SURRENDER

In The Integral Yoga

Second Edition

A Compilation from the Works of

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

SURRENDER

In The Integral Yoga

Second Edition

© All writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

are copyright of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

and have been reproduced here with their kind permission.

Cover Painting–Usha Patel (Ashram Artist)

©2021 AuroPublications, Sri Aurobindo Society, Puducherry

www.aurosociety.org

Year of Publication 2021

The idea for comprehensive compilation given by Vijay bhai

Compilation done by Jamshed M Mavalwalla

Proof reading done by Archana Udaykumar and Jayeeta Sen

Cover done by Vivechana Saraf

Help in making e–book by Vivechana Saraf, Shivakumar and Uttam Mondal

Foreword

All over the world, there is a growing interest in Spirituality and Yoga.  There is a search for the true meaning and purpose of life, for deeper solutions to the problems which confront us all, and how we can contribute to the evolutionary change and progress.

In this search, more and more persons are turning to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother for guidance and enlightenment.  But in their voluminous literature, they do not know where to find the answers they are looking for.

In this regard the Mother has said,

“It is not by books that Sri Aurobindo ought to be studied but by subjects—what he has said on the Divine, on Unity, on religion, on evolution, on education, on self perfection, on supermind, etc., etc.” (CWM 12: 206)

On another occasion she said:

“If you want to know what Sri Aurobindo has said on a given subject, you must at least read all he has written on that subject. You will then see that he seems to have said the most contradictory things. But when one has read everything and understood a little, one sees that all the contradictions complement one another and are organised and unified in an integral synthesis.” (CWM 16: 309-310)

While there are several compilations which are now available, many sincere spiritual seekers have felt the need of Comprehensive Compilations from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on specific subjects, where the contents are further organised into sub-topics, so that one can get all that one is looking for at one place.

These books are an effort to fulfill this need and thus help spiritual seekers in their journey and sadhana.  We hope these compilations will help us to get a greater mental clarity about a subject so that we can channel our efforts in the right direction. For Sri Aurobindo has written:

“It is always better to make an effort in the right direction; even if one fails the effort bears some result and is never lost.” (CWSA 29: 87)

We will be glad to get suggestions and feedback from the readers.

Vijay

PREFACE

Once, the Mother was asked ‘What is the secret of success in sadhana?’ to which she replied in one word ‘Surrender’. (CWM 14: 108) In another talk the Mother says that surrender is the first attitude indispensable for beginning the Yoga. If one has not decided to make a total surrender, then one cannot even begin practicing Integral yoga.

Thus if one wants to pursue Integral Yoga then there is a need to know and understand all that has been written on Surrender by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, thereby bringing mental clarity.

The quotations in this compilation are taken from the volumes of the Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo (CWSA) and the Collected Works of the Mother (CWM), Second Edition. Each quotation is followed by the book title, volume number and the page number it has been taken from.

While the passages from Sri Aurobindo are in the original English, most of the passages from the Mother (selections from her talks and writings) are translations from the original French. We must also bear in mind that the excerpts have been taken out of their original context and that a compilation, in its very nature, is likely to have a personal and subjective approach. A sincere attempt, however, has been made to be faithful to the vision of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Those who would like to go through the fuller text are advised to go through the Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo (CWSA) and the Collected Works of the Mother (CWM), Second Edition.

The section headings and sub-headings have also been provided by the compiler to bring clarity on the selected topic. Also to emphasize certain portion in the quotations, the compiler has bold-faced some words.

Jamshed M. Mavalwalla

Contents

I—What Is Surrender in Yoga

II—Wrong Ideas about Surrender–What Is Not Surrender in Yoga

III—When Mind Accepts Spirituality and Surrenders to Spiritual Force

IV—Surrender Is the First and Absolute Condition for Doing Yoga

V—If You Do Not Surrender, the Yoga Is Entirely Out of the Question

VI—Ashramite Is Founded on the Principle of Self-giving and Surrender

VII—Why Is There a Need to Surrender to the Divine Shakti

VIII—In the Initial Stage the Personal Effort Is Necessary to Surrender to the Divine

IX—Personal Effort Is Better than Tamasic Inertia

X—How to Surrender—The Effort Needed in the Initial Stage

XI—Difficulties of Surrender and How to Overcome Them in Yoga

XII—The Process of Surrender in Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga

XIII—Attitude One Must Have to Surrender

XIV—Wrong Attitude of Putting Conditions for Surrender

XV—Surrender, Offering and Self-giving

XVI—Surrender and Sacrifice

XVII—Surrender and Consecration

XVIII—Surrender and Grace

XIX—Surrender and Work

XX—The Foundation for the Surrender of Action

XXI—How to Progressively Surrender Our Ignorant Personal Will into a Greater Divine Will

XXII—The Indispensable Faith Required in Integral Yoga

XXIII—Psychic Being and Surrender

XXIV—The Central Being and Surrender

XXV—The Parts of the Being which Are Surrendered

XXVI—The Sunlit Path Can Be Followed by Those who Practice Surrender

XXVII—In Surrender You Say ‘Let thy Will be Done’

XXVIII—Surrender Can Bring Following Results in Yoga

XXIX—How Can One Know Whether the Surrender Is Total or Not?

XXX—To Be the Instrument of the Divine Is a Higher Stage of Self-surrender

XXXI—Surrender of the Vital in Yoga

XXXII—Complete Surrender Protects from Hostile Forces

XXXIII—Surrendered Mind

XXXIV—Surrender of cells of the body

XXXV—Surrender to the Guru

XXXVI—The Secret of Secrets of the Gita

XXXVII—Until Mankind Gives All to God, Never Shall There Be a Perfected Society

XXXVIII—The Supramental Yoga and Surrender

XXXIX—Surrender (A Sonnet by Sri Aurobindo)

XL—Radha’s Prayer

XLI—From the Mother’s ‘Prayers and Meditations’ on Surrender

XLII—Absolute and Unreserved Self Surrender of the Mother

XLIII—Sri Aurobindo’s Surrender

XLIV—In Integral Yoga We Surrender to the Divine Mother

XLV—Surrender to the Shakti Is a Form of Real Self–surrender to the Divine

XLVI—Other Quotations on Surrender

I—What Is Surrender in Yoga

1. “Surrender is giving oneself to the Divine—to give everything one is or has to the Divine and regard nothing as one’s own, to obey only the Divine will and no other, to live for the Divine and not for the ego.” (CWSA 29: 67)

2. “Surrender is the decision taken to hand over the responsibility of your life to the Divine.” (CWM 3: 126)

3. “There is only one way for you. It is a total, complete and unconditional surrender. What I mean by that is the giving up not only of your actions, work, ambitions, but also of all your feelings, in the sense that all that you do, all that you are, is exclusively for the Divine.”

(CWM 15: 398)

4. “Surrender means to consecrate everything in oneself to the Divine, to offer all one is and has, not to insist on one's ideas, desires, habits, etc., but to allow the divine Truth to replace them by its knowledge, will and action everywhere.” (CWSA 29: 67)

5. “By surrender we mean … a spontaneous self–giving, a giving of all your self to the Divine, to a greater Consciousness of which you are a part.” (CWM 3: 114)

6. “Resignation is the basis of a kind of religious equality, submission to the divine will, a patient bearing of the cross, a submissive forbearance. In the Gita this element takes the more ample form of an entire surrender of the whole being to God. It is not merely a passive submission, but an active self–giving; not only a seeing and an accepting of the divine Will in all things, but a giving up of one’s own will to be the instrument of the Master of works, and this not with the lesser idea of being a servant of God, ….” (CWSA 19: 208–209)

6. a. “... the surrender, that is to say, the spontaneous and total acceptance of the supreme Will ...”

(CWM 11: 14)

7. To surrender to the Divine is to renounce your narrow limits and let yourself be invaded by It and made a centre for Its play.” (CWM 3: 168) (CWM 14: 107)

8. “Surrender: to will what the Divine wills is the supreme wisdom.” (CWM 14: 109)

9. “Divine Will—the will expressing the highest Truth.” (CWM 14: 109)

10. “For here, there are two movements with a transitional stage between them, two periods of this Yoga,—one of the process of surrender, the other of its crown and consequence. In the first the individual prepares himself for the reception of the Divine into his members. For all this first period he has to work by means of the instruments of the lower Nature, but aided more and more from above. … the eternal Shakti descends into this limited form of mortality and progressively possesses and transmutes it.”

(CWSA 23: 86)

11.  “It is not my intention to say that this way is the only way and sadhana cannot be done otherwise—there are so many others by which one can approach the Divine. But this is the only one I know by which the taking up of sadhana by the Divine becomes a sensible fact before the preparation of the nature is done. In other methods the Divine action may be felt from time to time, but it remains mostly behind the veil till all is ready. In some sadhanas the Divine action is not recognised; all must be done by tapasya. In most there is a mixing of the two, the tapasya finally calling the direct help and intervention. The idea and experience of the Divine doing all belongs to the Yogas based on surrender.” (CWSA 29: 71)

12. a. “What I mean by surrender is this inner surrender of the mind and vital. There is, of course, the outer surrender also: the giving up of all that is found to conflict with the spirit or need of the sadhana, the offering, the obedience to the guidance of the Divine, whether directly, if one has reached that stage, or through the psychic or to the guidance of the Guru.” (CWSA 29: 70)

12. b. “It depends on the sadhak [whether the surrender should begin from within]. Some may find it necessary to surrender the external activities first so as to bring the inner surrender.” (CWSA 29: 71)

13. “Self–surrender is to give up yourself and all that is yours, mind and everything else to the Divine, so that the Divine Force may take everything and change it.”

(CWSA 29: 67)

14. “It [true surrender] begins when there is the true self–offering.” (CWSA 29: 68)

15. “Surrender means that, to give up our little mind and its mental ideas and preferences into a divine Light and a greater knowledge, our petty personal troubled blind stumbling will into a great calm tranquil luminous Will and Force, our little restless tormented feelings into a wide intense divine Love and Ananda, our small suffering personality into the one Person of which it is an obscure outcome." (CWSA 28: 385)

16. “Surrender means to look to the Divine Mother only—to reject all desires and do only her will, not to insist on one’s own ideas and preferences, but to ask for her Truth only, to obey and follow her guidance, to open oneself and become aware of her Force and its workings and to allow those workings to change the nature into the divine nature.” (CWSA 32: 146)

17. “Detailed surrender: a surrender which does not forget anything.” (CWM 14: 107)

18. “Complete surrender: one is now only a docile instrument, a faithful servant before the Supreme Master. The Love is so complete that it causes a detachment from all that is not the Divine Absolute and perfect concentration on Him.” (CWM 2: 130)

19. “Active surrender, by the way, does not mean to follow your own ideas or your own guidance; it means to fight against your imperfections and weaknesses and follow only the way of the Truth shown to you.” (CWSA 36: 403)

20. “Surrender, on the other hand, may be defined as the giving up of the limits of your ego.” (CWM 3: 168)

21. “Intimacy with the Divine: complete surrender to the Divine and total receptivity to His influence, without any conditions to this intimacy.” (CWM 14: 21)

22. “What I mean by subtle methods is psychological, non-mechanical processes—e.g. concentration in the heart, surrender, self-purification, working out by inner means the change of the consciousness.” (CWSA 30: 42)

23. “I think they [Self-giving, consecration, offering and surrender] are closely synonymous, that they are rather shades than differences. Because one can very well replace one by another in a sentence. It depends on how the sentence sounds and on the word that fits best into it. It is a literary point. If one wants, one can find a difference, but all this depends entirely on what one wants to put into the words.” (CWM 6: 227–228)

24. a. “The rose is usually taken by us as the symbol of surrender, love etc.” (CWSA 27: 256)

24. b. “The red rose is the flower of love and surrender, the white is the purity of psychic love.” (CWSA 30: 180)

24. c. “Reddish pink rose = psychic love or surrender.

White rose = pure spiritual surrender.” (CWSA 30: 180)

II—Wrong Ideas about Surrender–What Is Not Surrender in Yoga

1. a. “There are many wrong ideas current about surrender. Most people seem to look upon surrender as an abdication of the personality; but that is a grievous error. … by taking the right attitude towards the Divine, this personality is purified of all the influences of the lower nature which diminish and distort it and it becomes more strongly personal, more itself, more complete. The truth and power of the personality come out with a more resplendent distinctness, its character is more precisely marked than it could possibly be when mixed with all the obscurity and ignorance, all the dirt and alloy of the lower nature. It undergoes a heightening and glorification, an aggrandisement of capacity, a realization of the maximum of its possibilities.” (CWM 3: 116)

1. b. “For, in the Divine you do not really lose your individuality: you only give up your egoism and become the true individual, the divine personality which is not temporary like the construction of the physical consciousness which is usually taken for your self. One touch of the divine consciousness and you see immediately that there is no loss in it. On the contrary, you acquire a true individual permanence which can survive a hundred deaths of the body and all the vicissitudes of the vital–mental evolution.” (CWM 3: 169)

2. “If you have the slightest feeling that you are making a sacrifice, then it is no longer surrender. For it means that you reserve yourself or that you are trying to give, with grudging or with pain and effort, and have not the joy of the gift, perhaps not even the feeling that you are giving. When you do anything with the sense of a compression of your being, be sure that you are doing it in the wrong way. True surrender enlarges you; it increases your capacity; it gives you a greater measure in quality and in quantity which you could not have had by yourself. This new greater measure of quality and quantity is different from anything you could attain before: you enter into another world, into a wideness which you could not have entered if you did not surrender.” (CWM 3: 114–115)

3. The surrender of vital Bhakti and of unillumined mind is not surrender

“The vital Bhakti demands and demands. It imposes its own conditions. It surrenders itself to God, but conditionally. It says to God, ‘You are so great,’ ‘I worship you,’—‘and now you must satisfy this desire of mine or that ambition’; ‘make me great; make me a great sadhaka, a great yogin’ etc.

