Technology of Surrender🔗

18.16 Those who think they, their body and spirit, are the doers, are ignorant and do not see things as they are.

In these verses, Krishna gives the exact technology of surrender.

These two slokas can be called stotra, sastra and sutra. Sastra shows the goal. Stotra is devotion. Sutra gives the technology. So these verses give the technology of surrender.

Krishna lists five factors from Sankhya philosophy responsible for our activities. These are the mind-body system, operator of the mind-body system (i.e., the individual), the senses, different efforts causing the activities and finally the ultimate power of God. All activities, right or wrong, good or bad, are caused by these five factors. If, however, the individual considers himself to be the doer, his body and mind, he is not aware.

Krishna uses the word atman while saying that one who perceives one's spirit or Self as the agent, the doer, or the performer, does not see and is not aware. Krishna draws a distinction between individual Self and Cosmic Energy. He differentiates between atman and Brahman, manav and Daivam, nara and Narayana, between self and Parasakti.

Krishna concludes that while philosophical discussion mentions five players in all activities, the ultimate controller is the Divine. We are immersed in our mind-body-spirit system and caught in our sensory perceptions and believe that we are the power behind all that we do. So long as we are in this deluded belief, we are rooted in ignorance.

Whatever you understand as yourself, your body-mind-spirit system is the totality of many things. And individually each is responsible for something. In spite of this, you think that 'you' are responsible for the whole thing. That is where trouble starts. Krishna gives the technology for the deeper levels of surrender.

As we saw earlier there are three levels of surrender. First is intellectual surrender. This means you accept that the Master's intellect is sharper than your intellect; His intellect is of a higher order than yours. This is intellectual surrender.

Next is emotional surrender. This is trusting that the Master's guidance in the emotional plane is more intelligent than your emotions. The third is surrendering the senses, your cognition or the root of cognition itself.

Surrendering the intellect is easy because it continuously tortures you. You have suffered with the intellect for many years. You want to get rid of it. So you surrender it. Surrendering the intellect is easy. When you see somebody more intelligent and with clearer thinking, you just surrender.

For example, when you hire a consultant, you surrender to his ideas. When you take on a lawyer, you surrender to his ideas because you know his intellect is sharper than yours in that field. The same happens when you go to an accountant. In the spiritual field also, when

you see a person who knows more, you surrender your intellect to that person. That is not a big thing. Surrendering intellectually happens easily. Most of the time you want to get rid of your intellect. Finding somebody to dump your intellect on allows you to relax from it.

Next comes emotional surrender. This happens when you feel deeply connected to the Master after experiencing some meditation or understanding. You respect His emotions more than your own. Master's emotions mean the things He guides you in, the way He wants you to live.

You give more importance to these things than what you think of as life. Slowly He becomes the center of your life. You respect Him more than other emotional attachments. Priorities shift. The Master comes in as the number one priority on your emotional level. Emotional surrender is when you feel totally connected at the emotional level.

Next is a deeper level of surrender. After listening to these seventeen days of discourses, you can understand this deeper level of surrender. This is the level of the senses. The surrender of the senses means that your senses listen to what He says. Normally, when you listen to me, a filter in your mind discounts what you do not agree with. You hear what you want to hear. However, when intellectual and emotional surrender happen, you are ready to surrender this disbelief and unblock your senses.

During ancient times, a disciple asked his Master, 'Why should I surrender?'

The Master asked, 'How do you know whatever you think you know about yourself?'

The disciple replied, 'I know myself through my senses.'

The Master asked, 'Who do you think you are according to your senses?'

The disciple said, 'As far as I know, I am the body and mind.'

His Master responded, 'You are God, not just body and mind.'

The Master said: 'Only when you surrender your senses, will you realize the truth of what I am saying. The moment you believe me more than your senses, you experience that you are God. You then understand the meaning of tatvam asi (literally 'You Are That', meaning you are Divine).'

The Master again and again tries to show that you are God. I keep saying: 'I am not here to prove that I am God. I am here to prove that you are God.'

