Message 80

What is surrender?

Paris Hospital, France, 28 November 2005

Surrender is the melody of understanding. Subservience is the malady of undertaking. When ‘you’ surrender, ‘you-ness’ is still sustained in the darkness of duality between the conceiver and concept of surrender! Practising surrender is the perpetuation of the same old ego in a new game of pretention. Surrender then is just a slogan of the spiritual market and solace of one who is tired of self-aggrandisement. In the holy and sacred phenomenon of Surrender, the Source of all Energy is reached! Pure Energy, perhaps, from the beginning of Time! And an extraordinary effect on the brain begins. Also physically in the body, blood cells and bonemarrow. All divisions disappear without any burden of tradition, theology, cultural conditioning, conventional goings-on. One may still be in tradition for practical reasons; just as the refrigerator is there in the room for use, not for carrying on the shoulder as a burden. You can repair and even replace the refrigerator whenever necessary! This leads to a complete sense of peace and love! The brain itself starts throbbing with it! No body can help another to reach it! But pure surrender without any motive or expectation performs that miracle! So get out all gurus and gods of the spiritual market! And then a strange emptiness surfaces! A vacancy comes pouring in from no-where! This is veracity.

That which is eternal then seems to exist under every stone and leaf. Surrender then starts singing a song in the heart with the yoga of Swadhyay, Tapas and Iswhara-Pranidhan.

In listening to Shibendu, perhaps there is direct help as you understand more clearly and your consciousness becomes clarified. But if you only love and respect him, then you may develop contempt for others. And in that case, it would just be an entanglement with subservience, but not the energy of surrender. In retreats, some devotees are very considerate to Shibendu and eager to take care for him, but they are rather callous to others. This is a state of contradiction which does not imply surrender and understanding, but subservience and hypocrisy destroying love. Surrender will inspire you to listen not only to Shibendu, but also to the beggar, to the child, to the flower, to the rainbow, to the mountain and to the sorrow of your neighbour with equal attention. You need not forcibly concentrate. Concentration is the ego-centric activity of subservience and thus enmity between different groups begins. Surrender makes one sensitive and one who is sensitive is capable of renewal. Then truth comes into being. It cannot come when one is burdened with competition in subservience, and all the fear and animosity that goes with it. Surrender puts an end to greed, fear, envy, dependency and props up an intelligent inquiry with devotion. Where there is understanding, there is surrender.

Surrender is the overflowing energy of perception whereas subservience is the overbearing entanglement with pretentions. Surrender is loosing yourself (fallacy of mind) to find yourself (fullness of life). Surrender of ‘I-ness’ is the surfacing of ‘Is-ness’. It is ending of becoming and emergence of Being.

Surrender to Guru Process.
Don't be subservient to guru personality.
Be available to Guru Process.
Don't be attached to guru personality.

Jai Guru