The unillumined mind also surrenders to the Truth, but makes its own conditions. It says to the Truth, ‘Satisfy my judgment, and my opinion’; it demands the Truth to cast itself in the mind’s own forms. …

Both of them (the mental and the vital) have got an arrière-pensée (mental reservation) in their surrender.

Psychic Bhakti is not like that. Because it is in communication with the Divinity behind, it is capable of true Bhakti.” (CWSA 36: 380)

4. a. “Tamasic surrender is when one says, ‘I won’t do anything; let Mother do everything. Aspiration, rejection, surrender even are not necessary. Let her do all that in me.’ There is a great difference between the two attitudes. One is that of a shirker who won’t do anything, the other is that of the sadhak who does his best, but when he is reduced to quiescence for a time and things are adverse, keep always his trust in the Mother’s force and presence behind all and by that trust baffles the opposition force and calls back the activity of the sadhana.” (CWSA 32: 140) (CWSA 31: 676–677)

4. b. “Note that a tamasic surrender refusing to fulfil the conditions and calling on God to do everything and save one all the trouble and struggle is a deception and does not lead to freedom and perfection.” (CWSA 32: 7)

4. c. “ ‘A tamasic surrender refusing to fulfil the conditions’—if it refuses to fulfil the conditions, it is no longer surrender, is it?

Exactly. But there are many who think that they have surrendered and tell you, ‘I no longer do anything myself, I have given myself to the Divine, the Divine ought to do everything for me.’ This they call surrender.... That is to say, it is a movement of laziness and tamas which doesn’t want to make any effort and would very much like the Divine to do everything for you, because that is much more comfortable!” (CWM 6: 221)

4. d. “This was the twist … interpreted not as a complete surrender to the Divine Shakti, but as giving yourself up to anything that came, which might very well be a wrong movement of the lower vital Nature or even a hostile force.

I have repeatedly said that this kind of passivity is not the meaning of surrender. You cannot surrender at the same time to the Divine Shakti and to the movements of the lower cosmic Nature. To allow everything as her movement is to contradict the very sense and object of this Yoga. To surrender to the Mother means that you stop giving yourself to these other forces. Therefore discrimination (by the psychic feeling and the seeing conscious mind, more even than by the thinking part) and rejection are necessary accompaniments and helps to consecration and surrender.” (CWSA 32: 148–149)

What is not Tamasic Surrender

5. a. “But of the three the most important is surrender of which the first necessary form is trust and confidence and patience in difficulty. There is no rule that trust and confidence can only remain if aspiration is there. On the contrary, when even aspiration is not there because of the pressure of inertia, trust and confidence and patience can remain. If trust and patience fail when aspiration is quiescent, that would mean that the sadhak is relying solely on his own effort—it would mean, ‘Oh, my aspiration has failed, so there is no hope for me. My aspiration fails, so what can Mother do?’ On the contrary, the sadhak should feel, ‘Never mind, my aspiration will come back again. Meanwhile I know that the Mother is with me even when I do not feel her; she will carry me even through the darkest period.’ That is the fully right attitude you must have. To those who have it depression can do nothing; even if it comes it has to return baffled. That is not tamasic surrender.” (CWSA 32: 139–140) (CWSA 31: 676)

5. b. “Active surrender is when you associate your will with the Divine Will, reject what is not the Divine, assent to what is the Divine. Passive surrender is when everything is left entirely to the Divine—that few can really do, because in practice it turns out that you surrender to the lower nature under pretext of surrendering to the Divine.”

(CWSA 29: 79)

5. c. “An inert passivity is constantly confused with the real surrender, but out of an inert passivity nothing true and powerful can come. It is the inert passivity of the physical Nature that leaves it at the mercy of every obscure or undivine influence. A glad and strong and helpful submission is demanded to the working of the Divine Force, the obedience of the illumined disciple of the Truth, of the inner Warrior who fights against obscurity and falsehood, of the faithful servant of the Divine.” (CWSA 32: 5)

5. c. “But in any case, to say that ‘you need not fulfil any condition’ is a flagrant error. It is the old mischievous suggestion of an inert passivity to all influences as the true surrender and, if accepted, would legitimate every wrong movement of the nature. First, certain conditions have to be fulfilled; afterwards, there will be room for the divine grace to act.” (CWSA 35: 665)

5. d. “If it is an inert tamasic passivity subject to any influence and unable to react, then it is subjection to Nature. If it is a sattwic passivity of the Witness observing and understanding the movements of Nature, then it is an intermediate condition, often necessary for knowledge. If it is a luminous passivity open to the Divine, shut to all other influences, then it is not subjection to Nature but surrender to the Divine.” (CWSA 31: 394)

6. “To all those who suffer, it is the same thing that has to be said: all suffering is the sign that the surrender is not total. Then, when you feel in you a ‘bang’, like that, instead of saying, ‘Oh, this is bad’ or ‘This circumstance is difficult,’ you say, ‘My surrender is not perfect.’ Then it’s all right. And then you feel the Grace that helps you and leads you, and you go on. And one day you emerge into that peace that nothing can trouble. You answer to all the contrary forces, the contrary movements, the attacks, the misunderstandings, the bad wills, with the same smile that comes from full confidence in the Divine Grace. And that is the only way out.” (CWM 15: 398–399)

7. “The kind of outward obedience you lay stress on, asking for a direction in every detail, is not the essence of surrender, although obedience is the natural fruit and outward body of surrender.” (CWSA 32: 346–347)

8. a. “ ‘A surrender by any means is good, but obviously the impersonal is not enough–for surrender to that may be limited in result to the inner experience without any transformation of the outer nature.’ (CWSA 29: 79)

... to follow after the Impersonal only brings inner experience or at the most mukti. Without the action of the integral Divine there is no change of the whole nature. If it were not so the Mother would not be here and I would not be here—if a realisation of the Impersonal were sufficient.” (CWSA 32: 87)

8. b. “Yes [surrender to the formless Divine would leave parts of the being subject to the gunas and ego]—because only the static parts would be free in formlessness, the active nature would be still in the play of the gunas. Many think they are free from ego because they get the sense of the formless Existence, they do not see that the egoistic element remains in their action just as before.” (CWSA 29: 194)

9. “To believe that one is being constantly guided by the Divine in the heart is not necessarily surrender. It is necessary to be detached, to see what are the divine forces and undivine and to reject the undivine forces. It is only by this discrimination that one can make a true surrender to the Divine in the heart.” (CWSA 29:  68)

10. Q: “If absolute surrender to the Guru leaves one helpless like a puppet in the hands of forces—what good is it? I think what is harmful is to surrender only to the Divine in the Guru and not to the Divine in one’s Self. It is this one-sided surrender which is harmful.

A: What is harmful is to surrender to something in yourself which flatters your ego and which you call the Divine. It is that which makes you a puppet in the hands of Forces.” (CWSA 35: 397)

11. “As for surrender, everyone has his own first way of approach towards it; but if it is due to fear, ‘form’ or sense of duty, then certainly that is not surrender at all; these things have nothing to do with surrender. Also, complete and total surrender is not so easy as some seem to imagine. There are always many and large reservations; even if one is not conscious of them, they are there.” (CWSA 30: 57)

12. “The Divine is not bound to do that [supply all one’s real needs], He can give or not give; whether He gives or does not give makes no difference to the one who is surrendered to Him. Otherwise, there is an arrière-pensée [ulterior motive] in the surrender which is not then ´ complete.” (CWSA 29: 75)

13. “Is not surrender the same as sacrifice?

In our Yoga there is no room for sacrifice. But everything depends on the meaning you put on the word. In its pure sense it means a consecrated giving, a making sacred to the Divine. But in the significance that it now bears, sacrifice is something that works for destruction; it carries about it an atmosphere of negation. This kind of sacrifice is not fulfilment; it is a deprivation, a self–immolation. It is your possibilities that you sacrifice, the possibilities and realisations of your personality from the most material to the highest spiritual range. Sacrifice diminishes your being. If physically you sacrifice your life, your body, you give up all your possibilities on the material plane; you have done with the achievements of your earthly existence.

In the same way you can morally sacrifice your life; you give up the amplitude and free fulfilment of your inner existence. There is always in this idea of self–immolation a sense of forcing, a constriction, an imposed self–denial. This is an ideal that does not give room for the soul’s deeper and larger spontaneities. By surrender we mean not this but a spontaneous self–giving, a giving of all your self to the Divine, to a greater Consciousness of which you are a part." (CWM 3: 114)

III—When Mind Accepts Spirituality and Surrenders to Spiritual Force

1. “As long as the mind is convinced that it is the summit of human consciousness, that there is nothing beyond and above it, it takes its own functioning to be a perfect one and is fully satisfied with the progress it can make within the limits of this functioning, and with an increase of clarity, precision, complexity, suppleness, plasticity in its movements.

It always has a spontaneous tendency to feel very satisfied with itself and with what it can do, and if there were no greater force than its own, a higher power which irrefutably shows it its own limitations, its poverty, it would never make any effort to find its way out of all that by the right door: liberation into a higher and truer mode of being.

When the spiritual force is able to act, when it begins to have an influence, it jolts the mind’s self-satisfaction and, by continuous pressure, begins to make it feel that beyond it there is something higher and truer; then a little of its characteristic vanity gives way under this influence and as soon as it realises that it is limited, ignorant, incapable of reaching the true truth, liberation begins with the possibility of opening to something beyond. But it must feel the power, the beauty, the force of this beyond to be able to surrender. It must be able to perceive its incapacity and its limitations in the presence of something higher than itself, otherwise how could it ever feel its own weakness!” (CWM 9: 418–419)

2. “The western mind always finds it difficult to submit totally to a Guru and without total and unquestioning surrender to the Guru his help to you is paralysed. That is why generally I advise westerners to find the guidance and the Presence within themselves; it is true that this process is very often open to uncertainty and self-deception, mistaking some voice of the ego in disguise for the Divine’s guidance.

In both cases, it is only an absolute sincerity and an unmixed humility that can be your safeguard.” (CWM 14: 60)

3. “Human consciousness is so corrupted that men prefer the miseries of the ego and its ignorance to the luminous joy that comes from a sincere surrender to the Divine. So great is their blindness that they refuse even to try the experiment and would rather be subject to the miseries of their ego than make the effort needed to get rid of them.

So completely blind are they that they would not hesitate to make the Divine a slave of their ego, if such a thing were possible, in order to avoid giving themselves to the Divine.” (CWM 16: 435)

IV—Surrender Is the First and Absolute Condition for Doing Yoga

1. a. But Sri Aurobindo has said … that surrender is the first and absolute condition for doing the yoga. So, if we follow what he has said, this is not just one of the necessary qualities: it is the first attitude indispensable for beginning the yoga. If one has not decided to make a total surrender, one cannot begin.”  (CWM 8: 41)

1. b. “So here’s my proposal: we put surrender first, at the top of the list, that is, we accept what Sri Aurobindo has said—that to do the integral yoga one must first resolve to surrender entirely to the Divine, there is no other way, this is the way. But after that one must have the five psychological virtues, five psychological perfections, and we say that these perfections are:

Sincerity or Transparency,

Faith or Trust (Trust in the Divine, naturally),

Devotion or Gratitude,

Courage or Aspiration,

Endurance or Perseverance.” (CWM 8: 42)

2. “The effort demanded of the sadhak is that of aspiration, rejection and surrender. If these three are done the rest is to come of itself by the Grace of the Mother and the working of her force in you. But of the three the most important is surrender of which the first necessary form is trust and confidence and patience in difficulty.” (CWSA 32: 139) (CWSA 31: 676)

3. a. “The first process of the yoga is to make the saṅkalpa of ātmasamarpaṇa. Put yourself with all your heart and all your strength into God’s hands. Make no conditions; ask for nothing, not even for siddhi in the yoga, for nothing at all except that in you and through you his will may be directly performed. To those who demand from him, God gives what they demand, but to those who give themselves and demand nothing, he gives everything that they might otherwise have asked or needed and in addition he gives himself and the spontaneous boons of his love.” (CWSA 13: 74)

3. b. “You must remember that I have not given you the whole Yogic sadhana. What I have given you is only the beginning. You have to get rid of ahankara & desire & surrender yourself to God, in order that the rest may come.” (CWSA 36: 178)

4. a. “These then are the processes of the yoga, (1) the saṅkalpa of ātmasamarpaṇa, (2) the standing apart from the Adhar by self-knowledge, (3) the vision of God everywhere and in all things and in all happenings, the surrender of the fruits of action and action itself to God, and the freedom thereby from ignorance, from ahaṅkāra, from the dvandvas, from desire, so that you are śuddha, mukta, siddha, full of Ananda, pure, free, perfect and blissful in your being.” (CWSA 13: 85–86)

4. b. “This is the reason why in this Yoga we insist so much on what we call samarpaṇa–rather inadequately rendered by the English word surrender.” (CWSA 32:214)

4. c. The first conditions of this Yoga are:

(1) A complete sincerity and surrender in the being. The divine life and the transformation of the lower human into the higher divine nature must be made the sole aim of all the life.” (CWSA 29: 43)

5. “Self–giving or surrender is demanded of those who practise this Yoga, because without such a progressive surrender of the being it is quite impossible to get anywhere near the goal.” (CWSA 32: 140)

6. “But in the Yoga itself there are different ways of proceeding for different natures, even though the general path is the same, surrender to the Divine and change of nature. But surrender to the Divine in the completest sense cannot be achieved in a short time, nor can the change of the nature. On the whole, one has to go as quickly as one can and as slowly as is necessary—which seems contradictory but is not." (CWSA 35: 496)

7. “Everybody must be made to understand clearly that this is not a sadhana of emotional and egoistic bhakti, but of surrender. One who makes demands and threatens to commit suicide if his demands are not complied with, is not meant for this Yoga.

