Day 18 - Sep 21, Wed

Chapter 18 - Drop everything and Surrender

Drop everything. This is the key to all spiritual teaching. Whatever you think you know about God is not God; knowing God is different. When you completely surrender everything, you drop the idea of knowing God; then you know God!

Even the Ultimate Experience is not from your effort: Enlightenment is a pure gift. Everything you do is inside the dream. With enlightenment, you go beyond the dream. People are so afraid about the idea of surrender. We think we are going to lose much. In truth we gain everything. The ‘I’ and ‘mine’ which we are holding onto, are a pure lie. The moment you surrender, you understand. The moment you understand, you surrender. As long as you are caught with ‘I’ and ‘mine’, you will not able to experience the truth of surrender.

Krishna is saying, “Just open your eyes and see what's real, see that it is all a game. You are only cheating yourself with this game.” A person who is intelligent will suddenly see whatever they think of as themselves isn't them. It belongs to Existence, to Nature, with which you are continuously fighting. Once you realize that ‘I’ and ‘mine’ do not exist, you totally relax. When you realize that they don't exist, you realize how foolish you are.

A Zen story: Some children are playing on the beach. The whole day they spend building sandcastles. When night-time comes, they just kick the the castles and destroy them. A Zen Master watching them says, “This is what I call life. They know it is all a drama; even in our so-called real life, we don't understand this truth.” Children understand instinctively.

If our castles are shaken, we have all kinds of problems. The whole thing is pure fun; it doesn’t belong to us. Everything is okay if you don't internalize anything. When you take life too seriously, when you think you are your ‘I’ and ‘mine’, you create trouble for yourself. The moment you think something is called ‘I’ in your Being, you move away from life. Sometimes you catch the body, mind or senses as ‘I’. Whatever you may think of as ‘I’ has no foundation.

Not only is Krishna compassionate in giving His teachings but He gives them again and again because He understands that it takes time for people to get the Truth. He knows that people need logical explanations and He comes down again and again so that people can catch it.

Living without attachment, as long as you struggle with a goal, you can never relax. Krishna says to relax from both material and spiritual goals. We think, ‘If I relax from both, I’ll lose both’. The truth is, when you relax from both, you fall into your Being and explode in all directions. You need to surrender to your own Being. You don't have to surrender to anyone else. Just surrender to your Inner Space, to your Being. Don't make Enlightenment a goal. Spiritual goals create more ego trouble than material ones, because it is much subtler and more insidious. With spiritual goals, you don't even know what you are doing; how far out you are going away from your Being. At least with material goals you can perceive the gap, and the world can also keep you in check.

As long as you think you are the mind, you will be stuck between spiritual and material. You will always feel as if you have to choose. Have you seen your mind existing without some kind of dilemma? You will experience dilemma just answering this question! Once you realize that you don't have to choose, you will explode 360 degrees, in all directions.

Our surrender is usually pseudo. You don't have to surrender to somebody, not even to any God or Guru. Just surrender to your own Consciousness. You never trust or respect your Inner Space. That's why at the initial level, you need a God or a Master. When you completely surrender, the Divine intuition automatically guides you from your Being. As long as you have doubts or are asking what to do, you haven’t surrendered.

There are three levels of surrender: Intellectual, Emotional and Sensory. Intellectual surrender is when we trust the Master’s intellect over our own. When we surrender emotionally, we acknowledge that the Master’s emotions are trustworthier than ours and when we trust the Master’s senses over our own, we surrender the root of cognition itself.

Intellectual surrender is relatively easy. We are inclined to trust others who have knowledge in their field, as it is easy to trust that they have more expertise than we do. Also we tend to want to get rid of our intellect, so when we find someone else's, we just relax.

When we start experiencing with a Master, you begin to trust his emotions. Whatever way he wants to guide you, you begin to respect and trust. Slowly, he becomes the center of your life and you feel connected.

Sensory surrender is a deep-level technique. This is when even your senses listen to and respond to what the Master says. According to your senses, you think you are a body and mind. To me, you are God. The moment you believe me more than your senses, you realize this.

