What will it take to achieve true surrender?

Why and how should surrender happen?

Surrender, because we only appear to be persons—we are not. We only appear separate—we are not. It is a great illusory perception that we are separate. This totality of life—we are connected to it. Like a leaf may be under the illusion that it is separate from the tree. And of course it is under the illusion that it is separate from the other leaves on the same branch. This illusion arises naturally. The neighboring leaf dries up, yet this one does not dry along with it—if they were one, it too would dry. A neighboring leaf gets plucked, this one is not plucked with it—if they were one, it would be plucked too. One leaf is like a child, fresh and new; another like an old man. So it is quite natural that each leaf considers itself separate, though it is not the truth. But if the leaf looks…

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.

Beloved Osho, I have always heard you speaking about surrender, and it seems to me that surrender is the only important factor in achieving transformation. Then how to surrender? What is the meaning, method and process of it? And what contribution does the active meditation make in reaching the state of surrender?

Mahavira succeeded -- the other seeker in the same part of the world. He was doing certain techniques and he succeeded. Through techniques he succeeded in dissolving his ego. That is why Jainas and Buddhists are bonafide enemies. They cannot come to any reconciliation, they cannot come to any compromise, because they are so absolutely opposite. Mahavira succeeded through technique, so the whole teaching of Mahavira is of method. Buddha succeeded through failure, so his whole teaching is of effortlessness: "Do not do anything." These are the two dimensions. Both are good, but my suggestion is to first try to follow technique. If you succeed, it is okay. If you fail, then surrender will be possible. Then it too is okay. I am for both; that is why I look contradictory. One young man reached me today and he said, "You are so contradictory that it is impossible to follow…

You tell us every day to surrender, yet it still doesn't happen -- why not? I really want to let go, yet trying doesn't work, neither does not trying. What to do and when, if ever, will it happen ?

IT IS NOT A QUESTION OF YOUR DOING or of your not doing -- because not-doing is also your doing. It is not a question of doing at all! -- positively or negatively. When you are neither doing nor not doing, then it happens. You move from one polarity to the other. First you try to do; when it doesn't happen you say, "Okay, so I will not do now -- let us see whether it happens or not." But the expectation is the same. It was behind doing, now it is behind non-doing. You are expecting it to happen. You are desiring it to happen. You are hoping for it to happen. Unless the DESIRE disappears, unless the hope is abandoned, it will not happen. Surrender happens only when the desire, the hope, disappears. In total abandon it happens. So neither your doing nor your non-doing is needed, because…

My anger has lessened, my sexual desire is not my master, my mind is more still, and still I know I am not surrendered to you. What will it take -- a thunderbolt.?

The first thing to be understood you cannot surrender; it is not something you can do. If YOU are there, then how is the surrender possible? If the doer is there, then how can the surrender happen? It is not an act. When YOU are not there, then the surrender IS. So you cannot surrender -- one thing is absolutely certain. YOU cannot surrender, because YOU is the barrier. And this is what you have been trying, trying to surrender. It is like trying to go to sleep: try hard, and then failure is absolute. Sleep comes when you are not there and the effort has ceased. When you are trying no more to go to sleep -- you have completely forgotten about it, because any activity is against sleep -- if you are trying to go to sleep.... That's what so many people who suffer from sleeplessness, insomnia, are…