Trust means you are not fighting; surrender means you don’t think of life as the enemy but as the friend. Once you trust the river, suddenly you start enjoying. Tremendous delight arises: splashing, swimming, or just floating, or diving deep. But you are not separate from the river, you merge, you become one.

 

Surrender means to live the same way in life as a good swimmer swims in the river. Life is a river. Either you can fight or you can float; either you can push the river and try to go against the current or you can float with the river and go wherever the river leads you.

 

Surrender is not towards somebody; it is simply a way of life. A God is not needed to surrender to. There are religions which believe in God, there are religions which don’t believe in God, but all religions believe in surrender. So surrender is the real God.

 

Even the concept of God can be discarded. Buddhism does not believe in any God, Jainism does not believe in any God — but they are religions. Christianity believes in God, Islam believes in God, Sikhism believes in God — they are also religions. The Christian teaches surrender to God; God is just an excuse to surrender. It is a help, because it will be difficult for you to surrender without any object. The object is just an excuse so that in the name of God you can surrender. Buddhism says simply surrender — there is no God. You relax. It is not a question of some object, it is a question of your own subjectivity. Relax, don’t fight. Accept.

 

The belief in God is not needed. In fact, the word “belief” is ugly. It does not show trust, it does not show faith — belief is almost the very opposite of faith. The word ‘belief’ comes from a root “lief” — “lief” means to desire, to wish. Now let me explain it to you. You say, “I believe in God the compassionate.” What exactly are you saying? You are saying, “I wish there was a God who is compassionate.” Whenever you say, “I believe,” you say, “I intensely desire.” But you don’t know.

 

If you know, there is no question of belief. Do you believe in the trees here? Do you believe in the sun which arises every morning? Do you believe in the stars? There is no question of belief. You know that the sun is there, that the trees are there. Nobody believes in the sun — if he did, you would say he is mad. If somebody came and said, “I believe in the sun,” and tried to convert you, you would say, “You have gone mad!”

 

-Osho, "Ancient Music in the Pines, Discourse #4, Q1"