This Yoga is not a Yoga of emotional egoistic vital bhakti full of demands and desires. There is no room in it for ābdār of any kind. It is only for those who surrender to the Divine and obey implicitly the directions given to them by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.” (CWSA 29: 467)

8. a. Only two kinds of people can stay here with any true profit;

(1) Those who are ready to absorb the spiritual atmosphere and change.

(2) Those who, if not yet ready, can still surrender to the influence and prepare slowly till they are ready."

(CWSA 35: 564)

8. b. “He must make his sadhana deeper, less mental, more psychic, by a stronger aspiration and more devout surrender, before he can hope to come. Let him learn too to face the difficulties of life and keep his inner consciousness amongst them. It is not always the best thing for everybody to have the external circumstances made easy and favourable for the sadhana.”

(CWSA 35: 565)

9. “The Asram here is not precisely a place for ‘spiritual training’ but for growing into a divine consciousness and divine life. Those who come here must have grown already so far that they are ready to give up all past mental ideas, fixed life-habits or life-tendencies and even the very mould of their physical consciousness and open only to the light of a greater Truth which, by their complete surrender to it, will transform the whole nature. This is very difficult, and it has been found by experience that those who come here unprepared break down after a time and can go no farther, because they cannot consent to get free from their past selves. They find the atmosphere too hard for them to breathe and the pressure of the Truth too exacting.” (CWSA 35: 594)

10. “Without sincerity the path of yoga is dangerous; without surrender it is impossible.” (CWM 17: 149)

11. “Q: What is the secret of success in sadhana?

A: Surrender.” (CWM 14: 108)

12. “It is quite true that aspiration, rejection and the remembrance of the Mother and surrender to her and union with her consciousness are the main means of the sadhana.” (CWSA 32: 137)

13. “As for being self-centred, it is obviously not the right thing for Yoga to be centred in the ego and revolving round it; one has to be centred in the Divine with all the movements turning round that centre—until they can all be in the Divine. One has naturally to think much of one’s own nature and its change, but that is inevitable for the sadhana—to prevent its turning into a self-centred condition, the aspiration to the Divine, vision of the Divine everywhere, the surrender to the Divine have to be made the main objective of the sadhana.” (CWSA 31: 288)

14. “Your mind is too full of demands and desires. If you want to be able to practise the Yoga here, you must throw them from you and learn quietude, desirelessness, simplicity and surrender. It is these you must get first; other things can come afterwards—for this is the only true foundation of the sadhana.” (CWSA 29: 139)

The base of Integral Yoga is self-offering, surrender, bhakti, it is based on the heart

15. “This Yoga too is not a Yoga of knowledge alone—knowledge is one of its means, but its base being self-offering, surrender, bhakti, it is based on the heart and nothing can be eventually done without this base.” (CWSA 29: 226)

14. “The first law of Karmamarga is to give up the natural desire for the fruits of our works and surrender all we do, think, feel and are into the keeping of the Eternal, and the second is to identify ourself with all creatures in the Universe both individually and collectively, realising our larger Self in others. These two laws of action together make what is called Karmayoga or the putting of ourselves into relation with that which is Eternal by means of and in our works.” (CWSA 18: 404)

15. “This path is the broad and trackless ocean by which you can travel widely to all parts of the world and are admitted to the freedom of the infinite. All that you need are the ship, the steering-wheel, the compass, the motive-power and a skilful captain. Your ship is the Brahmavidya, faith is your steering-wheel, self-surrender your compass, the motive-power is she who makes, directs and destroys the worlds at God’s command and God himself is your captain.”

(CWSA 13: 87–88)

16. “In fact, the first victory [for our spiritual rebirth] is to create an individuality. And then later, the second victory is to give this individuality to the Divine. And the third victory is that the Divine changes your individuality into a divine being.

There are three stages: the first is to become an individual; the second is to consecrate the individual, that he may surrender entirely to the Divine and be identified with Him; and the third is that the Divine takes possession of this individual and changes him into a being in His own image, that is, he too becomes divine.

Generally, all the yogas stopped at the second. When one had succeeded in surrendering the individual and giving him without reserve to the Divine to be identified with Him, one considered that his work was finished, that all was accomplished.

But we begin there, and we say, ‘No, this is only a beginning. We want this Divine with whom we are identified to enter our individuality and make it into a divine personality acting in a divine world.’ And this is what we call transformation. But the other precedes it, must precede it. If that is not done, there is no possibility of doing the third. One can’t go from the first to the third; one must pass through the second [that is surrender].”

(CWM 7: 402–403)

17. “The true aim of life is to find the Divine’s Presence deep inside oneself and to surrender to It so that It takes the lead of the life, all the feelings and all the actions of the body.

This gives a true and luminous aim to existence.” (CWM 14: 5)

18. “Man was created to express the Divine. His duty is therefore to become conscious of the Divine and to surrender himself entirely to His Will. All the rest, whatever the appearance, is falsehood and ignorance.” (CWM 14: 8)

19. “Three things indispensable to begin with:

Absolute sincerity in the whole being and all its activities.

Complete self-surrender without any reservation.

Patient work on oneself and at the same time a steady conquering of perfect unshakable peace and equanimity.” (CWM 14: 41)

20. “Sweet Mother,

What does it mean, really, ‘to realise the Divine’?

It means to become conscious of the Divine Presence in oneself or on the spiritual heights, and, once one is conscious of His Presence, to surrender to Him completely so that one no longer has any other will than His, and finally to unite one’s consciousness with His. That is ‘to realise the Divine’.” (CWM 16: 409–410)

V—If You Do Not Surrender, the Yoga Is Entirely Out of the Question

1. “Without this decision [to hand over the responsibility of your life to the Divine] nothing is at all possible; if you do not surrender, the Yoga is entirely out of the question. Everything else comes naturally after it, for the whole process starts with surrender.” (CWM 3: 126)

“If you refuse to become a docile and surrendered servant of the Divine and of the Master who manifests Him, it means that you will remain a slave of your egoism, your vanity, your presumptuous ambition, and a toy in the hands of the Rakshasas who allure you with brilliant images in their attempt—not always unsuccessful—to possess you.” (CWM 15: 23–24)

2. “If there is no surrender, there can be no transformation of the whole being.” (CWSA 29: 79)

3. “If you do not surrender your very own nature, never will this nature change.” (CWM 4: 372)

VI—Ashramite Is Founded on the Principle of Self-giving and Surrender

One is a member of an Ashram founded on the principle of self-giving and surrender

1. “There are only two possible foundations for the material life here [Ashram]. One is that one is a member of an Asram founded on the principle of self-giving and surrender. One belongs to the Divine and all one has belongs to the Divine; in giving one gives not what is one’s own but what already belongs to the Divine.” (CWSA 32: 374)

2. “Only those are allowed to live here who are accepted by myself and the Mother. People cannot merely come because they want or need or think that I ought to receive and maintain them or on the mere ground that they are sadhaks. As for himself, he has not as yet even the first conditions, a psychic opening or an attitude of self-surrender. He is only in the first mental stage of initial realisations.” (CWSA 35: 566)

3. “There are no external rules for admission to the Asrama. The conditions are internal, the call to the way and spiritual purpose of this Yoga, an entire and one–minded readiness for surrender and the giving up of all else for the one Truth, acceptance by myself and the Mother. Those who practise, are not always admitted at once to the Asrama." (CWSA 35: 566)

4. “Moreover if he has not been able to make the vital surrender, he would not be able to profit by coming here; for the conditions of the sadhana here are no longer what they were before and this vital surrender is precisely the first condition of any benefit from our help or any true farther progress." (CWSA 35: 602)

5. “If you want to come here [Ashram], you must do it with a firm determination to get rid of this attachment and make a complete and unconditional consecration and self-surrender.” (CWSA 36: 369)

6. “To be a disciple one has to surrender and the decision to do so must be full and spontaneous. Such decisions have to be taken individually—when the call comes—and it cannot be imposed or even suggested.” (CWM 12: 179)

7. “The spiritual life demands that one is exclusively turned towards the Divine and the Divine alone. All that one does should be done for the Divine; all occupations, all aspirations, all, without exception, should be directed towards the Divine with a complete surrender of the whole being.

I know that this cannot be done in a day. But the decision that it may be so should be taken in an unshakable manner. It is only on this condition that I can accept you for the spiritual life.” (CWM 13: 112)

8. “Moreover it is not easy to remain here. There is in the Ashram no exterior discipline and no visible test. But the inner test is severe and constant, one must be very sincere in the aspiration to surmount all egoism and to conquer all vanity in order to be able to stay.

A complete surrender is not outwardly exacted but it is indispensable for those who wish to stick on, [in the Ashram] and many things come to test the sincerity of the surrender. However the Grace and the help are always there for those who aspire for them and their power is limitless when received with faith and confidence.” (CWM 13: 111)

9. “I am sending you a quotation from Sri Aurobindo which will perhaps help to enlighten your thought.

‘It is equally ignorant and one thousand miles away from my teaching to find it in your relations with human beings or in the nobility of the human character or an idea that we are here to establish mental and moral and social Truth and justice on human and egoistic lines. I have never promised to do anything of the kind. Human nature is made up of imperfections, even its righteousness and virtue are pretensions, imperfections and prancings of self-approbatory egoism.... What is aimed at by us is a spiritual truth as the basis of life, the first words of which are surrender and union with the Divine and the transcendence of ego. So long as that basis is not established, a sadhak is only an ignorant and imperfect human being struggling with the evils of the lower nature.... What is created by spiritual progress is an inner closeness and intimacy in the inner being, the sense of the Mother’s love and presence etc’.” (CWM 16: 313)

10. “We seek not our personal salvation but the absolute surrender of our being to the Divine.” (CWM 14: 8)

11. “Surrender comes spontaneously.

I congratulate those whose surrender is spontaneous! It is not so easy.” (CWM 4: 314)

VII—Why Is There a Need to Surrender to the Divine Shakti

1. Yoga cannot be carried through to its end by any effort of mind, life and body

2. But Yoga can only be done by the action of the supreme Shakti

3. Self-surrender to a supreme transmuting Power is the key-word of the Yoga

1. a.  “There must be an opening and surrender of the whole nature to receive and enter into a greater divine consciousness which is there already above, behind and englobing this mortal half conscious existence. There must be too an increasing capacity to bear an ever stronger and more insistent action of the divine Force, till the soul has become a child in the hands of the infinite Mother. All other means known to other Yoga can be used and are from time to time used as subordinate processes in this Yoga too, but they are impotent without these greater conditions, and, once these are there, they are not indispensable.

In the end it will be found that this Yoga cannot be carried through to its end by any effort of mind, life and body, any human psychological or physical process but only by the action of the supreme Shakti. But her way is at once too mysteriously direct and outwardly intricate, too great, too complete and subtle to be comprehensively followed, much more to be cut out and defined into a formula by our human intelligence.

Man cannot by his own effort make himself more than man, but he can call down the divine Truth and its power to work in him. A descent of the Divine Nature can alone divinise the human receptacle. Self-surrender to a supreme transmuting Power is the key-word of the Yoga.” (CWSA 12: 365)

1. b.  “For the powers of our mind, life and body are bound to their own limitations and, however high they may rise or however widely expand, they cannot rise above their natural ultimate limits or expand beyond them. But, still, mental man can open to what is beyond him and call down a supramental Light, Truth and Power to work in him and do what the mind cannot do. If mind cannot by effort become what is beyond mind, supermind can descend and transform mind into its own substance.

If the supramental Power is allowed by man’s discerning assent and vigilant surrender to act according to its own profound and subtle insight and flexible potency, it will bring about slowly or swiftly a divine transformation of our present semiperfect nature.” (CWSA 12: 170)

1. c.  “It is no doubt impossible for the human nature being mental in its basis to overcome the Ignorance and rise to or obtain the descent of the Supermind by its own unaided effort, but by surrender to the Divine it can be done.” (CWSA 28: 292) (CWSA 35: 135)

2.

a. The ego in us cannot transform into the nature of the Divine

b. If a spiritual transformation is to be done, we must call in the Divine Shakti to effect that miraculous work

c. For she alone has the needed force, decisive, all–wise and illimitable

2. “The ego person in us cannot transform itself by its own force or will or knowledge or by any virtue of its own into the nature of the Divine; all it [ego] can do is to fit itself for the transformation and make more and more its surrender to that which it seeks to become. As long as the ego is at work in us, our personal action is and must always be in its nature a part of the lower grades of existence; it is obscure or half–enlightened, limited in its field, very partially effective in its power. If a spiritual transformation, not a mere illumining modification of our nature, is to be done at all, we must call in the Divine Shakti to effect that miraculous work in the individual; for she alone has the needed force, decisive, all–wise and illimitable. But the entire substitution of the divine for the human personal action is not at once entirely possible.” (CWSA 23: 86)

3.

a. Transformation can only be done by a force infinitely greater than your own

b. Transformation can only be done by being truly like a child in the hands of the Divine Mother

3. a. “The object is transformation, and the transformation can only be done by a force infinitely greater than your own; it can only be done by being truly like a child in the hands of the Divine Mother.”

(CWSA 32: 143)

3. b. “If we would realise a higher formation or status of being, then it is still through her, through the Divine Shakti, the Consciousness–Force of the Spirit that it has to be done; our surrender must be to the Divine Being through the Divine Mother: for it is towards or into the supreme Nature that our ascension has to take place and it can only be done by the supramental Shakti taking up our mentality and transforming it into her supramentality.” (CWSA 21: 371–372)

3. c. “It is a great mistake to suppose that one can "do" the Purna Yoga―i.e. carry out and fulfil all the sides of the Yoga by one's own effort.  No human being can do that. What one has to do is to put oneself in the Mother’s hands and open oneself to her by service, by bhakti, by aspiration; then the Mother by her light and force works in him so that the sadhana is done.” (CWSA 32: 151–152)

4.