The Master stands for the idea that you are the infinite. He shows you various dimensions of your inner self that you have not explored or experienced. He shows you so many dimensions of your being. The Master stands for your multidimensional being. He tries to show

you that it is possible. He shows that if it is possible for him, it is possible for you also. But as long as you believe your senses, you think that you are the body and mind.

When you trust the Master more than your senses, you understand that the Master's words are the truth and not your senses. Then you experience the truth of the Master's words. When the Master says that you are God, you suddenly realize the truth for yourself. You understand that you are God. You realize that you are not the body or mind as your senses have led you to believe. When you believe the Master's words more than your senses, you experience this truth.

Two voices are speaking from two different levels. On the one hand, your senses tell you that you are the body and mind. On the other hand, Master tells you that you are God: you are Divine and have many dimensions to your being. He tells you to enjoy and experience everything. As long as you listen to your senses, you will not even hear what Master says. When you leave your senses and come to the Master, you hear Him and experience the truth that you are Divine.

In the inner world, the first and last tool you need is complete surrender. Only then can you wake up to the truth. If Arjuna had trusted only his senses, he would have been at best a good warrior and king. Instead he trusted Krishna more than his senses and became enlightened. He experienced the truth of Krishna. When Krishna said that the crow was green, he saw a green crow, such was his faith.

You can experience Krishna Consciousness not just by surrendering the intellect and emotions but also by surrendering the root of the intellect and emotions, i.e., the senses. The senses supply the data. When you surrender them, the source of the data is surrendered.

You receive all information about yourself through the senses. Please understand that you do not know anything about yourself. You respect yourself because of data you collect about yourself through the senses of others. If somebody says, 'You are beautiful,' you put an entry in a notebook that you are beautiful according to so and so. Again, when somebody says that you are intelligent, you make an entry that you are intelligent, as told by so and so. If somebody says that you are tall, dark and handsome, that entry is made and the name mentioned. When you are told that you are dumb, another entry is made.

At the end of the day, you make a survey and assess what everybody said. You see that seventy-two percent of the people said that you are intelligent; twenty percent say that you are dumb and the rest do not know. Based on these statistics you decide about yourself. You decide that if seventy-two percent of the people say that you are intelligent, all of them cannot be fools. What they say must be right. Therefore, you must be intelligent! Thus your conclusion about yourself is based on what others say about you.

The whole day you conduct a signature campaign. You continuously go around asking people to tell you

something about yourself. As a result, the senses give you an idea of what you are. Krishna asks Arjuna to surrender these senses.

When you surrender your senses, the root of your idea of yourself, you lose your identification with body and mind. As long as you believe your senses, you think that you are the body and mind. Only when you believe the Master's words more than your senses, do you realize the truth that you are Divine. On one side, your senses say you are the body and mind. On the opposite side, Master tells you that you are Divine and in eternal bliss. He tells you that you are the Consciousness beyond body and mind.

It is up to you to choose. If you believe the senses, you cannot believe the Master. And if you believe the Master, you cannot believe your senses. Your way of life decides whether you surrender to your senses or your Master. It is for you to decide.

Krishna says that only when you surrender at all three levels do you have the ultimate experience. Let me tell you this, surrender itself is enlightenment. Please do not think enlightenment will be issued to you after surrendering. No! It is not a paycheck you receive through the courier. Surrender itself is enlightenment. At that moment, you experience the truth.

Usually we play with words. At least be aware of it, when you play with words. People tell me that they have surrendered their life to Krishna, Venkateshwara or Shiva. Then they say that their only wish is to be happy.

If they have truly surrendered, surrender is enough. They will not need to ask for anything else. Sometimes people ask if they need to meditate since they have surrendered to God. If they have surrendered, they will have no doubts nor will they need meditation! If they have doubts, they need meditation. As long as doubts remain, surrender has not happened because the moment you surrender, you disappear.

A beautiful verse in Tamil says: When you give your ‘I’ and ‘mine’ to Existence, Parasakti or Existence gives Her ‘I’ and ‘Mine’ to you. Both bank accounts merge and become one. It becomes a joint account! You have nothing to lose.

