What is the significance of surrendering to an enlightened one compared to surrendering to nature?

You have said that we should surrender to you. Is this a device to keep us from 'pushing the river'? Could we surrender to a rock, a tree or a flower and get the same result? Or is there something different in surrendering to an enlightened one?

There is none. Surrender is the key, not to whom or what you surrender. That is irrelevant. Surrender to a rock. Of course it will be difficult. If you cannot surrender to a Buddha it will be very difficult to surrender to a rock. So don't try to deceive yourself, that's all. If you can surrender to a rock -- absolutely perfect. Because wherever you surrender, suddenly by your surrender you discover the Buddha there. The rock becomes a Buddha. That's how rocks have been worshipped for centuries. Stone images have been worshipped for centuries. In Mecca they have worshipped a rock; no other rock as been kissed so much. Millions and millions of people with deep love have touched the KA'BAH, the rock in Mecca. This is one of the greatest temples on earth; no temple can compete. But that rock is rock only to you, not to a…

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.

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, 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…

Beloved Osho, to be disobedient and to surrender seem to me polar opposites. Please explain how the two can be lived.

They are not polar opposites. Just a little awareness.... Be disobedient to your ego -- that is the meaning of surrender. If you want to be disobedient to the person you are surrendering to, then they are opposite, polar opposites. Then why surrender? Surrender simply means you trust the person more than your ego, you trust the person more than your own mind. Surrender happens only in a situation where you have found someone whom you can trust more than you can trust yourself. Then disobey your ego. But people never think in that way. They never think of disobeying their ego, they are always disobeying others. And they don't understand that disobeying others may be just obeying their own ego. This is what has happened with J. Krishnamurti. For his whole life he has been a teacher of thousands of people, telling them to disobey, to be rebellious, not…