For a real transformation there must be a total surrender of the lower consciousness

4. a. “For a real transformation there must be a direct and unveiled intervention from above; there would be necessary too a total submission and surrender of the lower consciousness, a cessation of its insistence, a will in it for its separate law of action to be completely annulled by transformation and lose all rights over our being.” (CWSA 22: 956)

5.

The condition for highest Force to descend is a total and sincere surrender

5. “These are the conditions of the Light and Truth, the sole conditions under which the highest Force will descend; and it is only the very highest supramental Force descending from above and opening from below that can victoriously handle the physical Nature and annihilate its difficulties. There must be a total and sincere surrender; there must be an exclusive self–opening to the divine Power; there must be a constant and integral choice of the Truth that is descending, a constant and integral rejection of the falsehood of the mental, vital and physical Powers and Appearances that still rule the earth–Nature.” (CWSA 32: 3)

6.

a. You rely solely upon yourself in the path of tapasya and there is always the danger of falling down

b. The path of surrender is safe and sure

c. If you take up the path of surrender fully and sincerely, there is no more danger or serious difficulty

6. a. “There are two paths of Yoga, one of tapasyā (discipline), and the other of surrender. The path of tapasyā is arduous. Here you rely solely upon yourself, you proceed by your own strength. You ascend and achieve according to the measure of your force. There is always the danger of falling down. And once you fall, you lie broken in the abyss and there is hardly a remedy. The other path, the path of surrender, is safe and sure. … In other words, you may follow, as Ramakrishna says, either the path of the baby monkey or that of the baby cat. The baby monkey holds to its mother in order to be carried about and it must hold firm, otherwise if it loses its grip, it falls. On the other hand, the baby cat does not hold to its mother, but is held by the mother and has no fear nor responsibility; it has nothing to do but to let the mother hold it and cry ma ma.

If you take up this path of surrender fully and sincerely, there is no more danger or serious difficulty. The question is to be sincere. If you are not sincere, do not begin Yoga.” (CWM 3: 4–5)

6. b. “Sri Ramakrishna used to say that a disciple can choose one of two attitudes: the passive trust of the baby cat which lets itself be carried by its mother (this is the way of surrender, the surest) and the active attitude of the baby monkey which clings to its mother (the way of personal effort).” (CWM 4: 94)

6. c. “One-mindedness (ekaniṣṭhā), surrender to the Divine, faith, true love for the Divine, complete sincerity in the will, spiritual humility (real, not formal)—there are so many things that can be a safeguard against any chance of eventual downfall.” (CWSA 31: 674–675)

7.

a. With the attitude of the central surrender, the path becomes sunlit and is straightforward and easy

b. They, who follow the sunlit path, will not escape all difficulties, but they will able to meet them without pain and despondency

7. a. “The sunlit path can be followed by those who are able to practice surrender, first a central surrender and afterwards a more complete self–giving in all the parts of the being. If they can achieve and preserve the attitude of the central surrender, if they can rely wholly on the Divine and accept cheerfully whatever comes to them from the Divine, then their path becomes sunlit and may even be straightforward and easy. They will not escape all difficulties, no seeker can, but they will able to meet them without pain and despondency, ...” (CWSA 31: 685)

7. b. “For those who can make the full surrender from the beginning there is no question; their path is utterly swift and easy.” (CWSA 13: 87)

8.

a. If the human mind or the vital desire seizes the descending force and tries to use it according to its own limited and egoistic impulses

b. Then stumbling, deviations, insuperable obstacles and wounds and suffering cannot be escaped

c. Only when the conscious integral surrender to the Divine has been learned can the way of the Yoga become easy, straight, swift and safe

8. a. “This descent, this working is not without its possibility of calamitous fall and danger. If the human mind or the vital desire seizes hold on the descending force and tries to use it according to its own limited and erring ideas or flawed and egoistic impulses,–and this is inevitable in some degree until this lower mortal has learned something of the way of that greater immortal nature,–stumblings and deviations, hard and seemingly insuperable obstacles and wounds and suffering cannot be escaped and even death or utter downfall are not impossible. Only when the conscious integral surrender to the Divine has been learned by mind and life and body, can the way of the Yoga become easy, straight, swift and safe.” (CWSA 12: 170)

8. b. “In this process of the descent from above and the working it is most important not to rely entirely on oneself, but to rely on the guidance of the Guru and to refer all that happens to his judgment and arbitration and decision. For it often happens that the forces of the lower nature are stimulated and excited by the descent and want to mix with it and turn it to their profit. It often happens too that some Power or Powers undivine in their nature present themselves as the Supreme Lord or as the Divine Mother and claim the being's service and surrender. If these things are accepted, there will be an extremely disastrous consequence. If indeed there is the assent of the sadhak to the Divine working alone and the submission or surrender to that guidance, then all can go smoothly.” (CWSA 32: 213) (CWSA 30: 329)

8. c. “But the ways of nature are full of snares, the disguises of the ego are innumerable, the illusions of the Power of Darkness, Rakshasi Maya, are extraordinarily skilful; the reason is an insufficient guide and often turns traitor; vital desire is always with us tempting to follow any alluring call. This is the reason why in this yoga we insist so much on what we call samarpaṇa–rather inadequately rendered by the English word surrender. If the heart centre is fully opened and the psychic is always in control, then there is no question; all is safe. But the psychic can at any moment be veiled by a lower upsurge. It is only a few who are exempt from these dangers and it is precisely those to whom surrender is easily possible. The guidance of one who is himself by identity or represents the Divine is in this difficult endeavour imperative and indispensable.” (CWSA 32: 213–214) (CWSA 30: 329–330)

8. d. As for Shakti, the descent of Shakti before the vital is pure and surrendered, has its dangers. It is better for him to pray for purification, knowledge, intensity of the heart’s aspiration and as much working of the Power as he can bear and assimilate." (CWSA 35: 545)

9.

The path is long, but self-surrender makes it short

9. “God is within us, an Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient Power; we & He are of one nature and, if we get into touch with Him and put ourselves in His hands, He will pour into us His own force and we shall realise that we too have our share of godhead, our portion of omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience. The path is long, but self-surrender makes it short; the way is difficult, but perfect trust makes it easy.” (CWSA 1: 536)

10.

Dangers of entering the inner being before the purification is done can be surmounted by surrender to the highest

10. a. “Even before the tranquillising purification of the outer nature has been effected or before it is sufficient, one can still break down the wall screening our inner being from our outer awareness by a strong force of call and aspiration, a vehement will or violent effort or an effective discipline or process; but this may be a premature movement and is not without its serious dangers.” (CWSA 22: 938)

10. b. “In entering within one may find oneself amidst a chaos of unfamiliar and supernormal experiences to which one has not the key or a press of subliminal or cosmic forces, subconscient, mental, vital, subtle–physical, which may unduly sway or chaotically drive the being, encircle it in a cave of darkness, or keep it wandering in a wilderness of glamour, allurement, deception, or push it into an obscure battlefield full of secret and treacherous and misleading or open and violent oppositions; beings and voices and influences may appear to the inner sense and vision and hearing claiming to be the Divine Being or His messengers or Powers and Godheads of the Light or guides of the path to realisation, while in truth they are of a very different character.” (CWSA 22: 938–939)

10. c. “If there is too much egoism in the nature of the seeker or a strong passion or an excessive ambition, vanity or other dominating weakness, or an obscurity of the mind or a vacillating will or a weakness of the life–force or an unsteadiness in it or want of balance, he is likely to be seized on through these deficiencies and to be frustrated or to deviate, misled from the true way of the inner life and seeking into false paths, or to be left wandering about in an intermediate chaos of experiences and fail to find his way out into the true realisation.” (CWSA 22: 939)

10. d. “These perils were well–known to a past spiritual experience and have been met by imposing the necessity of initiation, of discipline, of methods of purification and testing by ordeal, of an entire submission to the directions of the path–finder or path–leader, one who has realised the Truth and himself possesses and is able to communicate the light, the experience, a guide who is strong to take by the hand and carry over difficult passages as well as to instruct and point out the way. But even so the dangers will be there and can only be surmounted if there is or there grows up a complete sincerity, a will for purity, a readiness for obedience to the Truth, for surrender to the Highest, a readiness to lose or to subject to a divine yoke the limiting and self–affirming ego.” (CWSA 22: 939)

11.

a. Hardest is the struggle against the universal forces when we seek the final supramental conversion

b. It is for this that a surrender to That which is beyond us enabling the full and free working of its Power is indispensable

11.  “At first there may have to be a prolonged, often tedious and painful period of preparation and purification of all our being till it is ready and fit for an opening to a greater Truth and Light or to the Divine Influence and Presence. Even when centrally fitted, prepared, open already, it will still be long before all our movements of mind, life and body, all the multiple and conflicting members and elements of our personality consent or, consenting, are able to bear the difficult and exacting process of the transformation. And hardest of all, even if all in us is willing, is the struggle we shall have to carry through against the universal forces attached to the present unstable creation when we seek to make the final supramental conversion and reversal of consciousness by which the Divine Truth must be established in us in its plenitude and not merely what they would more readily permit, an illumined Ignorance.

It is for this that a surrender and submission to That which is beyond us enabling the full and free working of its Power is indispensable. As that self-giving progresses, the work of the sacrifice becomes easier and more powerful and the prevention of the opposing Forces loses much of its strength, impulsion and substance.” (CWSA 23: 132–133)

12.

So long as the lower nature is active, surrender remains necessary

12.  “But so long as the lower nature is active the personal effort of the Sadhaka remains necessary.

The personal effort required is a triple labour of aspiration, rejection and surrender,—

…

surrender of oneself and all one is and has and every plane of the consciousness and every movement to the Divine and the Shakti.” (CWSA 32: 6)

13.

Only a surrendered physical consciousness alone can make an effective opening of the material being to the Light and Power

And the supramental change becomes practicable

13.  The supramental creation, since it is to be a creation upon earth, must be not only an inner change but a physical and external manifestation also. And it is precisely for this part of the work, the most difficult of all, that surrender is most needful; for this reason, that it is the actual descent of the supramental Divine into Matter and the working of the Divine Presence and Power there that can alone make the physical and external change possible. Even the most powerful self-assertion of human will and endeavour is impotent to bring it about; as for egoistic insistence and vital revolt, they are, so long as they last, insuperable obstacles to the descent. Only a calm, pure and surrendered physical consciousness, full of the psychic aspiration, can be its field; this alone can make an effective opening of the material being to the Light and Power and the supramental change a thing actual and practicable. It is for this that we are here in the body, and it is for this that you and other sadhaks are in the Asram near us.” (CWSA 32: 86)

14.

a. With man is born the sense of having to depend on himself, and as he does not have the necessary knowledge the result is a perpetual torment

b. This torment can come to an end only with a total surrender to a higher consciousness than his own to which he can totally entrust himself

c. Hand over his worries and leave the care of guiding his life and organising everything

14. a. “And it is only with this spiritual capacity of rising to a higher level and replacing the animal’s unconsciousness by a spiritual super-consciousness that there comes into the [human] being not only the capacity to see the goal of existence and to foresee the culmination of the effort but also a clear-sighted trust in a higher spiritual power to which one can surrender one’s whole being, entrust oneself, give the responsibility for one’s life and future and so abandon all worries.

Of course, it is impossible for man to fall back to the level of the animal and lose the consciousness he has acquired; therefore, for him there is only one means, one way to get out of this condition he is in, which I call a miserable one, and to emerge into a higher state where worry is replaced by a trusting surrender and the certitude of a luminous culmination—this way is to change the consciousness. ...

With man is born the sense of having to depend on himself, and as he does not have the necessary knowledge the result is a perpetual torment. This torment can come to an end only with a total surrender to a higher consciousness than his own to which he can totally entrust himself, hand over his worries and leave the care of guiding his life and organising everything.” (CWM 9: 303–304)

14. b. “That is why all spiritual disciplines begin with the necessity of surrendering all responsibility and relying on a higher principle. Otherwise peace is impossible.” (CWM 9: 304–305)

VIII—In the Initial Stage the Personal Effort Is Necessary to Surrender to the Divine

1. “In the early part of the sadhana—and by early I do not mean a short part—effort is indispensable. Surrender of course, but surrender is not a thing that is done in a day. The mind has its ideas and it clings to them; the human vital resists surrender, for what it calls surrender in the early stages is a doubtful kind of self–giving with a demand in it; the physical consciousness is like a stone and what it calls surrender is often no more than inertia. It is only the psychic that knows how to surrender and the psychic is usually very much veiled in the beginning. When the psychic awakes, it can bring a sudden and true surrender of the whole being, for the difficulty of the rest is rapidly dealt with and disappears. But till then effort is indispensable.” (CWSA 29: 83–84)

2. “In proportion as the surrender and self–consecration progress the Sadhaka becomes conscious of the Divine Shakti doing the Sadhana, pouring into him more and more of herself, founding in him the freedom and perfection of the Divine Nature. The more this conscious process replaces his own effort, the more rapid and true becomes his progress. But it cannot completely replace the necessity of personal effort until the surrender and consecration are pure and complete from top to bottom.” (CWSA 32: 7)

3. “The absolute surrender must be not only an experience in meditation, but a fact governing all the life, all the thoughts, feelings, actions. Till then the use of one's own will and effort is necessary, but an effort in which also there is the spirit of surrender, calling in the Force to support the will and effort and undisturbed by success or failure. When the Force takes up the sadhana, then indeed effort may cease, but still there will be the necessity of the constant assent of the being and a vigilance so that one may not admit a false Force at any point.” (CWSA 29: 73–74)

4. “It is not advisable in the early stages of the sadhana to leave everything to the Divine or expect everything from it without the need of one's own endeavour. That is only possible when the psychic being is in front and influencing the whole action (and even then vigilance and a constant assent are necessary), or else later on in the ultimate stages of the Yoga when a direct or almost direct supramental force is taking up the consciousness; but this stage is very far away as yet. Under other conditions this attitude is likely to lead to stagnation and inertia.”

