Help on the Quest for Self-realization-Reminders-63

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Help on the Quest for Self-realization-Reminders-63

 

PATH AND DOCTRINE - PART II-CONCLUSION

 

THE PATH OF SURRENDER

 

By Arthur Osborne in "Be Still, It Is The Wind That Sings"

 

There are many who are drawn rather to a path of love, devotion and

surrender than to one of inner quest, that is of Self-enquiry. For

them too the Maharshi reduced his teaching to the simplest essential

when he said: "There are two ways: ask yourself `Who am I?' or

submit." No matter whether the ego submits to God with form or

without form or whether in the form taught by one religion or

another, so long as it utterly and completely submits. But what can

induce it to submit? Not the hope of any heavenly reward, because

that would be bargaining, not submission. Only love can evoke

submission; therefore the path of surrender is also the path of love.

 

For people who take this path also Bhagavan composed a scriptural

basis for it; in this case The Marital Garland of Letters to Sri

Arunachala, that is the first of the Five Hymns to Arunachala.

Before speaking of this path, however, let us anticipate an

objection. That is that philosophers have written countless books

and articles, and still do, maintaining that God is either the very

Self of you or totally other than you, each side denouncing the

other and declaring it at fault. How then can a Master regard it as

a mere matter of temperament which one believes? How can he offer a

choice to his followers? Ought he not to state definitely that one

is right and the other wrong?

 

Actually, the reason for disagreement is only that the two

declarations are inadequately worded. Is Supreme Being the very Self

of me or totally other than me? We obviously cannot answer that

until we know who or what is the `me' about whom the question is

asked. The very self of whom? Other than whom? So once again we are

driven back to Self-enquiry. I feel myself to be an individual

entity with likes and dislikes, abilities and disabilities, before a

vast Presence, an illimitable Potency, which I can only dimly

apprehend. Can that presence be the same as Me? It is certainly not

the same as this individual entity; but is this individual entity

the reality of me? It was not here before birth; it will not be

after death; it has grown and evolved and will decay and

disintegrate. The mistake, then, as I said in speaking of verse 2 of

the Forty Verses, is not in supposing there to be a God separate

from me but in supposing there to be a me separate from God.

There are only two things to do: one is to sacrifice this apparent

individual entity (as Bhagavan declared even in speaking of the Path

of Knowledge when he said that it must be devoured by God); the

other is to find out what is the reality of me. The answer is not a

form of words but an experience. It is better to have it than to

describe it. The individual yearns for its own destruction in Union

with the Universal. Bhagavan says in the Garland: "Unite with me to

destroy Thee and me and bless me with ever-vibrant joy,

Arunachala!"10 The destruction of separate selves is the gateway to

ever-vibrant joy. The whole tone of the two scriptures is different.

Where the Forty Verses were hard as granite and sharp as steel, the

Garland is one of the great mystical love poems of all time. Never

have I read anything so moving and compelling, even in translation.

 

Death is promised, but at the same time resurrection: "Hast thou not

bartered Thyself for me? Oh, Thou art death to me, Arunachala!"11

But it is I who am the gainer by the exchange: "Thou art the Primal

Being while I count not in this or the other world. What didst Thou

gain then by my worthless self, Oh Arunachala?"12

 

The loss of individual entity is the gain of Divine identity: "The

moment Thou didst welcome me, didst enter into me and grant me Thy

divine life, I lost my individuality, Oh Arunachala!"13 Thus the two

paths come to the same goal. The difference is rather of emphasis.

In the Path of Knowledge initiative is rather with the seeker: "To

seek and abide in the Reality that is always attained is the only

Attainment."14 In the Path of Surrender the burden of initiative is

thrown on the Lord, though even so some effort must be made: "Weak

though my effort was, by Thy Grace I gained the Self, Oh

Arunachala!"15 In the same sense, Bhagavan has said ( and it remains

true now as in his lifetime): "Submit to me and I will strike down

the mind." Probing into the Truth behind one's apparent individual

entity and sacrificing that apparent entity in love to God both lead

to the illimitable bliss of Pure Being. Theorizing about the outcome

leads nowhere.

 

And what, it might be asked, of the other two paths, yoga marga and

karma marga; did Bhagavan not teach them also? It is of the very

essence of this new development of Hinduism that ritual and

technique are simplified to the utmost to make it available to those

also who are not Hindus or who, being Hindus, are more or less cut

off form the traditional forms of Hinduism. It would have been

incongruous, therefore, if Bhagavan who brought this development to

its completion, had given instruction in a highly technical approach

such as yoga. Indeed, he specifically says in Self-enquiry: "As

there are elaborate treatises on the elements of ashtanga yoga, only

as much as is necessary is written here. Any one who desires to know

more must resort to a practicing yogi and learn from him in

detail".16

 

Karma marga, on the other hand, in the sense of disinterested,

harmonious action, free from self-interest, doing what is right

simply because it is right, regardless of praise or blame, profit or

loss as Sri Krishna taught Arjuna in the Gita, is particularly

suited to modern times; and both the paths that Bhagavan taught,

Jnana and Bhakti, were to be combined with karma marga. It is

possible to follow either of them as a recluse shut off from the

world, but that was not Bhagavan's teaching. Time and again some one

would ask his authorization to renounce the world, but he did not

give it. He always taught that the battle was to be fought in the

life of the world, in the midst of family and professional life. "If

you renounce it will only substitute the thought of renunciation for

that of the family and environment of the forest for that of the

household. But the mental obstacles are always there for you. They

even increase greatly in the new surroundings. Change of environment

is no help. The one obstacle is the mind, and this must be overcome

whether in the home or the forest. If you can do it in the forest,

why not in the home? So why change the environment? Your efforts can

be made even now, whatever the environment."17

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10 Marital Garland of Letters, v. 56 (from the Collected Works of

Ramana Maharshi).

11 Ibid., v. 62.

12 Ibid., v. 93.

13 Ibid., v. 95.

14 Forty Verses, v. 35.

15 Marital Garland, v. 45.

16 Self-Enquiry, p. 25.

17 Maharshi's Gospel, Vol. 1, p. 6.