When you think of yourself as body and mind, you have sariram rogamayam, manam sokamayam. Sariram rogamayam means that the body is filled with diseases. Manam sokamayam means that the mind is filled with sorrows or depression. Since that is the case, what can we surrender? Absolutely nothing, except a body full of diseases and a mind full of sorrows. When you drop these two at the feet of the Divine, He gives you His body and mind: sariram devamayam, manam sukhamayam, atma anandamayam. What you get in exchange is a Divine body, a mind in happiness as well as a third thing: a soul in bliss. A ‘give one, get three free’ offer!

Ramana Maharshi, the great enlightened Master, sings a beautiful Tamil song to Lord Arunachala:

He says: ‘I gave me to You and received You in return. Who benefited most from this bargain? Who is more intelligent, O Arunachala?’

In surrender, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Surrendering does not mean giving up everything. It does not mean giving up your property. Keep everything; however, take care that you do not internalize them. Do not judge yourself based on your properties. You are far greater than what you think. Do not judge yourself based on your bank balance. Do not judge yourself based on your relationships. Do not judge yourself based on name and fame. Do not judge yourself based on your friends. You are greater than all these things put together.

As long as you judge yourself based on these things, you internalize these into your being. These become the central points in your life. They pull and push you in all directions. You will not have yourself for your being. As long as these are the major factors in your life, these things rule you. Even so, you are higher than all these things put together.

Understand that you are something beyond these things. The moment you wake up to this truth, you will not be put into any frame based upon bank balance, relationships, attitudes or name and fame. These things cannot be used to judge you. The moment you wake up to this truth, you have surrendered. I simply ask you to surrender these small ideas you have about yourself.

In the vast ocean, small bubbles are formed. One bubble starts thinking that it is an individual. It thinks that it must become strong. It lasts for a few moments. Yet within those few moments, it collects other bubbles around it. One bubble is its wife. On the other side, another bubble is its son. Some are called parents or relative. Still others are friends and so on. It collects bubbles on all sides to protect itself.

It collects a few grains of sand from the ocean bed and thinks they are its property. One is its bank balance. Another is jewelry and treasures it has collected. Then it builds a fence to protect its property. How long can the bubble play this game? For a few seconds! Before it can complete its game, it disappears back into the ocean.

The bubble was part of the ocean in all three instances: when it was created, when it existed and when it disappeared. Even though it claimed to be different from the ocean, even though it thought it was an individual and even though it thought many people and things belonged to it, it was part of the ocean and very soon disappeared into it.

In the same way, for a few moments you think you exist as an individual being in this Universal Consciousness. Within those few moments you catch hold of a few people as your relatives and friends. This makes you feel safe. You collect a few things as possessions. You feel secure with these things around you. With these things you form an opinion about yourself. You play the same game as the bubble.

Suddenly the whole thing disappears. Before the game started, while the game is going on and when the game ends, whether you understand or not, realize it or not, experience it or not, you belong to the ocean. You are God. You are one with Existence.

You are playing a game. You register your marriage to another bubble. You register some grains of sand as your property. The registrar is another bubble! A larger bubble is the ruler of the land or that bit of the ocean! And there is an understanding among the bubbles: 'You will not hit me and I will not hit you! You will not take my bubble and I will not take yours!' The whole game goes on in this way. Suddenly within one moment the whole thing is part of the ocean again.

When I say surrender, I mean wake up to the truth that you are in the ocean. When you are born, when you think you are an individual or when you become enlightened, you are in the ocean. Just wake up! Waking up to this ultimate truth is surrender. Surrender these small ideas about yourself and wake up to reality. As a result, surrender automatically happens in your inner space, your inner consciousness. Otherwise you just play with the word surrender.

We use inflated words when we define ourselves. We do not realize that we are beyond these descriptions. One day a follower used exaggerated words about himself in front of me. After he left I told my disciple that he seemed to be suffering from inferiority complex. My disciple was perplexed. He asked how it could be inferiority complex when he boasted so much. I told him he is God. Hence anything he says about himself is less than what he is.

Any estimation you have of yourself except that you are God is an underestimation! You suffer from an inferiority complex if you think of yourself other than God. Drop your ideas about yourself. Wake up to the truth that you are the ocean.