(CWSA 29: 85)

5. “Yes, of course you are right. The process of surrender is itself a Tapasya. Not only so, but in fact a double process of Tapasya and increasing surrender persists for a long time even when the surrender has fairly well begun. But a time comes when one feels the Presence and the Force constantly and more and more feels that that is doing everything—so that the worst difficulties cannot disturb this sense and personal effort is no longer necessary, hardly even possible. That is the sign of the full surrender of the nature into the hands of the Divine. There are some who take this position in faith even before there is this experience and if the Bhakti and the faith are strong it carries them through till the experience is there. But all cannot take this position from the beginning—and for some it would be dangerous since they might put themselves into the hand of a wrong Force thinking it to be the Divine. For most it is necessary to grow through Tapasya into surrender.” (CWSA 29: 82)

6. “For those who do not make any effort,—that absence of effort is itself a difficulty—they do not progress.” (CWSA 29: 87)

7. “You can get the full surrender only by degrees. Meanwhile you have to go on the straight path not regarding the suggestions that are put into you through the vital or physical parts.” (CWSA 29: 73)

8. “It [the idea that the sadhana is done by the Divine rather than by oneself] is a truth but a truth that does not become effective for the consciousness until or in proportion as it is realised. The people who stagnate because of it are those who accept the idea but do not realise—so they have neither the force of tapasya nor that of the Divine Grace. On the other hand those who can realise it feel even behind their tapasya and in it the action of the Divine Force.” (CWSA 29: 81)

9. “On the other hand, there are some people who start with a genuine and dynamic will for a total surrender. It is those who are governed by the psychic or are governed by a clear and enlightened mental will which having once accepted surrender as the law of the sadhana will stand no nonsense about it and insists on the other parts of the being following its direction. Here there is still effort, but it is so ready and spontaneous and has so much the sense of a greater Force behind it that the sadhak hardly feels that he is making an effort at all. In the contrary case of a will in mind or vital to retain self–will, a reluctance to give up your independent movement, there must be struggle and endeavour until the wall between the instrument in front and the Divinity behind or above is broken. No rule can be laid down which applies without distinction to everybody—the variations in human nature are too great to be covered by a single trenchant rule.” (CWSA 29: 84)

10. “Yoga is an endeavour, a tapasya—it can cease to be so only when one surrenders sincerely to a higher Action and keeps the surrender and makes it complete. It is not a fantasia, devoid of all reason and coherence or a mere miracle. It has its laws and conditions and I do not see how you can demand of the Divine to do everything by a violent miracle.” (CWSA 29: 81)

11. “When the will and energy are concentrated and used to control the mind, vital and physical and change them or to bring down the higher consciousness or for any other Yogic purpose or high purpose, that is called Tapasya.” (CWSA 29: 81)

12. “Yes, if there is the sense of the Divine Will behind all the Tapasya and receiving it and bestowing the fruit—it is at least a first form of surrender.” (CWSA 29: 82)

13. “So long as there is not the full presence and conscious working of the higher Force, some amount of personal effort is indispensable. To do the sadhana for the sake of the Divine and not for one’s own sake is of course the true attitude.” (CWSA 29: 86–87)

14. “Will, aspiration, surrender are things that you must do yourself—although even in doing them you must call in the Divine Power to help your will, aspiration and surrender and make them effective.” (CWSA 29: 59)

15. “If there is not a complete surrender, then it is not possible to adopt the baby cat attitude; it becomes mere tamasic passivity calling itself surrender. If a complete surrender is not possible in the beginning, it follows that personal effort is necessary.” (CWM 12: 397–398) (CWSA 29: 83)

IX—Personal Effort Is Better than Tamasic Inertia

1. “It is not possible to get rid of the stress on personal effort at once—and not always desirable; for personal effort is better than tamasic inertia.

The personal effort has to be transformed progressively into a movement of the Divine Force. If you feel conscious of the Divine Force, then call it in more and more to govern your effort, to take it up, to transform it into something not yours, but the Mother’s. There will be a sort of transfer, a taking up of the forces at work in the personal adhar—a transfer not suddenly complete but progressive.

But the psychic poise is necessary: the discrimination must develop which sees accurately what is the Divine Force, what is the element of personal effort, and what is brought in as a mixture from the lower cosmic forces. And until the transfer is complete, which always takes time, there must always be as a personal contribution, a constant consent to the true Force, a constant rejection of any lower mixture—that is very important.

At present to give up personal effort is not what is wanted, but to call in more and more the Divine Power and govern and guide by it the personal endeavour.” (CWSA 29: 84–85)

2. “Certainly one ought not to fret [about whether one will achieve one’s end]—and certainly one ought to dedicate [one’s desire to achieve it] to the Divine. But our experience is that merely leaving the Divine to do everything (to fulfil) does not carry one very far. There must be a cooperation, a consent, an aspiration, a will to change.” (CWSA 29: 86)

3. “If there were no conditions at all [in Yoga], then there would be no need of sadhana; all would be done automatically by the Force or help without any need of effort by the sadhak. The help is always there and it has pulled you out of many difficulties and attacks. It is, I suppose, because of the feeling “I do not want to do anything” that you have not been able to receive the help, but that is a temporary inertia of the physical mind and will. I do not see the use of your going back for a few months to a life which could not now satisfy you. The only course is to shake off the inertia of the will and persevere.” (CWSA 29: 86)

X—How to Surrender—The Effort Needed in the Initial Stage

“It is always better to make an effort in the right direction; even if one fails the effort bears some result and is never lost.” (CWSA 29: 87)

1. You must choose to make your surrender total

1. a. “And even when you are told, ‘Make your surrender total and the work will be done for you’, it is quite all right, but to make your surrender total, every day and at every moment you must choose to make your surrender total, otherwise you will not do it, it will not get done by itself. It is you who must want to do it. When it is done, all goes well, when you have the Knowledge also, all goes well, and when you are identified with the Divine, all goes even better, but till then you must will, choose and decide. Don’t go to sleep lazily, saying, ‘Oh! The work will be done for me, I have nothing to do but let myself glide along with the stream.’ Besides, it is not true, the work is not done by itself, because if the least little thing thwarts your little will, it says, ‘No, not that!...’ Then?” (CWM 4: 342–343)

1. b. “Reject too the false and indolent expectation that the divine Power will do even the surrender for you. The Supreme demands your surrender to her, but does not impose it: you are free at every moment, till the irrevocable transformation comes, to deny and to reject the Divine or to recall your self–giving, if you are willing to suffer the spiritual consequence. Your surrender must be self–made and free; it must be the surrender of a living being, not of an inert automation or mechanical tool.” (CWSA 32: 4)

1. c. “Your surrender must be the surrender of a living being, not of an inert automaton or mechanical tool.”

You may speak, for instance, of the surrender of your watch: you wind it up and it runs, but this is not a response of conscious collaboration." (CWM 4: 357)

1. d. “All the play in this world is based on a certain relative free will in the individual being. Even in the sadhana it remains and his consent is necessary at each step–even though it is by surrender to the Divine that he escapes from ignorance and separateness and ego, it must be at every step a free surrender.” (CWSA 29: 68)

1. e. “Each person has his own freedom of choice up to a certain point—unless he makes the full surrender—and as he uses the freedom, has to take the spiritual or other consequences. The help can only be offered, not imposed.” (CWSA 29: 68)

2. The self–giving must be joyful, made gladly

2. a. “Well, the surrender, that is, the self–giving to the Divine, must be happy, joyful, made gladly; it must be strong, one must not give oneself through weakness and impotence but with an active and strong will. And then the surrender must not remain absolutely indolent: ‘I have made my surrender, I have nothing more to do in life, I have only to remain still, my surrender is made.’ And it must be helpful, that is, it must be active—it must undertake the transformation of the being or do some useful work.” (CWM 4: 357)

2. b. “A glad and strong and helpful submission is demanded to the working of the Divine Force, the obedience of the illumined disciple of the Truth, of the inner Warrior who fights against obscurity and falsehood, of the faithful servant of the Divine.” (CWSA 32: 5)

2. c. “One laughs at time also. What does it matter to you if it takes long? For a much longer time you will have the joy of aspiration, of consecration, of self–giving.

For this is the one true joy. And this joy fades away when there is something egoistic, and because there is a demand—which one calls a need—which is mixed in the consecration. Otherwise the joy never disappears. …

So long as you can’t be in joy, a constant, calm, peaceful, luminous, invariable joy, well, it means that you have still to work to purify yourself, and sometimes work hard. But this is the sign.

It is with the sense of separation that pain, suffering, misery, ignorance, and all incapacities have come. It is with an absolute self–giving, self–forgetfulness in a total consecration that suffering disappears and is replaced by a joy which nothing can veil." (CWM 7: 396)

2. d. “And this surrender is the supreme liberation, … the only thing that can give you a constant peace, an uninterrupted joy ...” (CWM 7: 242)

2. e. “The self–giving itself is a profound Ananda and what it brings, carries in its wake an inexpressible Ananda—and it is brought by this method sooner than by any other, so that one can say almost, ‘A self–less self–giving is the best policy.’ Only one does not do it out of policy. Ananda is the result, but it is done not for the result, but for the self–giving itself and for the Divine himself—a subtle distinction, it may seem to the mind, but very real.” (CWSA 29: 13)

2. f. “Sweet Mother, how can we make our submission gladly?

It must be sincere. If it is truly sincere, it becomes happy. So long as it is not ... happy, you may be sure it is not perfectly sincere; for if it is perfectly sincere, it is always happy. If it is not happy, it means that there is something which holds back, something which would like things to be otherwise, something that has a will of its own, a desire of its own, its own purpose and is not satisfied, and therefore is not completely surrendered, not sincere in its surrender. But if one is sincere in one’s surrender, one is perfectly happy, automatically; rather, one automatically enjoys an ineffable happiness. Therefore, as long as this ineffable happiness is not there, it is a sure indication that you are not sincere, that there is something, some part of the being, larger or smaller, which is not sincere.” (CWM 6: 210–211)

2. g. “Surrender means a free total giving with all the delight of the giving; there is no sense of sacrifice in it.” (CWM 3: 114)

2. h. “Joy comes from surrender to the divine command.” (CWM 17: 13)

3. Give yourself with enthusiasm

3. a. “Many begin by self–giving; for them the easiest movement is to give themselves. In the beginning the giving is a little indefinite, then one has to make an effort at times to surrender in detail; you can give yourself with much enthusiasm, but when at every step you have to submit to the higher Will, the thing becomes more difficult.” (CWM 4: 134)

3. b. “… the capacity for enthusiasm which makes one come out of … inertia in order to throw himself … totally into thing which rouses him. … every person who creates or builds has an opening of a faculty, … creating an enthusiasm in him. When this is active, something in the being awakens and there is a participation of almost the whole being in the thing done.” (CWM 7: 418)

3. c. “the capacity for enthusiasm, something which throws you out of your miserable and mean little ego” (CWM 7: 418)

4. Surrender is done through the mind or the emotion or the life–impulse

4. a. “Surrender: the decision to hand over the responsibility of your life to the Divine. This is done either through the mind or the emotion or the life–impulse or through all of them together.” (CWM 14: 107)

4. b. “It is only the more mechanical parts of the being that can truly say they are helpless: the physical (material) consciousness, especially, is inert in its nature and moved either by the mental and vital or by the higher forces. But one has always the power to put the mental will or vital push at the service of the Divine.”

