From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 30. SURRENDER: THE EGO UPSIDE DOWN
integrity. He told the palace, ”Nobody should disturb me. Whatsoever time it takes, I am going to
find what this man says.”
For three days he remained in isolation. The fourth day he came out, radiant, and went to Buddha.
And when Buddha saw him, Buddha said, ”Now there is no need to drop anything because what
you have found cannot be dropped. I can see it on your face, in your eyes. I was telling you to drop
that which you were not.” But you cannot drop it unless you find who you are. And the moment you
find who you are there is no need to drop it, it simply drops of its own accord.
Let me repeat your question: you ask me, ”What is the place of surrender in Your religion?” From
my side, there is no place.
I do not ask you to surrender. I ask you to seek and search your being.
Surrender will happen, but it will be a happening, not a doing. Neither I will ask you for surrender
nor have you to do it. But what I am asking you to do, if you do it, surrender is going to happen. And
when it happens of its own accord then it is a totally different phenomenon, qualitatively different.
Then it is not ego pretending to be humble and meek and surrendered. Then it is a state of no-ego.
The ego disappears in a very simple way. It is just like you are doing some arithmetic and for two
plus two you put five. Somebody draws your attention to the fact that two plus two are four, not five,
and you see the point. Do you have to drop five? Will it take effort to drop five? – some struggle,
some austerities, some fasting? You simply erase it. It was just a mistake, and you will write four.
The ego is just a mistake – just like two plus two is equal to five. Just like that, when you look inwards
and search for the real self, you come to know that two plus two is four, not five. Nothing has to be
dropped, but something has disappeared from you. Something that was continuously pretending
to be your self, something that was destroying your whole life, something that was messing up
everything is found no more.
When the ego is not found, I call that surrender from your side; it is not part of my religion. I will
not ask you to surrender, but I will ask you something else which brings the surrender of its own
accord. But then you are not humble, you are not meek, you are very grounded, very centered, very
self-respectful. And only a man who is self-respectful is capable of respecting others.
The man who respects himself cannot humiliate anybody else, because he knows that the same
self is hidden in every being, even in the trees and the rocks. Perhaps it is fast asleep in the rock,
but that doesn’t matter; it is the same existence in different forms.
A man who respects himself suddenly finds himself respecting the whole universe.
He cannot humiliate anybody, he cannot be disrespectful to anybody.
But remember – he is not humble, he is not meek; you cannot exploit him in the name of meekness
and humbleness. He will not allow you to put him in a position of humility, and he will not care about
your kingdom of God.
From Ignorance to Innocence 451 Osho