Q: I am confused. Sri Aurobindo spoke about surrender even on the path of love. Surrender means I am machine and the Divine Mother is the operator (I am following the Divine Will), right? Then it’s She who is performing devotion too. And if individual will is not there , how can devotion happen? I think path of surrender and devotion can’t go together. Gopis of Vrindavan didn’t surrender to the Divine Will. They were devotees only. Please show me ‘how path of surrender to divine will & path of devotion towards divine mother’ acts together?
ALOKDA: Love or devotion without the urge to give oneself and surrender one’s will to the Beloved would be anything but love. In fact I am confused to hear that the Gopis had devotion but no surrender! Radha is considered as the epitome of surrender and so is Mirabai who gave up everything in her love for Sri Krishna. Unless we mean by devotion certain ritual actions with hymns done to please the Deity to get favours. That is calculation if we like but not devotion. Devotion implies fidelity, faithfulness, obedience etc..it means a readiness to obey the Divine Will.
Surrender does not mean one is a machine. A machine does not surrender as it has no choice. Surrender is a glad and conscious and willing process. The Divine does not force us to surrender. When complete it makes us not unconscious automatons or blind machines but conscious instrument and willing transmitters and channels of the Divine. The instrument thus given in the hands of the Divine becomes more and more conscious until by the very force of love and self giving one grows in oneness with the Divine.
In the course of time our ego-self gets dissolved like the outer crust of a seed while the inner seed releases from within it’s Divine possibility making the I grow one with the Divine.
