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Complete Surrender

 There is often a discussion on complete surrender on the path of spirituality. A question arises surrender by whom to whom. If surrender is by the mind to the divine, that can never happen because the mind will always be separate from the divine. Ramakrishna Paramhansa explained this by giving the example of a salt lump that is thrown into the sea. It will remain separate from the sea and then start melting into the sea. Until it completely melts, it is different from the sea and the moment it melts completely, there is no salt only sea. Thus, there appears an impossibility of complete surrender by the mind. 

If "I" is also a part of the divine, there is no need for surrender. Ramakrishna told another story of Hanuman. Rama asked Hanuman to explain his bhakti. Hanumana said that when I am at my lowest level of awareness, I see myself as your servant. When my level of awareness is better I see myself as your part. When I am at the highest level of awareness, I see no difference between myself and you. So, at the highest level of awareness, the mind is no different from the divine and therefore there is no question of surrender. Why will light surrender to light? There is no difference between the two and there can at best be a merger of the two. In fact, even a merger is not required because the two are the same and separated just to do two different tasks just like the same electricity passing through different wires to play the TV and washing machine together. Electricity is the electricity. The problem arises when of electricity says that I am washing machine and then the washing machine wants to surrender to electricity which is an impossibility.

Thus, where is the question of surrender? "ego" can never surrender to the divine and there is no question of surrender by the "divine" to the "divine". That is why I sometimes wonder whether this entire concept of surrender is the creation of the cult of gurus who sell the product of enlightenment in the name of surrender and the "surrendered" mind stops questioning their ways and means. Did Rama, Krishna, Buddha, or Mahavira surrender? Did Kabira surrender? They questioned any and everything. They discriminated between the truth and false. Their intellect was so strong that they could place the things in the right place. Why would we evolve into intellectual beings if intellect has no role in the process of evolution? 

I sometimes feel that surrender is probably some ego defense mechanism whereby the people advocating surrender try to attribute their actions to destiny. I am not happy with some of my actions in the past and I bring the theory of surrender so as to get over the guilt. Probably that's like running away from reality. Probably if we accept that those actions were the result of ignorance of the intellect and the spiritual journey is all about awareness, to an extent, that the intellect is completely aware of every moment, it can see through things, and its understanding is not restricted by any facade, probably then we do not need to surrender. There is a complete merger. The merger of the intellect into the consciousness. One can see the movement of the ego. One can see which decisions are being driven by the ignorance-induced ego and which decisions are being taken with awareness. 

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