Question 5:

Is Surrender a Learning Process or a Happening?

 

 

For you, it is going to be a learning process. For me, it is a happening. If I say it is a happening, you will say, “Then what can we do? We have to wait” — and you will wait as you are. It has not happened up to now because, the way you are, it cannot happen. You will wait in the same way. It will never happen.

 

I know it is a happening, but it happens in right moments. It happens when you are in a tuned existence. It happens when you are harmonious, when you are not a chaos, a conflict, but in a deep harmony.

 

Yes, it cannot be learned. Because who will learn it? You? — you are the barrier. And a learned barrier is even more of a barrier than an ignorant one. Who will practice it? All that is practiced is practiced by the ego. The ego is strengthened through all practices. So you cannot, in fact, learn it. You have to allow it.

 

But that allowing has to be learned! You have to give way, and you are very stubborn. All that can be learned is a learning in a negative sense. Just like giving way: allowing, not resisting. These things have to be learned. Once you have learned these things, surrender happens.

 

Surrender is nothing that you can do… but you can prevent. This has to be understood. It is just like you are sitting in your room: it is dark and the doors are closed. The light is waiting outside. You open the doors. When you open the doors, the light comes in. Not that you bring it in. How can you bring it in? There is no way. How can you bring the light in? You just open the door: it comes in. Coming-in happens, but the opening of the door has to be done. That is the negative part of it.

 

You have to learn how to let go, you have to learn how to relax, you have to learn how not to resist, how not to be stubborn, how not to be negative when God knocks at your door. How to say YES and not say NO — that has to be learned.

 

And remember, God knocks every moment. Every beat of the heart may be His knocking. Every time you breathe in, He goes in; and every time you move, He surrounds you. He is always by the corner. Jesus goes on saying: “Return, repent, the kingdom of God is at hand.” AT HAND is the emphasis.

 

Surrender cannot be learned, it is a happening. And it is good that it is a happening. If you could learn it, it would be less than you. It is such a vast phenomenon. It is not like a drop falling in the ocean. It is just the reverse: the ocean falling in the drop, God descending in you.

 

You just have to be not trembling and afraid, that’s all. When He comes you say, “Yes, come in. Welcome.” Bow down. Open the doors of your heart, be vulnerable. Let Him move through and through you.

 

You can learn how to let go; you cannot learn how to surrender. When you are in a let-go, suddenly one day…. Nobody can predict when. Don’t be concerned about it; the’when’ is irrelevant. When you are waiting, in a let-go, one day the tuning happens. By and by, you are becoming one with the whole; the fear is disappearing. You are no longer defensive, you are no longer afraid. You say, “Everything is welcome.”

 

That’s why I go on telling you: learn to say YES more. And watch: your NO is too much. In fact, your very tendency is always to say NO. You say YES, but very reluctantly; you say NO with great gusto. Your NO has power; your YES is almost impotent. You have to say it, that’s why you say. If there was any possibility to say NO, you would have said NO.

 

Become a yea-sayer. Not only verbally, but existentially. Allow more and more yes in your being. That’s what I call being a theist. A theist is one who says yes. A moment comes when he says YES even to suffering, even to pain, even to death. Then you are completely vulnerable. You are not defending yourself: you have no armor around you; you are totally naked. In that moment, someday, sometime, somewhere, tuning happens. You are in tune with the whole, and the whole drops in you. It is a happening.

 

You cannot learn it. And it is good that you cannot learn it, otherwise you would make it a technique. It is not a technique. Finally, all that is beautiful, true and good is nontechnical. You cannot make a technology out of it. That’s what religions have been doing — trying to create a technology — and they have destroyed everything beautiful.

 

A prayer is nontechnical. It is a heart-to-heart talk. Or, a silence between two hearts. It is a deep understanding, a reverence. A feeling of the presence of the unknown all around, a deep reverence. You may not say a single word. In fact, how can you say anything? When you are really in deep reverence, all words look useless; all words look like a disturbance. When the silence and the music of silence surrounds you, to say a word will be foolish. You are in deep awe. Everything stops. Then, there is prayer.

 

Churches and temples go on teaching you prayer. They tell you how to do it. It cannot be done that way. That way you can learn something which is absolutely false, pseudo. All that is great, all that is beyond, happens. It is nothing to do with your doing.

 

But don’t misunderstand me and don’t think: then what is the point of doing anything? Meditating, praying — what is the point? No, I am simply saying: you will have to meditate, you will have to pray, you will have to do many things to prepare yourself. When the cup is ready, God pours himself in you. You cannot force Him to pour himself, that’s perfectly true, but you have to prepare the cup. You will have to produce the cup from your heart.

 

He is already pouring. It has never been otherwise. He is raining, He is pouring, but your cup is not ready. Or, even if it is ready, it is upside down. He goes on pouring, and you remain empty. You are doing a SHIRSHASAN, a headstand. He goes on pouring but your cup cannot receive. It is not in the right position where contact is possible.

 

Learn how to be a cup. Learn how to put the cup rightside up.

 

- Osho, “Come Follow To You, Vol 2, #10, Q5”