(CWSA 29: 85)

4. c. “That is the attitude [of inner surrender] into which one must grow; for, certainly, it cannot be made perfect at once; mental and vital movements come across; but if one keeps the will to it, it will grow in the being. The rest is a matter of obedience to the guidance when it makes itself manifest—not allowing one's mental and vital movements to interfere.” (CWSA 29: 71)

4. d. “Yogic experience shows that surrender can also be made by the mind and will, a clear and sincere mind seeing the necessity of surrender and a clear and sincere will enforcing it on the recalcitrant [disobedient] members. Also, experience shows that not only can surrender come by love, but love also can come by surrender or grow with it from an imperfect to a perfect love. One starts by an intense idea and will to know or reach the Divine and surrenders more and more one's ordinary personal ideas, desires, attachments, urges to action or habits of action so that the Divine may take up everything.” (CWSA 28: 385)

4. e. The first step on this long path is to consecrate all our works as a sacrifice to the Divine in us and in the world; this is an attitude of the mind and heart, not too difficult to initiate, but very difficult to make absolutely sincere and all–pervasive." (CWSA 23: 247)

4. f. “You can surrender either through knowledge or through devotion. You may have a strong intuition that the Divine alone is the truth and a luminous conviction that without the Divine you cannot manage. Or you may have a spontaneous feeling that this line is the only way of being happy, a strong psychic desire to belong exclusively to the Divine: ‘I do not belong to myself,’ you say, and give up the responsibility of your being to the Truth. Then comes self–offering: ‘Here I am, a creature of various qualities, good and bad, dark and enlightened. I offer myself as I am to you, take me up with all my ups and downs, conflicting impulses and tendencies—do whatever you like with me.’  In the course of your self–offering, you start unifying your being around what has taken the first decision—the central psychic will. All the jarring elements of your nature have to be harmonised, they have to be taken up one after another and unified with the central being. You may offer yourself to the Divine with a spontaneous movement, but it is not possible to give yourself effectively without this unification. The more you are unified, the more you are able to realise self–giving. And once the self–giving is complete, consecration follows: it is the crown of the whole process of realisation, the last step of the gradation, after which there is no more trouble and everything runs smoothly.” (CWM 3: 126)

4. g. “A complete will to surrender in the mind is the first condition, but not by itself sufficient. The trouble lies deeper than the surface mind and you have to find it out where it is and extirpate it. It is only when this has been done, that the help given you (and it was always there till now) can bear fruit in the true spiritual and psychic (not an ascetic) change of the recalcitrant parts of your nature.” (CWSA 36: 368)

5. Every moment to remember and offer

I. 5. a. “Yoga means union with the Divine, and the union is effected through offering—it is founded on the offering of yourself to the Divine. In the beginning you start by making this offering in a general way, as though once for all; you say, ‘I am the servant of the Divine; my life is given absolutely to the Divine; all my efforts are for the realisation of the Divine Life.’ But that is only the first step; for this is not sufficient. When the resolution has been taken, when you have decided that the whole of your life shall be given to the Divine, you have still at every moment to remember it and carry it out in all the details of your existence. You must feel at every step that you belong to the Divine; you must have the constant experience that, in whatever you think or do, it is always the Divine Consciousness that is acting through you. You have no longer anything that you can call your own; you feel everything as coming from the Divine, and you have to offer it back to its source. When you can realise that, then even the smallest thing to which you do not usually pay much attention or care, ceases to be trivial and insignificant; it becomes full of meaning and it opens up a vast horizon beyond.” (CWM 3:23)

5. b. “Every moment and every movement of our being is to be resolved into a continuous and a devoted self–giving to the Eternal. All our actions, not less the smallest and most ordinary and trifling than the greatest and most uncommon and noble, must be performed as consecrated acts. … Our very inspiration and respiration, our very heart–beats can and must be made conscious in us as the living rhythm of the universal sacrifice.” (CWSA 23: 111)

5. c. “This is what you have to do to carry out your general offering in detailed offerings. Live constantly in the presence of the Divine; live in the feeling that it is this presence which moves you and is doing everything you do. Offer all your movements to it, not only every mental action, every thought and feeling but even the most ordinary and external actions such as eating; when you eat, you must feel that it is the Divine who is eating through you. When you can thus gather all your movements into the One Life, then you have in you unity instead of division. No longer is one part of your nature given to the Divine, while the rest remains in its ordinary ways, engrossed in ordinary things; your entire life is taken up, an integral transformation is gradually realised in you.” (CWM 3: 23–24)

5. d. “Detailed surrender means the surrender of all the details of life, even the smallest and the most insignificant in appearance. And this means to remember the Divine in all circumstances; whatever we think, feel or do, we must do it for Him as a way of coming close to Him, to be more and more what He wants us to be, capable of manifesting His will in perfect sincerity and purity, to be the instruments of His Love.” (CWM 14: 108)

5. e. “It is possible so to turn life into an act of adoration to the Supreme by the spirit in one’s works; for, says the Gita, ‘He who gives to me with a heart of adoration a leaf, a flower, a fruit or a cup of water, I take and enjoy that offering of his devotion’; and it is not only any dedicated external gift that can be so offered with love and devotion, but all our thoughts, all our feelings and sensations, all our outward activities and their forms and objects can be such gifts to the Eternal."

(CWSA 23: 162–163)

5. f. “Sweet Mother, here Sri Aurobindo writes: ‘No matter what the gift and to whom it is presented by us...’ and then ‘there must be a consciousness in the act that we are presenting it to the one divine Being.’

These two phrases are contradictory, aren’t they?

A: No, my child. That’s because you don’t understand the turn of the sentence. This means: the nature of the gift we make and to whom we give it is of little importance, provided that it is made as an act of consecration to the Divine.

That is what I always tell people in other words: whatever work you do—whether you go to an office, keep accounts, drive a car, anything—whatever the work you do, and naturally whomever you do it for, it must be an offering to the Divine. While doing it, you should keep the remembrance of the Divine and do it as an expression of your consecration to the Divine. This is what Sri Aurobindo says, nothing else." (CWM 8: 89–90)

5. g. Whereas if one generously makes an offering of one’s defect, vice or bad habit, then one has the joy of making an offering and one receives in exchange the force to replace what has been given, by a better and truer vibration.” (CWM 16: 244)

5. h. “If you can’t as yet remember the Divine all the time you are working, it does not greatly matter. To remember and dedicate at the beginning and give thanks at the end ought to be enough for the present. Or at the most to remember too when there is a pause.” (CWSA 29: 214)

“It is the offering within you that is important and brings in time the full completeness of surrender.”

(CWSA 32: 427)

6. Perfect giving from the spiritual point of view

6. a. What you are, give that; what you have, give that, and from the spiritual point of view your gift will be perfect

“Someone wrote to me saying that he was very unhappy, for he longed to have wonderful capacities to put at the disposal of the Divine, for the Realisation, for the Work; and that he also longed to have immense riches to be able to give them, to put them at the feet of the Divine for the Work. So I replied to him that he need not be unhappy, that each one is asked to give what he has, that is, all his possessions whatever they may be, and what he is, that is, all his potentialities—which corresponds to the consecration of one’s life and the giving of all one’s possessions—and that nothing more than this is asked. What you are, give that; what you have, give that, and your gift will be perfect; from the spiritual point of view it will be perfect. This does not depend upon the amount of wealth you have or the number of capacities in your nature; it depends upon the perfection of your gift, that is to say, on the totality of your gift.” (CWM 8: 14–15)

6. b. “The most important surrender is the surrender of your character, your way of being, so that it may change. If you do not surrender your very own nature, never will this nature change. It is this that is most important. You have certain ways of understanding, certain ways of reacting, certain ways of feeling, almost certain ways of progressing, and above all, a special way of looking at life and expecting from it certain things—well, it is this you must surrender. That is, if you truly want to receive the divine Light and transform yourself, it is your whole way of being you must offer—offer by opening it, making it as receptive as possible so that the divine Consciousness which sees how you ought to be, may act directly and change all these movements into movements more true, more in keeping with your own truth.  This is infinitely more important than surrendering what one does. It is not what one does (what one does is very important, that’s evident) that is the most important thing but what one is.” (CWM 4: 372)

6. c. “To give oneself is the secret of sadhana, not to demand and acquire. The more one gives oneself, the more the power to receive will grow.” (CWSA 29: 345)

6. c. “Talk of surrender or a mere idea or tepid [half–hearted] wish for integral consecration will not do; there must be the push for a radical and total change.

It is not by taking a mere mental attitude that this can be done or even by any number of inner experiences which leave the outer man as he was. It is this outer man who has to open, to surrender and to change. His every least movement, habit, action has to be surrendered, seen, held up and exposed to the divine Light, offered to the divine Force for its old forms and motives to be destroyed and the divine Truth and the action of the transforming consciousness of the Divine Mother to take their place.” (CWSA 29: 80–81) (CWSA 35: 276)

6. d. “Listen, I am going to give you quite a concrete and material example. You make an offering of your purse; it contains three rupees. Your neighbour offers his purse which contains fifty. Well, the gift of fifty rupees is larger than the gift of three. That’s all.

But, from the moral point of view, if you have given all that you have, you have done the utmost you could have done, nothing more can be asked of you; you understand, … from the pure spiritual point of view, not from the point of view of realisation. From the purely spiritual point of view the gift of your three rupees has exactly the same value as the gift of fifty. And even he who gave fifty rupees, if he has kept back one, his gift is less integral and pure than yours of only three. So, it is not on that plane that the thing must be seen. But from the point of view of the material realisation it is undeniable that fifty is more than three, for all those who know mathematics!" (CWM 8: 8–9)

6. e. Story of perfect gift

“I remember having read, in a book of Indian legends, a story like this. There was a very poor, very old woman who had nothing, who was quite destitute, who lived in a miserable little hut, and who had been given a fruit. It was a mango. She had eaten half of it and kept the other half for the next day, because it was something so marvellous that she did not often happen to get it—a mango. And then, when night fell, someone knocked at the rickety door and asked for hospitality. And this someone came in and told her he wanted shelter and was hungry. So she said to him, ‘Well, I have no fire to warm you, I have no blanket to cover you, and I have half a mango left, that is all I have, if you want it; I have eaten half of it.’ And it turned out that this someone was Shiva, and that she was filled with an inner glory, for she had made a perfect gift of herself and all she had.

I read that, I found it magnificent. Well, yes, this describes it vividly. It’s exactly that.

The rich man, or even people who are quite well–off and have all sorts of things in life and give to the Divine what they have in surplus—for usually this is the gesture: one has a little more money than one needs, one has a few more things than one needs, and so, generously, one gives that to the Divine. It is better than giving nothing. But even if this ‘little more’ than what they need represents lakhs of rupees, the gift is less perfect than the one of half the mango. For it is not by the quantity or the quality that it is measured: it is by the sincerity of the giving and the absoluteness of the giving." (CWM 8: 15–16)

7. Remember and offer all the time by a faculty of double consciousness

7. a. When people remember all the time during work (it can be done), it is usually with the back of their minds or else there is created gradually a faculty of double thought or else a double consciousness— one in front that works, and one within that witnesses and remembers. … Aspiration and will of consecration calling down a greater Force to do the work is a method which brings great results, even if in some it takes a long time about it. That is a great secret of sadhana, to know how to get things done by the Power behind or above instead of doing all by the mind’s effort. (CWSA 29: 214–215)

7. b. “It is not at first easy to remember the presence in work; but if one revives the sense of the presence immediately after the work is over it is all right. In time the sense of the presence will become automatic even in work." (CWSA 29: 258–259)

7. c. "All the difficulties you describe are quite natural things common to most people. It is easy for one, comparatively, to remember and be conscious when one sits quiet in meditation; it is difficult when one has to be busy with work. The remembrance and consciousness in work have to come by degrees, you must not expect to have it all at once; nobody can get it all at once. It comes in two ways,—first, if one practises remembering the Mother and offering the work to her each time one does something (not all the time one is doing, but at the beginning or whenever one can remember), then that slowly becomes easy and habitual to the nature. Secondly, by the meditation an inner consciousness begins to develop which, after a time, not at once or suddenly, becomes more and more automatically permanent. One feels this as a separate consciousness from that outer one which works. At first this separate consciousness is not felt when one is working, but as soon as the work stops one feels it was there all the time watching from behind; afterwards it begins to be felt during the work itself, as if there were two parts of oneself —one watching and supporting from behind and remembering the Mother and offering to her and the other doing the work. When this happens, then to work with the true consciousness becomes more and more easy.

It is the same with all the rest. It is by the development of the inner consciousness that all the things you speak of will be set right. For instance it is a part of the being that has utsāha for the work, another that feels the pressure of quietude and is not so disposed to work. Your mood depends on which comes up at the time—it is so with all people. To combine the two is difficult, but a time comes when they do get reconciled—one remains poised in an inner concentration while the other is supported by it in its push towards work. The transformation of the nature, the harmonising of all these discordant things in the being are the work of sadhana. Therefore you need not be discouraged by observing these things in you. There is hardly anybody who has not found these things in himself. All this can be arranged by the action of the inner Force with the constant consent and call of the sadhak. By himself he might not be able to do it, but with the Divine Force working within all can be done." (CWSA 29: 259–260)

7. d. “But what I mean is a sort of stepping backward into something silent and observant within which is not involved in the action, yet sees and can shed its light upon it. There are then two parts of the being, one inner looking at and witnessing and knowing, the other executive and instrumental and doing. This gives not only freedom but power—and in this inner being one can get into touch with the Divine not through mental activity but through the substance of the being, by a certain inward touch, perception, reception, receiving also the right inspiration or intuition of the work." (CWSA 29: 256)

7. e. “Often in the beginning of the action this can be done; but as one gets engrossed in the work, one forgets. How is one to remember?

The condition to be aimed at, the real achievement of Yoga, the final perfection and attainment, for which all else is only a preparation, is a consciousness in which it is impossible to do anything without the Divine; for then, if you are without the Divine, the very source of your action disappears; knowledge, power, all are gone. But so long as you feel that the powers you use are your own, you will not miss the Divine support.

In the beginning of the Yoga you are apt to forget the Divine very often. But by constant aspiration you increase your remembrance and you diminish the forgetfulness. But this should not be done as a severe discipline or a duty; it must be a movement of love and joy. Then very soon a stage will come when, if you do not feel the presence of the Divine at every moment and whatever you are doing, you feel at once lonely and sad and miserable.

Whenever you find that you can do something without feeling the presence of the Divine and yet be perfectly comfortable, you must understand that you are not consecrated in that part of your being. That is the way of the ordinary humanity which does not feel any need of the Divine. But for a seeker of the Divine Life it is very different. And when you have entirely realised unity with the Divine, then, if the Divine were only for a second to withdraw from you, you would simply drop dead; for the Divine is now the Life of your life, your whole existence, your single and complete support. If the Divine is not there, nothing is left.” (CWM 3: 26–27)

7. f. “But it may be that even this constant remembering of God and lifting up of our works to him is felt to be beyond the power of the limited mind, because in its forgetfulness it turns to the act and its outward object and will not remember to look within and lay our every movement on the divine altar of the Spirit. Then the way is to control the lower self in the act and do works without desire of the fruit. All fruit has to be renounced, to be given up to the Power that directs the work, and yet the work has to be done that is imposed by It on the nature. For by this means the obstacle steadily diminishes and easily disappears; the mind is left free to remember the Lord and to fix itself in the liberty of the divine consciousness." (CWSA 19: 403)

8. Recall every day if all was offered, then attitude becomes very wide

8. “Because the least detail of life and action, each movement of thought, even of sensation, of feeling, which is normally of little importance, becomes different the moment you look at it asking yourself, ‘Did I think this as an offering to the Divine, did I feel this as an offering to the Divine?...’ If you recall this every moment of your life, the attitude becomes quite different from what it was before. It becomes very wide; it is a chain of innumerable little things each having its own place, whilst formerly you used to let them go by without being aware of them. That widens the field of consciousness. If you take a half hour of your life and think of it, putting to yourself this question: ‘Is it a consecration to the Divine?’ you will see that the small things become a big thing and you will have the impression that life becomes rich and luminous.”

