Seeker: What is unconditional surrender?
Maharshi: If a person surrenders himself, then there will be no one asking questions or thinking about them. Eliminating thoughts by keeping attention on the root—the “I”—or unconditionally surrendering oneself to the Supreme Power—these are the only two paths to realization.
You are blessed to follow the teaching of pratyaksha-advaita (direct advaita). You do not need to become entangled in tantric intricacies, in recognizing the mantras, interpreting the signs of spirits and gods, ritual ceremonies, numerous purifications, and everything else. Pratyaksha-advaita possesses the unique quality of pointing directly to reality. Pratyaksha-advaita, siddha-advaita, or the shunyata of the mahasiddhas—all these are identical terms. This teaching is intended for people with great spiritual and intellectual abilities, and those who possess them can make use of the power of pratyaksha-advaita.
Pratyaksha-advaita always turns us toward awareness, bypassing the complexity of the forms of organized religions, the ceremoniousness of rituals and tantric invocations, hopes for realization, the application of various means, and everything else. All of this, of course, exists on its own level, but it is not the main thing; these are the so-called branch methods, flower methods, and leaf methods. And if you want to analyze any teaching, immediately inquire into what the wisdom of this teaching is and what its trunk method is. If the wisdom is the unconditioned state, and the trunk is the nondual presence of awareness, then this is pratyaksha-advaita, the anuttara-tantra of the mahasiddhas.
The First Years of Practice
In the tradition of the teaching of pratyaksha-advaita, we first discover the principle of awareness, but we encounter it only after years of arduous contemplative work. And what does a person do during roughly the first ten years? He removes the remaining fetters and attachments to samsara, washes away his sins, and gets rid of inner confusion, kleshas, lack of understanding, and blockages in the nadis. Therefore, the first ten years of practice are always difficult. As one general said to a soldier: “Be strong; the first twenty-five years are the difficult ones,” while the service lasts approximately that long. But in the Dharma, things are somewhat different.
During the first years, the yogin struggles with inner confusion, karmic debts, kleshas and obscurations, the unworked-out corners of his character, his own lack of control and unconsciousness, old habits that refuse to let him go, and long-standing obstacles that desperately try to assert their claims over him. He must fight them day after day, and in earnest. It even happens that, having left the world, you discover that the world has not yet left you, even when you are already in the sanghati of a novice or a monk.
Nevertheless, if you are steadfast, confident in your victory, and do not sustain this within yourself, sooner or later you discover that the world has left you, that instead of kleshas, obscurations, and attachments, a new vision of the world through the prism of awareness appears. Through working with sankalpa and cultivating mindfulness while moving and sitting, this awareness begins to break through. And you see that you were blind until you became aware, and therefore were subject to the various meanings of this samsara; but when awareness appeared, you began to see a little more clearly.
Encountering the Abyss of Awareness
And then the question arises as to what the relationship is between the ego, the mind, the personality, and this awareness. The deeper you move toward awareness, the more you feel that you are approaching an immense ocean, a black hole, an abyss, and this can seriously unsettle the ego, because it feels confused before this abyss; it feels that it will lose everything if it takes even one more step. It feels that it will lose control, lose itself, its meanings, priorities, and goals, and therefore it fears this abyss. On the other hand, it knows that this abyss is precisely its goal and its path.
This stage means that the yogin has not only mastered self-liberation, but has also approached self-surrender, self-transcendence. It is the stage when the “fear of God” begins, when the ego begins to see the need for humility, total self-surrender, and obedience to this awareness. And it is very important to develop the right tactics and strategy for such surrender so that there are no extremes.
Ramana Maharshi says that when you approach this awareness and begin to subordinate the ego anew, there, in the depths, there will be no one asking questions, no one thinking, since self-surrender means constantly offering the ego, manas, and ahamkara to the light of the higher “Self,” constantly abiding in the state: “I am not my own; I belong to God!”