Some fish swim along with the current. Others swim against the current. Whether they go with or against the current, they are in the water. Whether you flow with Existence or fight it, you are one with it. Whether or not you have realized you are Divine, you are Divine. There is no choice in this. There is only one choice, realize and enjoy or continue to struggle and suffer; that's all! You may try to create stronger fences around yourself or collect more bubbles around you, but can you ask the wave not to come? Whatever you may do, the whole thing is only a drama of a few seconds.

The next problem is what to do if you cannot surrender.

Some people tell me: 'Master, I am unable to surrender. What can I do?' Do not worry because you have nothing to surrender. By understanding that you have nothing to surrender, you have already surrendered. Just relax. Whether you surrender or not, this is the truth. Whether you surrender or not, Existence takes care. Automatically life continues and you will relax. That relaxation itself is surrender.

Relax into the flow of life and wake up to the truth that you are something greater than your body and mind as suggested by your senses. You are led to think that you are something by society. Now wake up to the truth that you are greater than you can think. You are beyond any imagination you can have of yourself. Surrendering will give you a new Consciousness. You will not be the same person. One single moment of surrender transforms your whole life. You are a new being.

There are three levels of birth, three types of garba or wombs, according to the ancient scriptures. The first is the bhoo garba. This is the womb of a woman that gives birth to an infant. This is connected to the muladhara chakra, the lowest of the seven chakras or energy centers in the body.

Next is hrith garba. This is witnessed in the case of real artists. A singer, for example, conceives the song or music in his heart and then delivers it. Likewise an artist or sculptor conceive the concept in their heart first and then deliver it. That is the reason artists get such satisfaction from their work. Their life itself is so fulfilling because they give birth continuously.

A woman feels fulfillment when she births a child and becomes a mother. She overflows with satisfaction. In the same way, when an artist creates a painting, poem, sculpture or song, he feels an overwhelming satisfaction and fulfillment. Here the heart center or the anahata chakra conceives and gives birth to the piece and is called hrith garba.

The ultimate is gyana garba, which happens in the highest energy center, the sahasrara chakra. In gyana garba, all the spiritual ideas are conceived in the head and you work with them. Suddenly one moment you give birth to a new you, to an enlightened being.

So there are three levels of garba. The bhoo garba is the ordinary level, which we are familiar with. The next is hrith garba, which a few artists reach. The ultimate is gyana garba where you conceive the teaching of the Master and His presence into your sahasrara chakra, work with yourself and then birth yourself as an enlightened being.

Receive this concept of surrender, this truth and work on it. Suddenly you will wake up and give birth to yourself as an enlightened being. The moment you understand you belong to the ocean, that you are from it, that you are in it and that you will disappear into it, you realize you will never die because you are the ocean.

As long as you identify with the bubble, you feel insecure. The instinct to survive and the instinct to possess torture you. The moment you realize that you are the ocean, the instinct to survive disappears because there is no death for you. There is nothing to fear, nothing to feel insecure about. Death creates fear as long as you think you are the bubble.

The moment you realize that you are the ocean there is nothing to possess because everything belongs to you. There is nothing to lose and nothing to acquire. Hence,

the instinct to possess disappears. I am not asking you to legally throw away your possessions. You do not need to throw away your actions, whatever you have done for your 'I' and 'mine.' You do not need to throw away whatever you have. Just do not internalize them. Within yourself be aware that you are something greater than anything you can possibly possess.

At the age of seven, your toys are important to you. Do they hold the same importance today? You have neither renounced them nor are you attached to them. They are just there. Do you feel that you must return home because the toys are there? No! Do you feel the toys make your life a torture and that you must renounce them? No! You feel neither attached nor detached. You have grown beyond them.

Raga means attachment. Araga means detachment. Viragya means beyond attachment and detachment. As you grew up, viragya naturally happened towards your toys. So also, when you realize that you are the ocean, viragya happens towards the few sand particles and bubbles that you have collected and gathered around yourself. You have gone beyond these things.

The instincts to survive and possess would no longer be relevant to you. Your property does not suddenly disappear. They are there, but you live them and enjoy them more intensely. You do not take them for granted. You do not feel bored with them. You do not think: same house, same wife and same life! You take them for granted only when you think they are your properties.