(CWM 4: 133)

9. Surrender grows most when the mind and vital fall quiet

9. a. “But all cannot follow that [what Ramakrishna meant by the method of the baby cat in his image] at once; it takes time for them to arrive at it—it grows most when the mind and vital fall quiet.

What I mean by surrender is this inner surrender of the mind and vital.” (CWSA 29: 70)

9. b. “There are two possibilities, one of purification by personal effort, which takes a long time, another by a direct intervention of the Divine Grace which is usually rapid in its action. For the latter there must be a complete surrender and self–giving and for that again usually it is necessary to have a mind that can remain quite quiet and allow the Divine Force to act supporting it with its complete adhesion at every step, but otherwise remaining still and quiet.  This last condition which resembles the baby–cat attitude spoken of by Ramakrishna, is difficult to have. Those who are accustomed to a very active movement of their thought and will in all they do, find it difficult to still the activity and adopt the quietude of mental self–giving. This does not mean that they cannot do the Yoga or cannot arrive at self–giving—only the purification and the self–giving take a long time to accomplish and one must have the patience and steady perseverance and resolution to go through.”

(CWSA 29: 83)

9. c. “Quietude and surrender are the first things to be established. In that must come the full contact. By that contact, if well established, will come a steady progressive sadhana, not the old confused sadhana.” (CWSA 29: 362)

9. d. “You believe in traditional ideas of Yoga—well, according to traditional ideas also, the one easiest method is that of bhakti, reliance, self-giving, bhakti, nirbhara, samarpaṇa. What still stands in your way—for it was and is growing towards that in you, is an old confusion in mind and vital. The heart says, ‘I want bhakti’, the mind says, ‘No, no, let us reason’, the vital says, ‘Nonsense, I can’t surrender.’ What you need is to quiet down that confusion created by the mind’s past sanskaras and either fix on the one thing or harmonise.”

(CWSA 29: 353)

10. To keep a vigilance so that one may not admit a false Force

10. a. “The absolute surrender must be not only an experience in meditation, but a fact governing all the life, all the thoughts, feelings, actions. Till then the use of one's own will and effort is necessary, but an effort in which also there is the spirit of surrender, calling in the Force to support the will and effort and undisturbed by success or failure. When the Force takes up the sadhana, then indeed effort may cease, but still there will be the necessity of the constant assent of the being and a vigilance so that one may not admit a false Force at any point.” (CWSA 29: 73–74)

10. b. “... [Effort] is necessary till the Force comes flooding down into the being from above and takes up the sadhana, … but even then, if not effort, at least aspiration and vigilance are needed till the possession of mind, will, life body by the Divine Power is complete.” (CWSA 29: 84)

V10. c. “To give up restraint would be to give free play to the vital and that would mean leave for all kinds of forces to enter in. So long as there is not the supramental consciousness controlling and penetrating everything, in all the being from overmind downwards, there is an ambiguous play of forces, and each force, however divine in origin, may be used by the Powers of light or intercepted as it passes through the mind and the vital by the Powers of darkness. Vigilance, discrimination, control cannot be abandoned till the complete victory has been won and the consciousness transmuted.” (CWSA 29: 119)

10. d. “Q:  How to know that I am opening to the Mother and not to other forces?

A:  You have to be vigilant and see that there is no movement of disturbance, desire, ego.” (CWSA 32: 150)

10. e. “I accept your explanation that it is not bad will but negligence. But I must tell you that for me negligence is the worst form of bad will, for it is the refusal to surrender to the divine inspiration and consciousness which demand a constant vigilance.” (CWM 14: 307)

11. To leave the results to the Divine implies dependence on the Divine Grace and equanimity and patience

11. a. “Everything should be for the sake of the Divine, this [aspiration for the Divine’s Presence] also. As for leaving the result to the Divine, it depends on what you mean by the phrase. If it implies dependence on the Divine Grace and equanimity and patience in the persistent aspiration, then it is all right. But it must not be extended to cover slackness and indifference in the aspiration and endeavour.” (CWSA 29: 171)

11. b. “The ideal attitude of the sadhaka towards Time is to have an endless patience as if he had all eternity for his fulfilment and yet to develop the energy that shall realise now and with an ever–increasing mastery and pressure of rapidity till it reaches the miraculous instantaneousness of the supreme divine Transformation." (CWSA 23: 68)

12. Call for inspiration and continue to make effort

12. a. [In active surrender, a dynamic will, he knows that if he is not sustained by forces other than his own, he will do nothing much, so in his will he must be open to the inspiration, he calls for inspiration and continues to make effort.]

12. b. “But suppose, for example, through a concurrence of circumstances, a work comes into your hands. Take an artist who has in one way or another got an inspiration and resolved to paint a picture. He knows very well that if he has no inspiration and is not sustained by forces other than his own, he will do nothing much. It will look more like a daub than a painting. He knows this. But it has been settled, the painting is to be done; there may be many reasons for that, but the painting has to be done. Then if he had the passive attitude, well, he would place his palette, his colours, his brushes, his canvas and then sit down in front of it and say to the Divine: ‘Now you are going to paint.’ But the Divine does not do things this way. The painter himself must take up everything and arrange everything, concentrate on his subject, find the forms, the colours that will express it and put his whole will for a more and more perfect execution. His will must be there all the time. But he has to keep the sense that he must be open to the inspiration, he will not forget that in spite of all his knowledge of the technique, in spite of the care he takes to arrange, organise and prepare his colours, his forms, his design, in spite of all that, if he has no inspiration, it will be one picture among a million others and it will not be very interesting. He does not forget. He attempts, he tries to see, to feel what he wants his painting to express and in what way it should be expressed. He has his colours, he has his brushes, he has his model, he has made his sketch which he will enlarge and make into a picture, he calls his inspiration. There are even some who manage to have a clear, precise vision of what is to be done. But then, day after day, hour after hour, they have this will to work, to study, to do with care all that must be done until they reproduce as perfectly as they can the first inspiration.... That person has worked for the Divine, in communion with Him, but not in a passive way, not with a passive surrender; it is with an active surrender, a dynamic will. The result generally is something very good. Well, the example of the painter is interesting, because a painter who is truly an artist is able to see what he is going to do, he is able to connect himself to the divine Power that is beyond all expression and inspires all expression. For the poet, the writer, it is the same thing and for all people who do something, it is the same.” (CWM 5: 46–47)

12. c. “Mind must learn from the greater Consciousness it is approaching and not impose its own standards on it; it has to receive illumination, open to a higher Truth, admit a greater Power that does not work according to mental canons, surrender itself and allow its half–light half–darkness  to be flooded from above till where it was blind it can see, where it was deaf it can hear, where it was insensible it can feel, and where it was baffled, uncertain, questioning, disappointed it can have joy, fulfilment, certitude and peace.” (CWSA 28: 341–342)

12. d. “You must not believe that adopting the attitude of the baby cat lets you off from all personal effort. Because you are not a baby cat, human beings are not baby cats! There are in you innumerable elements which are accustomed to trusting only themselves, which want to do their own work, and it is much more difficult to control all these elements than to let oneself go in all circumstances. It is very difficult. First of all, there is always that wonderful work of the mind which likes so very much to observe, criticise, analyse, doubt, try to solve the problem, say, ‘Is it good thus?’, ‘Would it not be better like that?’, and so on. So that goes on and on, and where is the baby cat?... For the baby cat does not think! It is free from all this and hence it is much easier for it!

Whatever be the way you follow, personal effort is always necessary till the moment of identification. At that moment all effort drops from you like a worn–out robe, you are another person: what was impossible for you becomes not only possible but indispensable, you cannot do otherwise.

You must be attentive, silent, must await the inner inspiration, not do anything from external reactions, you must be moved by the light that comes from above, constantly, regularly, must act only under the inspiration of that light and nothing else. Never to think, never to question, never to ask ‘Should I do this or that?’, but to know, to see, to hear. To act with an inner certitude without questioning and without doubting, because the decision does not come from you, it comes from above. Well, this may come very soon or one may have to wait perhaps a long time—that depends upon one’s previous preparation, upon many things. Till then you must will and will with persistence, and above all never lose patience or courage. If necessary, repeat the same thing a thousand times, knowing that perhaps the thousandth time you will realise the result.” (CWM 4: 94–95)

12. e. “Inspiration is something that comes out of knowledge planes like a flash and opens up the mind to the Truth in a moment.”  (CWSA 31:7)

12. f. “What we mean by poetic inspiration is that the impetus to poetic creation … comes to us from a superconscient source above the ordinary mentality, so that what is written seems not to be the fabrication of the brain–mind but something more sovereign breathed or poured in from above.” (CWSA 26:183)

13. The choices and will one has to make in the earlier stages of surrender must be subject to a confidence and openness to a higher guidance

13. “There is often much misunderstanding about passivity and self-surrender. It does not mean that there should not remain in the earlier stages any kind of choice, self-control or will towards certain things which are seen to be needed rather than others. Only they must be subject to a confidence and free openness to a higher guidance, which will respond to this choice and will in us if the choice and will are right and sincere.”

(CWSA 36: 339)

14. Lend your will to the Divine Will

14. a. “If you surrender you have to give up effort, but that does not mean that you have to abandon also all willed action. On the contrary, you can hasten the realisation by lending your will to the Divine Will. That too is surrender in another form.

What is required of you is not a passive surrender, in which you become like a block, but to put your will at the disposal of the Divine Will.

But how can one do this before the union has been effected?

You have a will and you can offer that will. … The surrender comes in when you take the attitude that says, ‘I give my will to the Divine. … I have not the knowledge, let the Divine Will work it out for me.’ Your will must continue to act steadily, not in the way of choosing a particular action or demanding a particular object, but as an ardent aspiration concentrated upon the end to be achieved. This is the first step. If you are vigilant, if your attention is alert, you will certainly receive something in the form of an inspiration of what is to be done and that you must forthwith proceed to do. Only, you must remember that to surrender is to accept whatever is the result of your action, though the result may be quite different from what you expect. On the other hand, if your surrender is passive, you will do nothing and try nothing; you will simply go to sleep and wait for a miracle.

Now to know whether your will or desire is in agreement with the Divine Will or not, you must look and see whether you have an answer or have no answer, whether you feel supported or contradicted, not by the mind or the vital or the body, but by that something which is always there deep in the inner being, in your heart.” (CWM 3: 18–19)

14. b. “Well, for the will it is the same thing. Instead of being the support of the ladder it is a kind of force, a very powerful current which passes through all these states, starting from above—it is the supreme Will—and coming down into the physical manifestation. Hence, if you get into affinity with this vibration or this force, you can enter ‘the state of will’; that is, whatever state of being you may find yourself in—physical, vital, mental, etc.—if you enter a certain state of consciousness and force, you come into contact with this power of will: it penetrates into you and you can use it for any purpose. If your reception is free from all egoism, if you are pure, completely surrendered and accept only what comes from the Divine, and if you don’t mix anything with it, egoism or desires or limitations... well, it is a state a bit difficult to attain, but if you attain it, you receive this force of will in its original state, pure (for it comes down pure, it is only in its reception that it gets deformed), then, instead of being your will it becomes an expression of the divine Will. And this happens without your leaving the physical body—you can receive the force of the divine Will without leaving the physical. Only, you see, you must not change it and deform it, spoil it in the receiving. When you feel within you a kind of indomitable energy to realise something, when you tell yourself, ‘I shall do this whatever the cost, I shall go to the end and shall use all my will’ (for you always say my will), well, you cannot be in that state unless you have come into contact with this current of will force. Only, with your little personal reaction, naturally you deform it and use it all wrongly, and then you come into conflict with other elements. But if you are truly a yogi, you receive the current and nothing can stop the élan of your action, even physically.” (CWM 4: 399–400)

15. There must be a courageous willingness to let the Divine Power do the work

15. “In the receiving [of divine Consciousness] there must be no inability to contain, no breaking down of anything in the system, mind or life or nerve or body under the transmuting stress. There must be an endless receptivity, an always increasing capacity to bear an ever stronger and more and more insistent action of the divine Force. Otherwise nothing great and permanent can be done; the Yoga will end in a break–down or an inert stoppage or a stultifying or a disastrous arrest in a process which must be absolute and integral if it is not [to] be a failure.