The Nature of the Light of Awareness
When a person comes to me, I see that it is not really a person at all, but that within them, like the sun, there is this boundless light. Through the channel of buddhi, this light gives commands to manas; manas processes them, operating through chitta, and gives commands to the subtle energetic body and the physical body, as if to some kind of biocyborg. In other words, I see that this light has come to me, trying to break through within this body and act through it.
This light is generated continuously; it cannot be taken away from a person or extinguished, because a person is made of this light. This light sends commands to buddhi, which are perceived as streams of bhava, subtle clarity, and this clarity gives commands to manas, which translates all of this into thoughts, while thoughts give commands to the subtle nervous system and the energetic body and are then expressed in words. When a person speaks, I see this light trying to break through. And depending on how open buddhi is, how manas perceives its intuitive messages from buddhi and how skillfully it operates with thoughts and logic, how purified the vishuddha chakra is, and whether the tongue can translate all of this into the vibrations of skillful speech, this light may manifest purely or not so purely.
Essentially, the answers to all questions lie in allowing this light to manifest its own clarity. If there are blockages, energetic traffic jams in the subtle bodies, or blockages in the mental body, this light becomes distorted; therefore, buddhi transmits an already distorted light, while manas grasps only a small part of it, after which it passes into diminished speech, diminished prana, diminished vision, and diminished action.
Conversely, if there are no such blockages, mental restrictions, samskaras, or obscurations, or if there are few of them, this light pours forth purely and passes through manas in a pure manifestation. Then:
- Buddhi is self-liberated, manifesting as subtle intuitive consciousness, siddhis, and clairvoyance
- Manas is self-liberated, overflowing with Dharma, clarity, and creativity
- Chitta is self-liberated, manifesting as flawless vision of one’s own samskaras and memory of past lives
- Actions are self-liberated, manifesting as pure lila, for the benefit of other living beings, in complete harmony
- The pranas are self-liberated, manifesting as pure elements within the body
The Teacher’s Task and the Nature of Self-Surrender
This light in my body and in the body of another person is the same; it is only that the manas in their body does not quite understand how to find the path of this light. I see my task as using language and terminology to show manas the way to this light through buddhi, to construct a kind of correct tunnel in which Atman, buddhi, manas, the five elements, and the five pranas become aligned, when the light is distorted nowhere and blocked nowhere.
And when such alignment takes place, it is said that on the physical level the pranas enter the central channel, while on the spiritual level one enters the natural state. Then comes the moment when one must say: “Not I, but You. Not my will, but Yours.” Who must say this? The mind (manas) and the false ego (ahamkara) must say it—that is, the complex of the individual personality representing itself. Having seen this light, they must all say: “Yes, I will obey You; I will submit to You. I will not take a single step without listening to You.”
Therefore, self-surrender is complete humility and complete obedience to this light. As soon as the ego and the mind act without humility and lack obedience, they fall out of this light’s command and try to act independently; therefore, clarity immediately declines, and the person gains nothing but problems and suffering.
To act in obedience and humility does not mean limiting oneself or acting stiffly, submissively, or constrained. On the contrary, all the freedom, power, and creativity of the ego (ahamkara) and the mind (manas), the relative parts, lie in such obedience. This light of primordial contemplation is like a great king who bestows immeasurable riches upon everyone. It does not seek slavish submission from anyone; rather, it attempts to delegate the fullness of its functions to all the other parts. Therefore, as a result of such proper obedience and humility, the other parts also blossom and take on the functions of this light.
Anyone who understands this knows every second: “Yes, it is more costly to oneself not to heed this light.” For it can give so much that every second outside this light is an enormous loss. And, conversely, every second spent in this light is an immense blessing, since it reveals boundless possibilities and prospects before you. But at the stage before self-surrender has taken place, there is still separation: there is you as mind and personality, and there is this light to which you must surrender.
Perfect Surrender and the Absence of Desires
Seeker: Does complete, or perfect, surrender not require a person to relinquish even the desire for liberation or God?
Maharshi: Perfect surrender does indeed require that you have no desires of your own. You must rejoice in everything God gives, and that is what the absence of personal desires means.
