According to Osho, rebellion and surrender meet at the dissolution of the ego. When you see the ugliness and unreality of the ego and drop it—often using the master only as an excuse—real surrender happens effortlessly, not by force. In that egolessness, a spontaneous, non-political rebellion arises: freedom from conditioning, authority games, and conformity, while resting in a trusting yes to existence.
Let go of your make-believe ‘me’ and, all at once, you relax into trust and naturally stop following fake rules.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED MASTER, WHERE DO REBELLION AND SURRENDER MEET? Prem Rajo, rebellion and surrender meet in the idea of the ego. Drop the ego and simultaneously surrender happens, and rebellion too. I know what you mean by your question. You mean that rebellion and surrender seem to be polar opposites -- how can they meet? How can one be rebellious AND surrendered? That's your question. That's how mind thinks about rebellion and surrender; through the mind you cannot see them meeting anywhere. A man who is surrendered will look nonrebellious. A man who is rebellious will always be disobeying -- how can he surrender? He may die, but he will not surrender.
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…
Osho, you have earlier said, “Live moment to moment, live in the present.” Now you are saying, “Return to the past.” What should we do?
So it is with the mind—there are ruts. The past means endless grooves. However much you understand, your intellect agrees, you make decisions, you resolve—at the moment of resolve you feel something is going to change. But not even an hour passes before your decision breaks. Then only self-condemnation is produced, nothing else. Your saints, your fakirs, your priests and pundits—most of the time they only succeed in producing self-condemnation in you, nothing else. Their words are logically correct. You cannot even say they are wrong; you have to admit they are right. In that admission you take a decision. But against what are you deciding? Inside are grooves carved since who knows when, deep tracks. Walking in them has become a habit. It is easy to walk in them. They will pull you again and again. The meaning of returning into the past is: these grooves must be erased.…
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…
Question: OSHO, WHAT IS THE PLACE OF SURRENDER IN YOUR RELIGION? So the whole neighborhood told me, "Early in the morning for two hours, three hours, he is such a nuisance because he just continues, 'Jai Kali! Jai Kali! Jai Kali!' -- and you know the man and his voice! "Jai Kali means victory to the mother goddess Kali. "And he gets so agitated that he gets louder and louder. First he starts by sitting, and then he stands up. And he almost looks like Kali himself" Kali is a very ugly goddess, a very ugly woman with four hands, with a necklace of human skulls. With one hand she is holding a head, freshly cut off, blood dropping from it; in another hand, a sword. And she is standing on her husband's chest! -- a real woman. The world needs such women.