Surrender and "letting go of the fear".

[Guest guest]

Dear Brian,

 

If I may, I would like to add a couple of comments to your

insightful discussion of surrender and fear, You have used phrases

like: "Letting go of the fear"---"I think I derived this line of

thought to stop feeling"---"Surrender is merely the mental", etc.

There is another point of view than that implied in these phrases:

 

Thought is electrical, as it were, and, as such it can be "let go

of", "denied", "risin above", "suppressed", etc. with impunity. As an

electrical blip racing through our brain circuitry, by an act of will

we can simply stop it.

 

Emotion-feeling, however, is "magnetic" i.e. it is a part of our

energy body, and, as such, we don't "get rid of it" we can only

culture it. Any attempt to repress emotional energy results in its

becoming locked up in a cyst form where it leaks poison, and deprives

us of that quantum of usable energy, chit-shakti. A lifetime of this

would only result in another weak and neurotic talking head of which

the world is presently full. And that one would go out into the next

incarnation like a scatterload of buckshot.

 

The lack of a clear distinction between the real characteristics of

thought and feeling has been the nine hundred pound gorrila in yin

yang relations. It has profound implications in the relation between

the sexes, the supression of women in secular and religious life

throughtout history, and confusion and frustrating ineffectivenes in

spiritual efforts.

 

Surrender is the beginning of spiritual life, and fear

(Mahadbhaya-Great Fear) comes at the end. A devotee needs both wings

to soar into the Beyond.

 

We begin by offering-surrendering the best of everything to God,

including the best of our thoughts and our purest feelings. But a

devotee doesn't take personal responsility for the less-than-perfect

elements in his nature, and try to deal with them himself, he offers

them as well. All that exists comes from God, and God alone is

responsible for it.

 

God alone can perfectly purify our thoughts, and culture and ennoble

our emotions if we resign them, with no duplicity, to Him. But we can

not offer to God what we have repressed, or ""gotten rid of, because

we have thereby made that portion of ourself unconscious, and

therefore unavailable for surrender.

 

For the highest worshipper, anything that is not God-even His Divine

gifts-is offered on the altar of that devotee's Heart. Until God, and

God alone, exists in that Heart.

 

At some point in the life of surrender, Mother Kali will appear with

Her well-known Sword, and a Fear will rise up greater than any other

fear. If, and only if, that devotee's surrender has been thorough and

complete, he will be able to offer even that Great Fear, that Final

Death, at Her Feet, and She will walk away smiling with another head

on her garland of saints and avadhutas.

 

With love and highest regards,

 

Tanmaya

[Guest guest]

Tanmaya,

 

Thank you for this series of comments. See this excerpt from an early

one. I have attached something I sent to Swamiji in July that I think

is related. OM

 

, "ty_maa" <ds.james@c...> wrote:

God alone can perfectly purify our thoughts, and culture and ennoble

our emotions if we resign them, with no duplicity, to Him. But we can

not offer to God what we have repressed, or ""gotten rid of, because

we have thereby made that portion of ourself unconscious, and

therefore unavailable for surrender.

 

For the highest worshipper, anything that is not God-even His Divine

gifts-is offered on the altar of that devotee's Heart. Until God, and

God alone, exists in that Heart.

-----------------

 

My Lord

 

How will you free us my Lord,

when we are all turned in on ourselves in confusing knots of

questions and samskaras, habits, yearnings, and pleadings?

 

How will you free us my Lord,

when we follow not your instruction and

kick our feet in the dust at the start of your path?

 

How will you free us my Lord,

when we cry like children to be carried, but

are big enough to walk?

 

How can we free ourselves from our own prisons, my Lord,

when our mind-wardens have parted from our control?

Shakti is incomplete without Shiva.

 

Some miracle of grace I seek,

as I smother with windows tightly closed;

cry through the bars of this prison, while neglecting to fully turn

the key.

 

Have you any compassion my Lord?

If you will not open the window nor will you turn the key,

Will you at least remove this karma that stands in my way?

 

How can the broken doctor set his own bones?

How can the hungry child work the fields to grow food to eat?

If not by your hand my Lord, then how will I be released?

 

You control the grace of healing.

You control the rain and the sunshine that nurtures the food.

You are the Guru. You are Shiva.

 

Om Namah Shivayah

Shiva Nama Aum

Guru Nama Aum

Shree Maa Nama Aum

Babaji Nama Aum

Swamiji Nama Aum

Om

 

SG 7.6.05