The perfection of self-transcendence (prapatti) means that we stop making plans and setting goals, fearing, hoping, relying on anything external, and chasing future achievements. We acknowledge this light right now and instantly surrender to it in the present. Of course, on the relative level, the mind has desires; on the relative level, we continue to aspire to liberation and do various things, but all of this is already subordinated to this great self-surrender.
Within, at the level of view and non-doing, we already understand that our task is to try to be that, rather than strive toward it, since the very fact of striving toward it is a departure from the center and a loss of the present. It is like a dog trying to bite its own tail, which can never be reached, or a donkey trying to run after and bite a carrot, even though the carrot is tied to the shaft and moves along with the donkey. When we understand this, the vector of striving turns inward, and now this striving means abiding in the present and surrendering to the present; that is why it is said that the stage of self-surrender is connected with entering into non-doing.
Entering into Non-Doing
Entering into non-doing means that there is not a single thing you need to do, not a single obligation you need to fulfill, not a single debt you have left unpaid. In other words, everything is already here, and everything that is already is perfect. There are only games you play; you have completely freed yourself from everything, and whatever appears on the relative level manifests by itself, naturally and spontaneously—it is already complete and whole.
You no longer fuss, identify with anything, or lose your center, because you are always in the center and are taking root in it. You have no attachments, goals, plans, hopes, fixations, illusions, expectations, fears, or certainties, because you have already attained this centeredness. The only thing you need to do is to take root in this centeredness and then seek ways to manifest various games in order to cultivate and further refine this centeredness. But there is no longer any question of chasing anything or of false hopes and illusions.
This profound peace, harmony, and wholeness in the soul is the beginning stage of self-surrender, when you feel: “I do not belong to myself; I belong to God. It is not I who act; it is the Supreme Source that acts through my mind, speech, and body. My task is to remain continuously in contact with this Source.”
Of course, we are far too accustomed to seeing ourselves and others as bodies, but this is a major mistake. Just as in a computer game people temporarily adopt usernames, illusory names, and avatars while communicating with one another, and then leave them behind, in the same way we assume illusory physical bodies with certain names and forms. But that which assumes them in us is the light of awareness, and it is precisely this light that acts.
Two Paths to Realization
Seeker: I want to know the steps by which I can attain surrender.
Maharshi: There are two paths. The first is to investigate the source of “I” and merge into it. The second is the feeling: “By myself I am helpless; only God is all-powerful, and completely relying on Him is the only thing that will keep me safe.” By applying the latter method, a person gradually becomes convinced that only God exists and that the ego need not be taken into account. Both paths lead to the same goal. Perfect surrender is another name for jnana, or Liberation.
Question: How, at the level of manifestation, can one avoid confusing the relative dimension with the absolute one while at the same time manifesting pure vision? In other words, pure vision already pertains more to the absolute aspect. On the one hand, you begin to become imbued with it; on the other hand, it is important not to become confused, so that common sense is not lost. How can one attain this subtle wisdom?
Common sense itself is also a kind of manifestation of impure vision. A yogin no longer acts on the basis of common sense. He self-liberates common sense by entrusting it to the higher Self, and then the higher Self, as a descending response, as a blessing, grants him clarity. He then acts not on the basis of common sense, but on the basis of clarity that spontaneously responds, integrating with circumstances.
Such clarity may seem like common sense to others, but it is not worldly common sense at all. It is common sense that surpasses the worldly kind; it is flexible, integrated clarity that appears completely spontaneously, like a play. Nevertheless, this play is not inferior to common sense but surpasses it; it is even deeper, since its roots lie in the pure light of primordial awareness.
It sees everything as primordially pure, but within itself it develops a separate aspect that allows for an impure view, though already as lila. On the basis of this impure view as lila, it accepts ordinary common sense, the so-called worldly view, regarding it as part of its absolute vision. Yet this impure, playful view of common sense is completely subordinate. In this case, you miss nothing, so there is no confusion regarding the relative; everything is absolutely pure and self-liberated, and everything is primordially equal.
