According to Osho, willingness is the hallmark of a truly positive state: you retain the power to act, yet consciously refrain. Rest belongs to the one who can walk but chooses stillness; silence to the one who can think but chooses no-thought. Such non-doing is alert, voluntary, and free—unlike paralysis—revealing mastery, presence, and inner strength.
Real rest is when you could act but calmly choose not to—showing inner freedom, not helplessness.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, in reference to the subject of offering to the divine, please explain what is the significance of will and surrender? What are the similarities and differences between will and surrender?
THE END is always the same, but the beginning differs, and all the differences belong always to the beginning. The nearer you reach, the less is the difference between paths. In the beginning will and surrender are diametrically opposed. Surrender means absolute will-lessness. You have no will of your own, you feel helpless, you feel you cannot do anything. You are so totally helpless that you cannot even say that will exists; the very concept of will is illusory. You have no will. Rather, on the contrary, you have destiny, not will, so you can only surrender. It is not that you surrender: rather, it is that you cannot do anything else. So surrender is not an act. Rather, it is a recognition. It is not an act! How can surrender be an act? How can you surrender? If you surrender, then how will you call it surrender when you…
Question: THE FIRST STAGE, TO WHICH CONTENTMENT AND BLISS IMPART SWEETNESS, SPRINGS FROM THE INNERMOST RECESSES OF THE SEEKER'S HEART, AS IF NECTAR HAS ISSUED FORTH FROM THE HEART OF THE EARTH. AT THE INCEPTION OF THIS STAGE THE INNERMOST RECESS BECOMES A FIELD FOR THE COMING OF THE OTHER STAGES. AFTERWARDS THE SEEKER ATTAINS THE SECOND AND THIRD STAGES. OF THE THREE, THE THIRD IS THE HIGHEST, BECAUSE ON ITS ATTAINMENT ALL THE MODIFICATIONS OF WILL COME TO AN END. ONE WHO PRACTICES THE THREE STAGES FINDS HIS IGNORANCE DEAD, AND ON ENTERING THE FOURTH STAGE HE SEES EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, EQUALLY. AT THAT MOMENT HE IS SO STRONGLY EMBEDDED IN THE EXPERIENCE OF NONDUALITY -- ADVAITA -- THAT THE EXPERIENCE ITSELF DISAPPEARS. THUS, ON ATTAINING THE FOURTH STAGE THE SEEKER FINDS THE WORLD AS ILLUSORY AS A DREAM.
A: It can be strong, it can be strong, but it cannot be whole. And a strong mind is always hiding (one word inaudible), but a whole mind is not strong in that sense. The whole mind is whole, it has no weakness. It is as it is. If you are concentrating, a strength will be there, a particular type of strength that comes from narrowing, that comes from focusing, that comes concentration will be there, but behind it there will be weakness. Against that weakness you have created this strength. You as a total being will not be strengthened. A particular moment, a particular exclusive point, a particular fragment of your consciousness will be strengthened against the weakness of your whole mind. So this strength cannot be a conscious strength. It will come and it will go. And the moment it goes you will feel even more weaker.
Can this happen through will power?
Will is power; energy. There is no such thing as 'will power'. Will is power, will is energy. But by 'will' I mean the whole: Those who use the term 'will power' use it in a psychic sense. They use it to mean the power of concentration. I am not using the term in that sense. To me, 'will' means the whole. So only God is will. We are never will; we are just desires. Will is power, without desire. It is power with no movement or, with an inner movement. It is power without direction: directionless, dimensionless. When we say, "God is power," it does not mean that God is powerful. It means: God-power. God is the energY of the whole, the power of the whole. So when I say 'will power', it does not mean that will has power. Will is power -- it is energy. You can…
Whenever will succeeds, it simply shows it is a coincidence -- will never succeeds. The wind was blowing to the north and you were rushing to the north. The wind is not blowing to the north because you are going to the north. It is just coincidence that the wind is also going to the north; it is not following your will. Sometimes you will feel that the will succeeded -- it was coincidence -- then it creates ego and ego is a great problem, the greatest of them all... it is the essential madness. If you fail there is frustration. If you fail you feel very horrible about yourself -- you think you are not worthy, that you are worthless, that you don't even deserve to be alive -- and then you find a thousand and one faults with yourself and you start hating yourself.