Mazie

[Guest guest]

, "viorica weissman"

<viorica@z...> wrote:

> dear Mazie,

 

some time ago I read this interview, I find this part of it about

surrender to destiny and the power of surrender, extremely beautiful

and clearly presented; some days ago you wrote a letter about turning

to Ramana in certain painful moments, I wish I were there to hold

your hand strongly and give you all the help that you were asking

for, but these physical distances are such that make such a deed very

difficult or almost impossible to accomplish; I searched the archives

of my lists for this text about the power of surrender, I found it

and here it is, with all my love and care for you,

 

vicki

 

 

Dearest Vicki,

 

You are such a DearHeart! But ahhh, these physical distances are

truly not, for in the thought of Sri Ramana and what you posted the

other day, (and oh so beautiful...) You were on my mind and in my

Heart from that moment. I have been wanting to write and express my

gratitude for your sharing. That time is now, and I bow and say

Namaste, Namaste Dear Friend.

 

Thanks so for the piece you've added from David Godman. Wonderful!

>From Beloved Bhagavan:

 

Realisation is nothing to be gained afresh; it is already

there. All that is necessary is to get rid of the thought 'I

have not realised'.

 

Stillness or peace is realisation. There is no moment

when the Self is not. So long as there is doubt or the feeling

of non-realisation, the attempt should be made to rid oneself

of these thoughts. They are due to the identification of the

Self with the not-Self. When the not-Self disappears, the

Self alone remains. To make room, it is enough that objects

be removed. Room is not brought in from elsewhere.

 

~Sri Ramana Maharshi

 

 

"Be As You Are"

The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi

edited by David Godman

 

 

 

LoveToYouAlways,

 

Mazie

>

>

> --

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>

>

> Maalok: Surrender to God or the Guru is rare in today's times. But

you have mentioned that in your life quite often you simply had to

surrender. Could you give some incidents from your life that

illustrate the feeling of surrender to destiny?

>

>

>

> David Godman :

>

> We all think that we are in charge of our lives, that we are

responsible for our well-being and the well-being of our dependents.

We might acknowledge at a theoretical level that God is in charge of

the world, that God does everything, but that doesn't stop us

planning and scheming and doing. Sometimes, we find something we

can't control - a child may be dying of leukemia despite the best

medical treatment - so we turn to God and ask for divine

intervention. This is not surrender, it's just more doing. It's

seeking an extra resource when all the traditional ones have failed.

>

> Surrender is different. It's acknowledging that God runs the

world every minute of every day, that He is not just an extra

resource, a deus ex machina, that one turns to in times of need.

Surrender is not asking that things be different; it is acceptance

and gratitude for things being the way they are. It's not a grit-your-

teeth stoicism either; it's the experience of joy in God's

dispensation, whatever it might be.

>

> About twenty years ago I read a Christian book entitled Thank

You God. Its basic thesis was that one should continuously thank God

for the way things are right now, not petition Him for things to be

different. That means thanking Him for all the terrible things that

are going on in your life, not just thanking Him for the good stuff

that is coming your way. And this should not just be at the verbal

level. One needs to keep saying 'Thank you, God,' to oneself until

one actually feels a glow of gratitude. When this happens, there are

remarkable and unexpected consequences. Let me give you an example

>

> There was a woman featured in this book whose husband was an

alcoholic. She had organized prayer meetings at her local church in

which everyone had prayed to God, asking Him to stop this man from

drinking. Nothing happened. Then this woman heard about 'Thank you,

God'. She thought, 'Well, nothing else has worked. Let me try this.'

She started saying, 'Thank you God for making my husband an

alcoholic,' and she kept on saying it until she actually began to

feel gratitude inside. Shortly afterwards, her husband stopped

drinking of his own accord and never touched alcohol again.

>

> This is surrender. It's not saying, 'Excuse me God, but I know

better than You, so would You please make this happen,' it's

acknowledging, 'The world is the way You want it to be, and I thank

You for it'.

>

> When this happens in your life, seemingly miraculous things

start happening around you. The power of your own surrender, your own

gratitude, actually changes the things around you. When I first read

about this, I thought, 'This is weird, but it just might work. Let me

try it.' At that point in my life, I had been having problems with

four or five people whom I was trying to do business with. Despite

daily reminders, they were not doing things they had promised to do.

I sat down and started saying 'Thank you Mr X for not doing this job.

Thank you Mr Y for trying to cheat me on that last deal we did,' and

so on. I did this for a couple of hours until I finally did feel a

strong sense of gratitude towards these people. When their image came

up in my mind, I didn't remember all the frustrations I had

experienced in dealing with them. I just had an image of them in my

mind towards which I felt gratitude and acceptance.

>

> The next morning, when I went to work, all of these people

were waiting for me. Usually, I had to go hunting for them in order

to listen to their latest excuse. All of them were smiling, and all

of them had done the jobs I had been pestering them for days to do.

It was an astonishing testimonial to the power of loving acceptance.

Like everyone else, I am still stuck in the world of doing-doing-

doing, but when all my misguided doings have produced an intractable

mess, I try to drop my belief that 'I' have to do something to solve

this problem, and start thanking God for the mess I have made for

myself. A few minutes of this is usually enough to resolve the

thorniest of problems.

>

> When I was sixteen, I took a gliding course. The first time I

was given the controls, the glider was wobbling all over the place

because I was reacting, or I should say over-reacting, to every minor

fluctuation of the machine. Finally, the instructor took the controls

away from me and said 'Watch this'. He put the glider on a level

flight, put the controls in the central position and then let go of

them. The glider flew itself, with no wobbles at all, with no one's

hands on the controls. All my effects were just interfering with the

glider's natural ability to fly itself. That's how life is for all of

us. We persist in thinking that we have to 'do' things, but all our

doings merely create problems.

>

> I am not claiming that I have learned to take my hand off the

controls of life and let God pilot my life for me, but I do remember

all this, with wry amusement, when problems (all self-inflicted, of

course) suddenly appear. A couple of weeks ago, for example, I found

myself in the middle of a publishing drama that seemed to be utterly

insoluble. It was such a mess, I didn't even try to talk to all the

people involved. I went instead to Sri Ramana's samadhi, put the

manuscript in front of it, and explained what had happened. I thanked

him for the drama and added, 'This is your responsibility, not mine'.

I had my eyes closed when I said this. When I opened them, an old

friend was there, offering me some chocolate-chip cookies, something

that had never happened before. I took them as Ramana's prasad. Later

that day the problem was solved in five minutes. All the protagonists

(who had been immovable antagonists the day before) came together and

the work was completed amicably in record time.

>

>

>

> www.davidgodman.org

>

> =========================================

>

> MillionPaths/

>

>

>

> NamoRamana

[Guest guest]

, "mazie_l" <sraddha54@h...>

wrote:

 

 

Namaste,

 

God does no work in the universe but provide the energy. Karma does

the work there is only karma and prana in the relative. Surrender is

accepting this fact and adjusting one's attitude, for that is all

one can adjust.

Read Ramana for the three levels of creation theory and one will

understand this. Some people need the path of devotion otherwise

they feel lonely, that is why only rarely did Ramana talk in Nirguna

terms. He mostly talked in Saguna/Self terms. The Buddha on the

other hand taught Nirguna/Nirvana.....the ultimate truth as in

Ramana's third theory of creation---it didn't happen at

all.......ONS..Tony.