The moment you realize that they may be taken from you at any moment, you do not take them for granted. The moment you realize that you are the ocean and that they are also of the same ocean, you value them more. The moment you realize this, you are transformed at the level of body, mind and consciousness. When consciousness is transformed, you birth a new you.

Krishna goes much deeper than these three levels of surrender: surrender of intellect, surrender of emotions and surrender of the senses. He gives Arjuna a glimpse of the greatest surrender. He gives Arjuna a glimpse of the ultimate experience itself. Krishna already gave Arjuna the experience during Vishvaroopa Darshana, the vision of Universal Consciousness or cosmic experience. Even so, Arjuna was unable to establish himself in that experience due to fear.

Always you miss the first experience because of fears. Now Arjuna is more mature and capable of being established in the experience. Krishna gives Arjuna the experience that will stay with him forever. In the next few verses Krishna puts Arjuna into the experience of enlightenment. He wakes him up to the Ultimate Truth.

A small story:

A man asked a Zen Master how to become Buddha. The Master slapped him and in that instant the man became enlightened. He experienced Buddhahood in himself. The slap simply showed him that he already was that. He merely needed to wake up from the sleep.

Krishna is waking Arjuna up from the long slumber called samsara sagara. This can also be called unconsciousness or tamas. Krishna gives him a good shake by giving him the Ultimate Experience and puts him in that state forever. I was telling you about the three levels of surrender. Krishna puts Arjuna into that final level or the highest level of surrender.

Q: Surrender of ego is true renunciation. But to surrender you need ego, or something like that of the mind. Isn't this a conflict?

Yes, it is and it isn't. There are always different ways of looking at something. There never is one right way, and that all others are wrong.

Buddha was never dogmatic. He said that everything could be right or wrong, right and wrong. There can be right love and wrong love as well as right anger and wrong anger.

Prior to Buddha nobody thought that way. People considered love as always right and anger as always wrong. So it was about will or resolution. A man of will is always right. All cultures up until then had praised willpower. On the other hand, Buddha was tremendously insightful and said that everything that can be right can also be wrong. Nothing can be absolutely right. Willpower is wrong if used by the ego. Then it enhances the ego. And that's what happens in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred.

Willpower can be right, but one must be alert and aware. Willpower can be right only if it is used for surrender. It is a paradoxical phenomenon. Ordinarily we think will and surrender are polar opposites. In spite of this, there is only one right use of will: surrender to the whole. Call it God, Nature, Tao or whatever you like.

Willpower in the service of the person is dangerous because the idea of the person is false. Personality is illusory. We are not separate entities. The whole universe is one organic unity. We exist together. Even a small blade of grass is connected to the far-away star. Everything is interlinked and intertwined.

It is like a spider's web. If you touch one thread, the whole wave is felt throughout the pattern. Through a slight touch, the vibration is felt throughout the web. So it is in the case of the universe. We are not separate. We only appear separate. Hence, if will is in the service of the person, it is a wrong kind of will. It leads to more and more misery, conflict and violence.

Right will means in the service of God and in renunciation. But then you are no more. Right will means that the will gathers itself and commits suicide. But only a man of will is able to do that. People who don't have any will, who are always lukewarm, half-hearted and wavering, cannot surrender.

Surrender needs a certain kind of integrity and resolution. In fact it needs the greatest resolution possible. Unless you are totally in it, it will not happen. Even if you hold back a little bit, it is not surrender. Through that which you are holding back, everything will return again. You will be the same. Surrender must be irrevocable. One must commit oneself so totally that there is no going back. The bridge is burned and you have thrown the ladder away.

Right will is capable of destroying yourself. It is a strange phenomenon but that's how life is. It is paradoxical. First we must learn to create an ego, then the ego is ripe and strong; next we must learn how to drop it. It would seem logical not to develop it at all. Except then you would never know the joy and freedom of dropping it. A person who has never been imprisoned has no consciousness about freedom. Being in prison is a prerequisite to know the taste of freedom.

