surrender your notion of ‘I’ and ‘mine’

[Guest guest]

Day by Day with Bhagavan________31-3-45 AfternoonIt seems a visitor, the Raja of Sivaghar in U.P., toldBhagavan that he had surrendered himself to Bhagavan andBhagavan should give him jnana. Bhagavan referred to an articleon Nama Dev's insistence on the importance of the Lord's name,in the September 1937 issue of Vision, where it is pointed outthat only when the `I', the ego, is surrendered the significanceof the Lord's name will be realized. When I entered the hall thestory of how Ashtavakra Gita came to be taught was beingrecounted in English, for the benefit of the above Raja and othervisitors. After the story was read out, Bhagavan said, "BecauseBrahma jnana is not something external, which is somewherefar away where you can go and get it, you cannot say that itwill take so long or so short a time to attain it. It is always withyou. You are That! The story of Ashtavakra Gita is intended toteach that for getting Brahma jnana all that is necessary is tosurrender yourself completely to the guru, to surrender yournotion of `I' and `mine'. If these are surrendered, what remainsis the Reality. Then, it becomes impossible to state what furthertime it would take to attain Brahma jnana. It would be wrongto state that it takes as much time as a man would require to puthis other foot into the second stirrup after having placed onefoot in the first stirrup. The moment when ego is completelysurrendered, the Self shines."Proceeding, Bhagavan quoted the last two lines of thefollowing stanza from Yoga Vasishta: "(non-english script)" which state that unless the cloud of the `I' or`ego-sense' which covers the moon of the Divine consciousness(chidakasa) is removed, the lily of the heart which knows nothingof the sense of `I' (ahankara) will not open out in full bloom.Bhagavan also added, "We have to contend against agelongsamskaras. They will all go. Only, they gocomparatively soon in the case of those who have alreadymade sadhana in the past, and late in the case of the others."In this connection I asked, "Do these samskaras go graduallyor will they suddenly disappear one day? I ask this, becausethough I have remained fairly long here I do not perceiveany gradual change in me." Bhagavan asked, "When the sunrises, does the darkness go gradually or all at once?"Another visitor asked, "How to conquer passions?"Bhagavan said, "If the passions are something external to uswe can take arms and ammunition and conquer them. Theyall come from within us. If, by looking into the source whencethey issue, we see that they don't come out of us, we shallconquer them. It is the world and the objects in it that arouseour passions. But the world and these objects are only createdby our mind. They don't exist during our sleep."After all this talk Bhagavan drank a little water from hiskamandalam and turning to his attendant enquired whetherhe had already drunk some water (i.e., after he returned to thehall about 3-30 P.M.). The attendant said `yes', and thereuponBhagavan said he had forgotten it, and to make sure he dranksome again. He further added, almost in an unguardedmoment, as he rarely gives expression to such experiences ofhis, that sometimes he does not even know whether it ismorning, mid-day or evening and has to look at the clock andtry to remember before he knows what time of day it is. Onone occasion, he has told me that he scratched his skin, wherethere was eczema once, as we scratch during sleep. And oncewhen I was concerned over some physical pain of his, he toldme he feels that pain (n-e script), i.e., it was apassing and faint experience like that in a dream. These areclues to the sort of life Bhagavan leads in our midst, seemingto act and move and feel as we do, but really living in a worldof his own where the things we experience don't exist.