The True Meaning of Surrender

What exactly is surrender? To give yourself entirely, unconditionally and absolutely to God is surrender. To attain that state, you should first develop friendship with God. What is friendship? Is it saying, “Hello!”? No, not at all. Feeling of oneness is true friendship; the two must feel alike and think alike. The Telugu word Maitri (meaning friendship) has two syllables, one is mai and the other is tri. This tri stands for the three planes of a human being, namely, body, mind and soul. Thus the word maitri connotes a feeling of oneness at all these three levels. Such a state alone can be called a state of true friendship.

Divinity can be attained only when the body, the mind and the soul are all surrendered at the Lotus Feet of the Lord. As long there is a feeling of duality, a sense of I and you, the notion of mine and thine, the Divine state cannot be attained. Your true reality is the Atma (the individual Soul) which is a wave of the Paramatma (Universal Soul). Krishna has declared that He is in everyone and every being. Thus, you do not have a separate existence; the individual and the Universal are one and the same. Just because bodies are different, you think that you have a separate existence. If, however, you seek friendship with God, you must give up this body-consciousness. You must follow the command of the Divine. But these days, selfishness has taken precedence over obedience to God’s commands. If you disobey God’s commands, if you do not pay heed to them, can there be any true devotion? Always abide by the wishes of God and realise that this is the right path to Divinity.

Purandara Dasa, a great devotee of the Lord, once declared: “O God! I forgot you in my previous birth and that has resulted in my being born again. This time, if I install You in my heart, there will be no rebirth; I will become a liberated soul.” These days, everyone is harassed by doubts of various kinds. As long as there is a feeling of attachment to the body, doubts cannot be overcome. Proper exercise of discrimination alone would lead to the Truth. For example, Purandara Dasa asked himself: “There are isolated trees on mountain tops that are otherwise barren. Who planted these trees, who watered the saplings, who protected them, and who provided the fertilizer? Who painted the feather of the peacock with such a glorious combination of colours? O God, you are such a wonderful artist!” The green parrot sports a nice red beak; who gave the parrot the red beak? Scientists have no explanation for all these wonders of Nature because their approach is purely worldly and materialistic. This is not the proper way of understanding Reality. Truth can be grasped only through the path of spirituality. God is the fountainhead of all existence and the will of the Divine is the cause for every happening. Nothing happens in the Universe without the Sankalpa (will) of Ishwara (God). You must have this belief implanted firmly. Don’t ever imagine that you are a low and an ordinary mortal. You are nothing of that sort; you are truly speaking a child of God, a spark of the Divine. Therefore it is that Purandara Dasa sang: “As long as I am aware of Your presence in my heart, I do not feel lost. You are the real doer and not me. You impart knowledge. You protect and You also reprimand when necessary. There is nothing that is not Yours. I am wholly Yours. When You, the Lord Almighty, are doing so much for me and are taking care for me, how can I be called poor?” Like Purandara Dasa, all of you also are a spark of the Divine. He realised that he was; you too should.