Ramana Maharshi about complete Surrender to God

[Guest guest]

D - Devotee

B - Ramana Maharshi

 

D.: What is unconditional surrender?

 

B.: If one surrenders completely, there will be no one left to ask questions or

to be considered. Either the thoughts are eliminated by holding on to the root

thought, ‘I’, or one surrenders unconditionally to the Higher Power. These are

the only two ways to Realisation.

 

B.: There are only two ways to conquer destiny or to be independent of it. One

is to enquire whose this destiny is and to discover that only the ego is bound

by it and not the Self, and that the ego is non-existent. The other way is to

kill the ego by completely surrendering to the Lord, realising one’s

helplessness and saying all the time: ‘Not I, but Thou, oh Lord!’, giving up all

sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ and leaving it to the Lord to do what he likes with you.

Surrender can never be regarded as complete so long as the devotee wants this or

that from the Lord. True surrender is the love of

God for the sake of love and nothing else, not even for the sake of

salvation. In other words, complete effacement of the ego is necessary to

conquer destiny, whether you achieve this effacement through Self-enquiry or

through bhakti-marga.

 

The spark of spiritual knowledge (Jnana) will consume all creation like a

mountain-heap of cotton. Since all the countless worlds are built upon the weak

or non-existent foundations of the ego, they all disintegrate when the atom-bomb

of knowledge falls on them. All talk of surrender is like stealing sugar from a

sugar image of Ganesha and then offering it to the same Ganesha. You say that

you offer up your body and soul and all your possessions to God, but were they

yours to offer? At best you can say: ‘I wrongly imagined till now that all

these, which are Yours, were mine. Now I realise that they are Yours and I shall

no longer act as though they were mine.’ And this knowledge that there is

nothing but God or the Self, that ‘I’ and ‘mine’ do not exist and that only the

Self exists, is Jnana.

 

It is enough that one surrenders oneself. Surrender is giving oneself up to the

original cause of one’s being. Do not delude yourself by imagining this source

to be some God outside you. One’s source is within oneself. Give yourself up to

it. That means that you should seek the source and merge in it. Because you

imagine yourself to be out of it, you raise the question, ‘Where is the source?’

Some contend that just as sugar cannot taste its own sweetness for there must be

someone to taste and enjoy it, so an individual cannot both be the Supreme and

also enjoy the Bliss of that State; therefore

the individuality must be maintained separate from the Godhead in order to make

enjoyment possible. But is God insentient like sugar? How can one surrender

oneself and yet retain one’s individuality for supreme enjoyment? Furthermore

they also say that the soul,on reaching the divine region and remaining there,

serves the supreme Being. Can the sound of the word ‘service’ deceive the Lord?

Does He not know? Is He waiting for these people’s services? Would He not – Pure

Consciousness – ask in turn: ‘Who are you apart from Me that presume to serve

Me?’

 

As often as one tries to surrender, the ego raises its head and one has to try

to suppress it. Surrender is not an easy thing. Killing the ego is not an easy

thing. It is only when God Himself by His Grace draws the mind inwards that

complete surrender can be achieved.

 

Dr. Syed asked Bhagavan: Doesn’t total or complete surrender imply that even

desire for liberation or God should be given up?

 

B.: Complete surrender does imply that you should have no desire of your own,

that God’s will alone is your will and you have no will of your own.

 

Dr. S.: Now that I am satisfied on that point, I want to know what are the steps

by which I can achieve surrender?

 

B.: There are two ways; one is looking into the source of the ‘I’ and

merging into that source; the other is feeling ‘I am helpless by myself. God

alone is all-powerful and except for throwing myself completely on Him there is

no other means of safety for me,’ and thus gradually developing the conviction

that God alone exists and the ego does not count. Both methods lead to the same

goal. Complete surrender is another name for Jnana or Liberation.

 

D.: I find surrender impossible.

 

B.: Complete surrender is impossible in the beginning but partial surrender is

possible for all. In course of time that will lead to complete surrender.

 

B.: Whoever objects to his having a separate God to worship so long as he needs

one? Through devotion he develops until he comes to feel that God alone exists,

and that he himself does not count. He comes to a stage when he says. ‘Not I but

Thou; not my will, but Thine’. When that stage is reached,which is called

complete surrender in bhakti marga, one finds that effacement of the ego is the

attainment of the Self. We need not quarrel whether there are two entities or

more or only one. Even according to dualists and according to bhakti marga,

complete surrender is necessary. Do that first and then see for yourself whether

the one Self alone exists or whether there are two or more.

 

Source: The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words book

 

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Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prasanth Jalasutram