Life is full of contradictions. A poor man never knows he is poor. He looks poor to people who are not poor. He does not know that he is poor and has nothing to compare his poverty with. To be really poor, first you must be rich. After that, you will know the pain and agony of poverty. To be a true beggar, first you must be an Emperor. Otherwise you will not know what it is like to be a beggar.

The ego must first be strengthened, only to be dropped later. The will first must be sharpened, only to be surrendered later. Knowledge must first be gathered, only to be unlearned later.

On the day you unlearn whatever you have learned, you become a child again. You are twice born. This is not like the first childhood in which you lacked awareness of being knowledgeable. You now know what it means to be knowledgeable. And in dropping it you feel a great freedom, great joy, such ecstasy and yet you are not attaining anything.

You were the same in your first childhood, yet you were completely unaware of it. This whole process is needed to make you aware. Awareness comes through a dialectical process. So will is good and right, when you are capable of dropping it. If you cannot drop it, if you cling to it, if it becomes your whole life-pattern, you miss the whole point. Then it creates misery and hell. Great willpower is needed to create hell or heaven. If you continue in it, it creates hell. If you jump out of it, it creates heaven.

The only evolution worth calling evolution is the evolution of bliss. If bliss does not grow, you do not evolve. If bliss does not grow, society does not evolve. What people generally understand as evolution and progress is sheer nonsense.

A more complicated technology does not mean evolution. That is superficial. You may have more gadgets, big machines, better airplanes, better trains and better houses, but you are the same person. You can reach the moon or stars one day, but whatever you do on earth, you will also do on the moon. If you smoke cigarettes here, you will smoke there. If you play cards

here, you will play cards there. If you drink beer here, you will carry beer to the moon. What else will you do there?

If mankind remains the same, there is no evolution. In that case, we go on living a substitute evolution that gives the fallacious appearance that we are evolving. For centuries mankind has not evolved. Only a few individuals here and there have evolved. We can come across a handful of people such as a Buddha or a Jesus. Those who have tasted the nectar of bliss are evolved human beings.

A small number of people have experienced evolution. Getting down from the trees and walking on two legs instead of all fours does not make us an evolved animal. It merely makes us erect and vertical; that's all. If we look inside man's mind, he is still a monkey. One need not go far. One can simply close one's eyes and see the mind. We will find all kinds of monkey-like things going on. So what evolution has happened? What is Darwin talking about?

Real evolution is judged by blissfulness. And blissfulness grows with Consciousness. They grow together, simultaneously. They are two aspects of the same coin. You grow in consciousness and you become more blissful or grow more blissful and you become more conscious. Start from anywhere, either consciousness or bliss, and you will grow.

Unless one becomes a Buddha or a Christ, one misses the great opportunity of evolving. All other progress is false. Surrender is an effort in the right direction. It releases our potential and mankind has infinite potential. Man can reach the ultimate peaks of joy in surrender, not in acquisition.

Gaining knowledge is cheap and easily available. One can sit in a library and collect knowledge. Our memory is so great that some claim a single man's memory system can contain all the libraries of the world. No computer has yet been invented which competes with man's memory system. It is almost unlimited and it can create such a great illusion of being wise.

Wisdom is a totally different phenomenon. It comes through love. It grows and flowers in the heart. The ways of the heart are unlike the ways of the head.

Surrender is a search for wisdom. I am not interested in imparting knowledge here. I am not a teacher. A teacher imparts knowledge. A Master imparts being. A Master does not teach. On the contrary, he helps you unlearn. He helps you unburden. He helps you to come from the head to the heart. Once you are centered in the heart, your life pulsates with a new energy. That energy is love. It is not that you become more loving. You become love itself.

Surrender is the transformation of ego into love. It is the transformation of your love for yourself into love for all. Yes, you need the ego to start with. When the ego is dropped, surrender happens.

What if some never had an ego to start with? What about those whose identities had already merged with

the collective identity? You may say that this cannot happen. You are wrong. It is rare, that is true; but it happens. Incarnations come to earth with full Consciousness of their collective identity. They are already in tune with the universe. In my biography, titled Nithyananda, this issue is covered in greater detail.