Question: Tell me, does all this apply only to a person who has realized pure vision? And if he has not yet realized it, can he rely on such a view or not?
Even if he has not realized it, let him rely on such a view. As Vasistha says, whatever consciousness conceives, that is what it becomes. If pure vision has not been realized in you, but you work with it, it will eventually become realized. There is only a difference between the view of the pure vision of the path and the view of the pure vision of the fruit.
Pure vision of the path means that you maintain the sankalpa of pure vision, whereas pure vision of the fruit is when deities and mandalas have actually appeared, and there is no need for you to maintain the sankalpa, since it is already present. For example, there is gold, but you see it merely as a stone. Then someone comes to you and says: “Try it! It is gold! You can even sell it and benefit from it.” You do not believe him, and then this person says: “All right. I understand—you still need to see it first. Repeat, ‘This is gold, this is gold,’ and try to see it as gold.” This is an example of the pure vision of the path.
Seeker: Surrender seems easier to me, and I would like to choose this path.
Maharshi: Regardless of the path, you must lose yourself in the Absolute. Surrender will be complete only upon reaching the stage: “You are everything” and “Thy will be done.”
The True Nature of Self-Surrender
It is very important to interpret this text correctly. Indeed, surrender occurs when view and awareness unite. Awareness is the subtle observer. The view is the boundless primordial Source, the clear light beyond gunas, qualities, and categories. Union with it occurs only when we abandon clinging at the level of consciousness. As soon as there is even the slightest clinging, reunion with the light of the supreme Source cannot take place.
However, abandoning clinging and complete surrender do not mean that our individuality is lost and disappears completely. This is a mistaken view. Anyone who thinks this is caught up in the tendencies of avyakta, which are not approved by the siddhas.
Surrender also implies that our relative qualities blossom rather than being suppressed; our will receives the impulse of creative power (sankalpa-shakti); our abilities, mind, memory, intention, power of self-manifestation, and the power of energies and transformation (aishvarya-shakti)—all of this blossoms rather than being suppressed. One who thinks that these are suppressed will be more inclined toward the tradition of dualistic bhakti.
But on the path of the siddhas, what is important is that in a state of complete surrender, light descends into the relative aspect (this is very important!), and as a result, these relative aspects blossom in the form of creative powers, siddhis, energies, and so on. Ultimately, they must blossom into the full mandala, into complete flowering, which transforms the surrounding world and one’s own pranas within; that is, there is always an active creative function in these relative aspects, a transforming power inherent in them. If all this does not blossom, it means that we are not allowing the light to manifest; we are not letting it in somewhere, not allowing it to flower, dance, play, and transform.
Seeker: Surrender seems easier to me, and I would like to choose this path.
Maharshi: Surrender seems easy because people imagine that they will become free and do whatever they want as soon as they mutter, “I surrender,” and shift their burden onto the Lord. But the fact is that after surrender you have neither likes nor dislikes. Your will must die completely, and the Lord’s will will take its place.
The egoistic will of the small “I” must die away, but this does not mean that will as a function, as a universal energy, must die. It simply means that the egoistic will of the small “I” must give way to the universal iccha-shakti. That is, your egoistic individual will must reunite with the universal will and transmit the light of the higher “Self.” Will can manifest, but now it manifests as a universal force that no longer serves dualistic egocentric goals and intentions.
Such a death of the ego gives rise to a state no different from jnana. Therefore, whichever path you follow, you must still arrive at jnana, or unity.
Seeker: And what is the direction of the mind after surrender?
Maharshi: Would the mind of one who has surrendered ask such a question?
The point is that once surrender has taken place, there is no longer any question arising from the mind. There is the answer of the Supreme Source.
Seeker: By constantly wishing to surrender, I hope to receive greater grace.
Maharshi: Surrender yourself once and for all and put an end to desire. It persists only as long as there is a sense of being the doer, that is, a personality. When it disappears, the Atman, shining with purity, is revealed. The limitation is the sense of being the doer, not the actions themselves.
