On Surrender

Surrender means many things which can be arranged in a graded manner. First of all, it means handing over the responsibility of one’s life and destiny. even of one’s work and sadhana, to the Divine. What this means is that one cultivates an attitude of acceptance and equanimity, even of gratitude for all that happens in one’s life living with the trust that everything that happens in one’s life including all the ordeals and struggles are a Grace and that the Divine knows its true purpose which will be revealed to us slowly as our surrender increases in its scope and details. This of course does not mean that one stops making efforts. That would be a tamasic state and nothing good or useful can come out of inertia and laziness. What it means instead is that I do my efforts, try to do my best (and there is always a better than the best) but as for the result I shall depend entirely on the Divine. Here we are using our personal will but the result is given to the Divine to decide and determine what may emerge out of it.

Next we surrender our personal will that was moved by various kinds of desires and impulses ad learn to wait for the right inspiration to move us for action. This right inspiration is greatly facilitated by the emergence of the psychic being, the secret soul in man and it should be the first goal of our efforts since it is only with this that the surrender tends to become true and complete. The mind can otherwise always give all kinds of favourable explanations and mistake its own veiled or colored desires for the true guidance and the right inspiration. However even if this takes time as indeed it does our surrender must enter into the details of life and its varied activities. This will take the form of offering all that we do and even think and feel to the Mother for Her alchemic touch. We can do this through an aspiration calling in Her Name at the beginning and the end of the activity and as often as we can in the middle. This may start with the day and main activities until it includes all the mundane and trivial activities right up to our sleep. Remember and Offer is the mantra here.

Finally, the most important surrender is the surrender of our character, our way of being. We are all built in a certain way, what we call as our character and believe that it cannot be changed. But by a constant offering of all that we are with an aspiration for change towards more beauty, more light, more truth and by becoming open and plastic to Her touch not opposing as the self-sufficient intellect and the recalcitrant vital does we can slowly begin to be reshaped in Her image and become what she wants us to be. However, by then our consciousness has grown beyond personal limits and hence the process of surrender has to also extend to all that enters into our ken from the universe thereby facilitating the ascension of everything through our being now surrendered to Her.