"If you are stiff and tense you will be drowned, if you are relaxed the river takes care.

"That's why whenever somebody dies, the dead body floats on the water. This is a miracle. Amazing! Alive, the person died and was drowned by the river, but dead, the person simply floats on the surface. What has happened? The dead person knows some secret about the river which the alive person did not know. The alive person was fighting. The river was the enemy. He was afraid, he could not trust. But the dead person, not being there, how could he fight? The dead person is totally relaxed, with no tension: suddenly the body surfaces, the river takes care. No river can drown a dead person.

"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 any 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."