The Mechanism of Surrender and the Flowering of Functions
Surrender takes place when the awareness revealed through self-inquiry, observation, and self-contemplation has become a kind of continuous background that is greater than the ego, manas, and perception.
What is surrender? It means that the ego, manas, and all subtle parts become subordinate to this background of awareness, while none of them loses its functions; on the contrary, the functions simply blossom. As they blossom, these functions rise to the level of pure vision, and this flowering increases in the relative dimension until the transition into the pure dimension has been fully accomplished. The functions of the pranas blossom, becoming the five wisdoms; the functions of manas blossom, becoming the mandala of the intellectual mental body; the functions of action blossom, becoming the mandala of behavior. All functions, all relative elements, blossom, infused and fertilized by this surrender.
However, such surrender is possible only at the stage when there is continuous holding, which is called the “iron chain.” If you have continuous holding of awareness known as the “iron chain,” you are at a stage close to surrender. That is, your mind is as if placed on an iron chain; nothing is capable of distracting or destabilizing it. All that remains is to let go of everything that is still left, relax, eliminate effort, the pursuit of the future, hopes, and fears, in order to allow this awareness to fully take power over the relative parts of your “self.” One who contemplates in the spirit of non-distraction, in the spirit of the “iron chain,” is an excellent practitioner. However, only surrender and the elimination of the final attachments can make one truly awakened.
The Paradox of Surrender for the Ego
Self-surrender is, in a sense, a great disappointment for the ego. It is not even a disappointment, but a complete collapse of egoistic hopes, when everything the ego thought turns out to be different. The ego thought that it had to win; it imagined itself as having achieved victory in the future, but it is told: “You can win only when you surrender your victory to the Supreme.” And when the ego understands this, it is infinitely astonished. The paradox is that if it manages to lose, that is, to surrender, it will begin to win. For the ego, this is always a great shock, since it hoped to achieve such a victory and appropriate it exclusively for itself.
Nevertheless, when this shock passes, the ego sees that in reality it begins to win through this self-surrender, because it itself can do nothing, and it has never existed on its own. The ego, like personality and individuality, is something temporarily invented and functional.
Once, when I entered my little house, I saw a bag of kefir lying on my table. I thought: “Oh, a bag of kefir.” And this thought was recognized, but when I came closer, I saw that it was a folded towel. Until that moment, I had been completely certain that it was a bag of kefir, but it turned out to be a cloth; in other words, there had never actually been any bag of kefir there, but only my interpretation, my imagination and conception. And I thought: “The bag of kefir was not there from the very beginning, but for me it disappeared only now. What disappeared, then?” And if someone asks, “Well, how did the bag of kefir disappear?”, the question itself is absurd; it has absolutely no meaning. One might ask: “What bag are you talking about? What disappeared? It was never here in the first place.” What disappeared was the delusion that mistook one thing for another.
And the ego is similar to such a bag of kefir. It is a delusion, that is, a false conception that considers itself to be what it is not: “I am a person,” “I am an individual,” “I am a monk,” “I am a novice,” “I am a man,” “I am a woman,” and so on. But in reality, everything is quite different. And when you understand this, you see that the Supreme Source is constantly playing tricks on you, saying of itself: “I am this or that. Well, what do you think?”, and then it changes into another identification: “No, I am this one. I will manifest in such-and-such situations. Well, what do you say?”
The Nature of Effort and the Light’s Delegated Powers
Question: What about personal effort, then? It turns out that there is no personal effort if there is no one who makes it. If all of this is fiction from the very beginning, then personal efforts are fiction as well.
Personal efforts are not fiction; they are the light’s delegated powers granted to individuality. Let us put it this way: it is the light that has relinquished part of its powers and some of its functions in order to become more fully aware of itself.
Question: So did the kefir exist after all?
No, it did not exist from the very beginning. That is precisely the point: effort is applied, but the ego does not exist. Let us put it this way: the taste of kefir exists, but the kefir itself does not—this is what the ego is. It is the primordial light playing at the individual’s personal will, which in fact never existed at all.