I am not here to prove that I am God. I am here to prove that you are God.

Again Krishna is showing so many dimensions of your Being to your self. A Master represents your multidimensional Being. As long as you believe your senses, you will think that you are the body and mind. If a Master says, “Look! white crows,” and you see the black crows as white, then you have surrendered your senses. The crow is not going to give you life. A Master can lead you to life. A normal intellectual person cannot understand this concept. It has to be experienced.

Understand that the logic, with which you are living, is useful only for the outer world. In the inner world, the tools are different. You need complete surrender. Only then can you wake up to the Truth. When you trust a Master’s senses over your own, you become Enlightened. If you trust your vision, at the most you will have good eyes. Only when you surrender the very root of your Being you will know you are Divine. The very surrender itself is enlightenment. The moment you surrender, you disappear. When you surrender the ‘I and mine’ to Parashakti, to Existence, the Divine gives its ‘I’ and ‘mine’ to you. You have nothing to lose.

Surrender is not giving up all that you have. You don't have to give up your properties. Don't judge yourself based on your properties, relationships, name and fame, friends. You are far more than all these things. If you internalize these things, they will continuously be pushing and pulling you. You will not have you as your Being. You cannot be divided by these categories. They cannot determine who you are. You are beyond all of these. The moment you wake up to this one idea, you have surrendered. The trouble is, you worry about how to surrender. You have nothing to surrender. You just do what Existence itself is going to do.

Like a bubble in the wave in an ocean, you can only exist for that long. Even though we claim our individuality, we will return to Existence. Even though you think you are an individual, you are God. Suddenly in one moment, you are God. When I say surrender, just wake up and realize you are God. Thinking you are anything else is an inferiority complex. Whatever idea you have will always be lesser than God. Just drop all the ideas you have about yourself. Just know that you are God.

Artists are so fulfilled and overflowing because they are constantly giving birth. When an artist gives birth to a painting, he conceives the concept in his heart and then he delivers his art, his music. It happens through the heart chakra. In the same way, conceiving the Master’s ideas and presence in the crown chakra, you give birth to yourself as an Enlightened Being.

Suddenly you realize that you cannot cease to exist because you understand you are Existence itself. Everything disappears: the instinct to possess and survive ceases to exist. Everything belongs to you. You don't have to renounce what you have; you go beyond. When you do this, you enjoy things more intensely. You don't take anything for granted.

Krishna brings Arjuna into the Experience of Enlightenment. He is just waking him up to the Ultimate Truth; He puts him in that ultimate state forever, into the ultimate surrender. By surrender, you learn to include all things. You will never be defensive or destructive. Only cowards harm or kill others. He who is courageous will never harm or kill another. So many times we justify our actions; we make our own meaning out of the Truth and miss it completely.

A small story: One Zen monk is kicked out of his monastery. The other monk asked him why he was kicked out. “I just asked if I can smoke when I meditate.” He replied. “Oh you fool,’ says the other monk, “you don't know how to ask.” He goes off and comes back smoking. The monk who is leaving asks him, “What happened?” “I went to the Master and asked if I can meditate when I smoke.”

We make our own meaning out of words. Don't make your own meaning out of this story; don't take the other meaning. So often we indulge in our false ego in this way. Liberate yourself from false ego. We should understand the truth about this statement. When you just relax from all the ideas that you have collected to support you, you realize you are not just a part in the scheme of things, you are complete, Whole. When you are fully conscious, you enter into Eternal Consciousness.

Whatever you think about the knower, the knowledge, any knowledge that you have collected about God, drop all of it. When you drop it, you experience God. When you relax from that instinct to protect yourself, you create a Space. The instinct to survive is killing you every moment. Nothing else can kill you more. If someone kills you, it is only once.

For you to survive, you don't need survival instinct. You don't need fear and greed to exist. How can you live out of fear? Only when you can relax from the instinct to survive can you really begin to live. A whole new Consciousness happens to you. You create the space for the power of coincidence; everything falls in line. You feel totally protected and taken care of. You feel safe, finally. It is only when we surrender our life that we truly live.