Drop the Ego
Osho on 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 to follow anyone. But he has forgotten one thing: these people will follow their egos, these people will not rebel against their egos, these people will not be disobedient to their egos. So a strange phenomenon I have experienced: the people who have been around Krishnamurti, all have become firm egoists. They cannot surrender; surrender is wrong. They cannot trust, they cannot become a disciple. The whole teaching has backfired. Krishnamurti completely forgot that what he is saying is satisfying to the ego of the people.
What I am saying to you is absolutely against you!
You have to disappear for your real being to appear and function.
Surrender, trust, are just devices. If you can do it without those devices, they are not needed. If you can drop your ego… it is very simple; there is no reason to go to a master. The master is only a device. Because he is so humble, so wise, so insightful, it is easy to put your ego at his feet. The master is only a device. Sometimes it has happened that the master was not himself enlightened, but the disciple became enlightened — a very strange phenomenon. One cannot even conceive how an unenlightened master could help somebody to become enlightened; he has not been able to help himself. But the reason is that he cannot help anybody to be enlightened, or to remain unenlightened; he is only a device. The question is of totality on the part of the disciple.
Let me tell you a story….
Marpa, one of Tibet’s great mystics, went to a master who was well-known for his learning, his scholarship. Marpa was a very humble and simple person, very clear as to what he knows and what he does not know, never pretending, “I know it,” when he knew perfectly well that he did not know.
He surrendered to the master. Seeing his great knowledge, learning, so many thousands of disciples, he surrendered totally.
After a few days the disciples became upset with Marpa, because he was walking on water, flying in the air, jumping from the high peaks of Himalayan mountains into the valleys without any trouble. They reported to the master, “This man seems to be very strange. He must be a magician or perhaps the devil incarnate.” And they were all jealous of him.
The master inquired of Marpa, “What is your secret? How do you walk on water?”
Marpa said, “you are asking me? I just use your name; and I am surrendered to you, and you make me walk on water. Just your name is enough, and I can fly in the air. Your name is enough, and I can jump from the highest mountain peak!”
The master was not an enlightened person, but certainly a great scholar. He thought to himself — which was logical — “If my name has so much magic in it, I should try it.”
But the first step in the water — and he started to drown. He was shouting his name loudly, but nothing happened. His disciples saved him.
And Marpa said, “This is strange. But now I understand what has happened: It is not the master; it is my surrender, it is my egolessness. The master was only a device. It does not matter to me whether he is enlightened or not — I am grateful to him. His name helped me. I suspect that now I cannot walk on the water with his name, and I am not going to do that anymore.
“But perhaps now there is no need. I can walk without any name, because I know the secret. The secret is egolessness. The master was only a device that helped.”
In life there are only two possibilities, and they are polar opposites, as you say: ego and egolessness. That’s why I don’t use the word `surrender,’ because that brings the other person in, and you start thinking in polar opposites. Both the polar opposites are within you, so I talk about ego and egolessness. Then things become simple. Drop the ego and be egoless. No surrender is needed. In egolessness, you are surrendered to existence itself. And that is the greatest miracle that can happen to a man. Then nothing is impossible.
Source:
Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.
Discourse Series: From Death to Deathlessness
Chapter #36
Chapter title: Rise in Love
10 September 1985 am in Rajneeshmandir
References:
Osho has spoken on ‘surrender, master, disciple’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:
- A Bird on the Wing
- The Osho Upanishad
- The Secret
- Sufis: The People of the Path
- The Ultimate Alchemy
- Zen: The Path of Paradox
- Tao: The Pathless Path
- The Perfect Master