Question: I often have this question. We have all gathered here as disciples of one Teacher; we are sitting and listening to the same lecture. But some are monks, while others are laypeople. It would seem that after listening to the lecture, one should run off and tear off one’s worldly clothes on the way, or at least take Refuge and say that there is no point in another life. It seems that this should already be done in the hall during the lecture. Why does this happen? Everyone I have spoken to understands: yes, indeed, the Absolute, God, the Guru... Such beautiful words are spoken at Vyasa Puja (October 24). But at the same time, when it comes to making a serious choice, somehow it all seems unreal.
I do not think it is all that simple. The point is that the light does not act uniformly, linearly or directly even in behavior. It has many different games; its principle is flowering complexity. And these games are complex in different variations and mandalas; they are conditioned by different samskaras, causes and effects. In other words, this primordial light manifests differently in different situations. In each situation, only the master of these karmas and samskaras can determine how flawlessly and auspiciously this light is manifesting.
In other words, external status is already a certain choice of clear light mediated through individuality and samskaras. It must always be conditioned by the existence of individual samskaras and such a choice. If this is absent, it must be conditioned by sankalpa, intention, and if these are absent, then it will simply be a linear approach. Therefore, laypeople need not immediately tear off their clothes in the hall. It is accepted that the primordial light may play different lilas; it has many different mandalas and many various manifestations, yet it can develop through them and beyond.
The Principle of Paratarka Logic and the Conditionality of the Ego
Question: I would like to clarify something regarding kefir. In other words, there are many ways in which the universe can manifest. There is paratarka logic. Why, then, if you see kefir and fully identify yourself with the Source, does this kefir at some point become a towel? Why does it not remain a package of kefir?
If there had been an intention to maintain this view, if you applied sankalpa-vidya and knowledge of paratarka logic, that is exactly what would have happened. The question is how much time it would have taken. But in this case there was no such intention; there was an intention to understand. And this example is more closely connected with the principle of the ego, that is, with its reality or unreality.
In this case, we say that the ego we are currently aware of is a conditional view based on temporary perception and having no foundation behind it, just like kefir, which is based on conditional delusion. In other words, the ego is a condition based on delusion. Nevertheless, we do not say that we need to somehow destroy the ego; we need to play this conditionality to the fullest, applying it and using it as a tool, but this conditionality is completely subordinate to the absolute view. Then both freedom of will and complete realization manifest simultaneously in us.
Many assume that the ego must be destroyed, its creative forces, individual will, and ability to manifest intention must be blocked, considering this an egoistic manifestation. But this is the approach of the sutra, associated with immature renunciation. In fact, what needs to be destroyed is egoistic identification, completely subordinating it to the supreme Source, because destroying the ego by blocking it is the same as destroying the instrument of clear light, the instrument for its service and manifestation. It is like damaging the property of the sangha or preventing it from multiplying. After all, the nature of light is to increase its manifestation, blossoming, and play in everything.
It turns out that we destroy the ego through complete surrender and subordination, and then allow this light to dance throughout every part of this ego. In other words, the primordial light has the right to generate illusory meanings and play within these meanings.
The Universal Will as the Source of All Efforts
Question: Tell me, if there is no ego at all, where does effort come from? Where can it come from? Who, then, is acting?
The universal will, iccha-shakti, acts as effort. What appears to be individual effort is in fact not individual effort but a manifestation of the universal force, shakti, which, encountering individualized consciousness, manifests as personal intention. Nevertheless, it is said: “Dig deeper into personal intention and you will see the will of Brahma himself.” In other words, when you bring a spoon to your mouth, it only seems that you are doing it yourself; this is a moment of the universal will (iccha-shakti) acting through you.
What we call personal will is individualized consciousness that attributes certain functions and qualities to itself. In other words, imagine that a barren woman has never given birth to a son, and she is asked: “How did you give him such a name?” But the point is that originally there was no one to give the name, because there is no son.
