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Nondual Highlights Issue #2180 Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Come
to the orchard in Spring.
There is light and wine,
And sweethearts in the pomegranate flowers.
If you do not come,
these do not matter.
If you do come,
these do not matter.
Love, comes of its own accord.
- Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks, posted to DailyDharma
Freedom from all desire is eternity. All
attachment implies fear, for all things
are transient. And fear makes one a slave.
This freedom from attachment does not
come with practice; it is natural, when
one knows one's true being. Love does not
cling; clinging is not love.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, from I Am That: Talks
with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to
AlongTheWay
Surrender
The whole life of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi is a commentary on
saranagati (surrender). When he left Madurai for good, he took
just the train fare to Tiruvannamalai, threw away the packets of
sweets given to him by Muthukrishna Bhagavathara’s wife and
was not anxious for the morrow. He tore off from his dhoti only a
strip for a kaupina (loin cloth) and he did not even think of
using the remaining cloth as a towel. This is total surrender.
Surrender is a practical proposition. It releases the devotee
from life’s dilemma. Wherever Sri Krishna teaches about
saranagati in the Bhagavad Gita he refers to ananya bhakti, where
the instrument and the goal are one and the same. The same idea
is stated by Sri Bhagavan in the fifth verse of "Arunachala
Pancharatnam":
One who surrenders his heart wholly to you, one who sees you in
every aspect of creation, one who loves every creation as himself
- he is the one who will succeed, O Arunachala! he will get
immersed in you!
Here Sri Bhagavan stresses ananya bhakti and self-surrender.
It is interesting to note that Sri Krishna says, "Do not
grieve." After surrendering yourself totally to God, you
should not even worry about your own shortcomings or flaws. For
if you think you have to improve yourself after surrender, then
it indicates a residual ego in you. Hence, don’t grieve
about your flaws after surrender. It only shows your surrender is
incomplete. Bhagavan says after getting into a train, nobody
carries the luggage on his head. He keeps it on the luggage-rack.
Likewise, after surrendering, do not continue to carry your
mental luggage. Leave it totally to His care.
After surrender you should not have 1) worries, 2) fear, 3)
doubt, 4) sorrow, 5) the inclination to test whether surrender is
effective or not and 6) aberrations (conflicts).
The devotee who has surrendered is like a lump of clay in the
hands of the potter. The lump never says, "Make me a pot!
Make me a cup, etc." It leaves it to the potter to mold it
into whatever shape he wants it to become.
Sri Bhagavan lays great value on ananya saranagati. There are
several instances where He explains the concept to the
questioner:
"If you have surrender, it means that you must accept the
will of God and not make a grievance of what may not happen to
please you. Things may turn out differently from what they
appear. Distress often leads people to faith in God.
"The Lord bears the burden of the world. Know that the
spurious ego which presumes to bear that burden is like a
sculptured figure at the foot of a temple tower which appears to
sustain the tower’s weight. There cannot even be impatience
for speedy realization."
To one who was so afflicted, he replied: "Surrender to Him
and accept His will whether He appears or vanishes. Await His
pleasure. If you want Him to do as you want, it is not surrender,
but command. You cannot ask Him to obey you and yet think you
have surrendered. He knows what is best and when and how to do
it. Leave everything entirely to Him. That is what is meant by
surrender."
Even prayer can imply a lack of trust and Sri Bhagavan normally
did not encourage prayer in the sense of petition:
"They pray to God and finish with ‘Thy will be done’.
If His will be done, why do they pray at all? It is true that
Divine Will prevails at all times under all circumstances.
Individuals cannot act of their own accord. Recognize the force
of the Divine Will and keep quiet. Everyone is looked after by
God. He created all. You are only one among two thousand
millions. When He looks after so many, will He omit you? Even
common sense dictates that one should accept His will. There is
no need to tell Him your requirements. He knows them Himself and
will look after them."
To a devotee’s question Sri Bhagavan replied: "Gandhiji
has surrendered himself to the Divine and works accordingly with
no self interest. He does not concern himself with the results
but accepts them as they turn up. That must be the attitude of
national workers.
"Devotee: Will the work be crowned with success?
"Bhagavan: The question arises because the questioner has
not surrendered himself."
When a devotee questioned about unconditional surrender, Bhagavan
replied:
"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 Realization."
- excerpt from a talk given by Sri V. S. Ramanan, President of
Sri Ramanasramam, in New York City at the September 8th, 2002
"Advent at Arunachala" program, published in The
Maharshi, November/December 2002, posted to
atma_vichara
Surrender appears easy because people imagine that, once they say
with their lips ‘I surrender’ and put their burdens on
their Lord, they can be free and do what they like. But the fact
is that you can have no likes or dislikes after your surrender;
your will should become completely non-existent, the Lord’s
will taking its place.
David Godman, from Be As You Are: The
Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi
The basic point to understand and accept is
that, whatever you do, the consequences
are not in your hands.
Even the wrong-doing which results in
suffering is part of the functioning of
Totality, part of God's will.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar, from A Net of Jewels.
posted to JustThis