloved does, it happens. I am only a hollow reed of bamboo; if He plays, I become a flute. His song is everything. I should give Him passage, not become an obstruction. I should step aside from the path. A tiny bud walked along the riverbank and reached—then stepped down into the stream! The lover, bound for tryst, descended from steps to the waves. On the faces of the stars a shimmer came. So much is joined. When even a tiny bud steps into a ripple, in the eyes of stars at immeasurable distances a sparkle appears. Over the whole current…