But since no human system has this endless receptivity and unfailing capacity, the supramental Yoga can succeed only if the Divine Force as it descends increases the personal power and equates the strength that receives with the Force that enters from above to work in the nature. This is only possible if there is on our part a progressive surrender of the being into the hands of the Divine; there must be a complete and never failing assent, a courageous willingness to let the Divine Power do with us whatever is needed for the work that has to be done.” (CWSA 12: 169–170)

16. Receive with joy whatever the Divine gives

16. a. “Not to impose one's mind and vital will on the Divine but to receive the Divine's will and follow it, is the true attitude of sadhana. Not to say, ‘This is my right, want, claim, need, requirement, why do I not get it?’ but to give oneself, to surrender and to receive with joy whatever the Divine gives, not grieving or revolting, is the better way. Then what you receive will be the right thing for you.” (CWSA 29: 75) (CWSA 32: 46)

16. b. “To be free from all preference and receive joyfully whatever comes from the Divine Will is not possible at first for any human being. What one should have at first is the constant idea that what the Divine wills is always for the best even when the mind does not see how it is so, to accept with resignation what one cannot yet accept with gladness and so to arrive at a calm equality which is not shaken even when on the surface there may be passing movements of a momentary reaction to outward happenings. If that is once firmly founded, the rest can come.” (CWSA 29: 134)

16. c. “I have seen hundreds of cases where someone’s difficulty had been removed (with a particular power a certain difficulty had been removed), but after a few days he brought it back with enthusiasm. He said, ‘But without that I do not exist any longer!’ I have known people who had been given mental silence almost spontaneously and who, after a day or two, came back frightened: ‘Have I become an idiot?’—for the mental machine was not working all the time.... You cannot imagine it, you don’t know how very difficult it is to separate oneself from this little ego; how much it gets into the way though it is so small." (CWM 4: 332–333)

16. d. “Grant that we may never squander any of the marvelous things that are Thy gifts to us at every instant." (CWM 1: 382)

17. A complete surrender means to cut the knot of the ego

17. a. “A complete surrender is not possible in so short a time,—for a complete surrender means to cut the knot of the ego in each part of the being and offer it, free and whole, to the Divine. The mind, the vital, the physical consciousness (and even each part of these in all its movements) have one after the other to surrender separately, to give up their own way and to accept the way of the Divine. But what one can do is to make from the beginning a central resolve and self–dedication and to implement it in whatever way one finds open, at each step, taking advantage of each occasion that offers itself to make the self–giving complete. A surrender in one direction makes others easier, more inevitable; but it does not of itself cut or loosen the other knots, and especially those which are very intimately bound up with the present personality and its most cherished formations may often present great difficulties, even after the central will has been fixed and the first seals put on its resolve in practice.” (CWSA 29: 72–73)

17. b. “It is in our Yoga the way to devotion and surrender—for it is the psychic movement that brings the constant and pure devotion and the removal of ego that makes it possible to surrender. The two things indeed go together.” (CWSA 29: 210)

17. c. “There is individuality in the psychic being but not egoism. Egoism goes when the individual unites himself with the Divine or is entirely surrendered to the Divine.” (CWSA 28: 124)

17. d. “Many here seem to be proud of their surrender—even though they know that surrender and ego do not go together.

But who has got rid of ego in this Asram? To get rid of ego is as difficult as to make a complete surrender.” (CWSA 35: 663)

17. e. “But the egoistic mind and life we now and apparently are, must first surrender itself for transmutation into the hands of that inmost secret Divinity within us.” (CWSA 19: 310)

17. f. “If you want to get rid of the painful inner and physical reactions, you must get rid of their cause in you, the ego of self-esteem, demand and desire. It is only by a complete surrender of yourself, your mind, vital and everything else to the Divine that this ego can go.” (CWSA 32: 343)

17. g. “Confidence in the Divine I do not lack, but it is perhaps my ego which unceasingly says that I cannot accomplish what the Divine wants of me.

Yes, and as soon as the ego surrenders and abdicates, this fear disappears giving place to the calm assurance that nothing is impossible.” (CWM 16: 183)

17. h. “And each one must be freed from his ego in order to attain the divine bliss.

It is not enough to surrender; the ego must be dissolved, must merge with the Divine, disappear in Him.” (CWM 17: 51)

18. Surrender can come through bhakti or true love

18. a. “Self–surrender at first comes through love and bhakti, more than through Atmajnana. But it is true that with Atmajnana the complete surrender becomes more possible.” (CWSA 29: 78)

18. b. “Surrender and love–bhakti are not contrary things—they go together. It is true that at first surrender can be made through knowledge by the mind but it implies a mental bhakti and, as soon as the surrender reaches the heart, the bhakti manifests as a feeling and with the feeling of bhakti love comes.” (CWSA 29: 78)

18. c. It [surrender] cannot be absolutely complete in the beginning, but it can be true—if the central will is sincere and there is the faith and the Bhakti. There may be contrary movements, but these will be unable to stand for long and the imperfection of the surrender in the lower part will not seriously interfere with the power and pervasiveness of the inner attitude.” (CWSA 29: 72)

18. d. “Complete surrender can best come by a complete love and bhakti. Bhakti, on the other hand, can begin without surrender, but it naturally leads, as it forms itself, to surrender.” (CWSA 30: 57)

18. e. “As the bhakti and aspiration in the nature grow, the right psychic consciousness will also increase and lead to the full surrender." (CWSA 35: 629)

18. f. “There can be [devotion and surrender on the higher spiritual planes], but it is not inevitable as in the psychic. In the higher mind one may be too conscious of identity with the “Brahman” to have devotion or surrender.”

(CWSA 29: 78)

18. g. “Your idea that surrender can only come by love is a point in instance. It is perfectly true in Yogic experience that surrender by true love, which means psychic and spiritual love is the most powerful, simple and effective of all, but one cannot, putting that forward as a dictum arrived at by the ordinary reason, shut up the whole of possible experience of true surrender into that formula or announce on its strength that one must wait till one loves perfectly before one can surrender.” (CWSA 28: 384–385)

18. h. “The true love for the Divine is a self–giving, free of demand, full of submission and surrender; it makes no claim, imposes no condition, strikes no bargain, indulges in no violences of jealousy or pride or anger—for these things are not in its composition. In return the Divine Mother also gives herself, but freely—and this represents itself in an inner giving—her presence in your mind, your vital, your physical consciousness, her power re–creating you in the divine nature, taking up all the movements of your being and directing them towards perfection and fulfilment, her love enveloping you and carrying you in its arms Godwards.” (CWSA 29: 338) (CWSA 32: 461)

18. i. “The indispensable surrender of all our will and works and activities to the Supreme is indeed only perfect and perfectly effective when it is a surrender of love. All life turned into this cult, all actions done in the love of the Divine and in the love of the world and its creatures seen and felt as the Divine manifested in many disguises become by that very fact part of an integral Yoga.”

(CWSA 23: 165)

18. j. “The more love and bhakti and surrender grow in the heart, the more rapid and perfect becomes the evolution of the sadhana.” (CWSA 30: 327)

18. k. “The way of the integral Yoga of bhakti will be to universalise this conception of the Deity, to personalise him intimately by a multiple and an all-embracing relation, to make him constantly present to all the being and to devote, give up, surrender the whole being to him, so that he shall dwell near to us and in us and we with him and in him.” (CWSA 24: 601)

18. l. “A ‘bhakti’ which claims everything from the Divine and does not give itself is not real bhakti.”

(CWSA 32: 392)

18. m. “Love is not a name of the Divine, it is a power of his consciousness and being. Bhakti and love are not quite the same thing, but love is one of the elements of bhakti. There are different kinds of bhakti and that which is of the nature of love is the strongest and is considered the highest, most intense and ecstatic of all. Also in love itself that form of it which is made of self-giving; surrender, absolute adoration, urge towards a selfless union is the true kind of bhakti that is love.”

(CWSA 29: 356)

19.  Aspire for surrender

19. a. “What you have to aspire to is bhakti, purification of the nature, right psychic consciousness and surrender.” (CWSA 35: 629)

19. b. “Aspire for perfect surrender, calm, peace, light, consciousness and strength in the mind and the heart. When the mental being and psychic being are thus open, luminous and surrendered, then the vital can open and receive the same illumination. Till then premature adventures on the vital plane are not advisable.” (CWSA 30: 208)

19. c. “How long will it take for all the parts of my being to turn to and surrender to the Mother?

It depends on yourself—if there is a strong aspiration and quiet persistence, it can be done soon.” (CWSA 32: 140)

20. The core of the inner surrender is trust and confidence in the Divine

20. “What I meant by surrender was this inner surrender of the mind and vital. There is of course the outer surrender also, the giving up of all that is found to conflict with the spirit or need of the sadhana, the offering, the obedience to the guidance of the Divine, whether directly, if one has reached that stage, or through the psychic or to the guidance of the Guru. ... But what I was speaking of in my letter was the inner surrender.

The core of the inner surrender is trust and confidence in the Divine. One takes the attitude:

‘I want the Divine and nothing else.’ ... ‘I want to give myself entirely to him and since my soul wants that, it cannot be but that I shall meet and realise him. I ask nothing but that and his action in me to bring me to him, his action secret or open, veiled or manifest. I do not insist on my own time and way; let him do all in his own time and way; I shall believe in him, accept his will, aspire steadily for his light and presence and joy, go through all difficulties and delays, relying on him and never giving up. Let my mind be quiet and trust him and let him open it to his light; let my vital be quiet and turn to him alone and let him open it to his calm and joy. All for him and myself for him. Whatever happens, I will keep to this aspiration and self–giving and go on in perfect reliance that it will be done.’ ” (CWSA 29: 70–71)

21. To reject the lower nature

21. a. “In our Yoga we begin with the idea, the will, the aspiration of the complete surrender; but at the same time we have to reject the lower nature, deliver our consciousness from it, deliver the self involved in the lower nature by the self rising to freedom in the higher nature. If we do not do this double movement, we are in danger of making a tamasic and therefore unreal surrender, making no effort, no tapas and therefore no progress; or else we may make a rajasic surrender not to the Divine but to some self–made false idea or image of the Divine which masks our rajasic ego or something still worse.” (CWSA 29: 442)

21. b. “There is a period, more or less prolonged, of internal effort and struggle in which the individual will has to reject the darkness and distortions of the lower nature and to put itself resolutely or vehemently on the side of the divine Light. The mental energies, the heart’s emotions, the vital desires, the very physical being have to be compelled into the right attitude or trained to admit and answer to the right influences. It is only then, only when this has been truly done, that the surrender of the lower to the higher can be effected, because the sacrifice has become acceptable.” (CWSA 23: 60)

21. c. “Faith, reliance upon God, surrender and self–giving to the Divine Power are necessary and indispensable. But reliance upon God must not be made an excuse for indolence, weakness and surrender to the impulses of the lower nature; it must go along with untiring aspiration and a persistent rejection of all that comes in the way of the Divine Truth. The surrender to the Divine must not be turned into an excuse, a cloak or an occasion for surrender to one’s own desires and lower movements or to one’s ego or to some Force of the ignorance and darkness that puts on a false appearance of the Divine.” (CWSA 29: 87)

22. In surrender not to insist on the mind’s opinions, the vital’s desires

22. a. “For surrender it is necessary not to insist on the mind’s opinions, ideas and preferences, the vital’s desires and impulses, the physical’s habitual actions, the life of the ego–all such insistence is contrary to surrender. All egoism and self–will has to be abandoned and one must seek to be governed only by the Divine Shakti. No complete surrender is possible without the psychic opening.” (CWSA 29: 76)

22. b. “The surrender must be complete. Nothing must be reserved, no desire, no demand, no opinion, no idea that this must be, that cannot be, that this should be and that should not be;—all must be given. The heart must be purified of all desire, the intellect of all self–will, every duality must be renounced, the whole world seen and unseen must be recognised as one supreme expression of concealed Wisdom, Power and Bliss, and the entire being given up, as an engine is passive in the hands of the driver, for the divine Love, Might and perfect Intelligence to do its work and fulfil its divine Lila. Ahaṅkāra must be blotted out in order that we may have, as God intends us ultimately to have, the perfect bliss, the perfect calm and knowledge and the perfect activity of the divine existence.” (CWSA 13: 73–74)

22. c. “Difficult? It is the first principle of our sadhana that surrender is the means of fulfilment and so long as ego or vital demand and desire are cherished, complete surrender is impossible—the self–giving is incomplete. We have never concealed that. It may be difficult and it is; but it is the very principle of the sadhana. Because it is difficult it has to be done steadily and patiently till the work is complete.” (CWSA 29: 75–76)

23. Persuade the recalcitrant parts to surrender

23. a. “Q: “How to persuade the recalcitrant parts of our nature to surrender?

A: Try to make them understand, as one does with a child who does not understand, by all kinds of means: pictures, explanations, symbols. Make them understand the necessity of union and harmony with the other parts of the being; reason with them, try to make them conscious of their acts and the consequences of these. Above all, be very patient; do not tire of repeating the same things.

In this work, can the mind be of help?

Yes, if a part of the mind is fully enlightened, if it is surrendered to the psychic light and has a sense of the truth, the mind can be of great help, it can explain things in the true way.” (CWM 4: 182–183)

23. b. “But you must not forget that you cannot become integrally consecrated at once. You are often deluded into such a belief when, for a day or two, you have a strong movement of a particular kind. You are led to hope that everything else will automatically follow in its wake; but in fact if you become the least bit self–complacent you retard your own advance. For your being is full of innumerable tendencies at war with one another—almost different personalities, we may say. When one of them gives itself to the Divine, the others come up and refuse their allegiance. ‘We have not given ourselves,’ they cry, and start clamouring for their independence and expression. Then you bid them be quiet and show them the Truth. Patiently you have to go round your whole being, exploring each nook and corner, facing all those anarchic elements in you which are waiting for their psychological moment to come up. And it is only when you have made the entire round of your mental, vital and physical nature, persuaded everything to give itself to the Divine and thus achieved an absolute unified consecration that you put an end to your difficulties.”

(CWM 3: 126–127)

23. c. “This is life. One stumbles and falls at the first occasion. One tells oneself: ‘Oh! One can’t always be so serious’, and when the other part returns, once again, one repents bitterly: ‘I was a fool, I have wasted my time, now I must begin again....’ At times there is one part that’s ill-humoured, in revolt, full of worries, and another which is progressive, full of surrender. All that, one after the other.

There is but one remedy: that signpost must always be there, a mirror well placed in one’s feelings, impulses, all one’s sensations. One sees them in this mirror. There are some which are not very beautiful or pleasant to look at; there are others which are beautiful, pleasant, and must be kept. This one does a hundred times a day if necessary. And it is very interesting. One draws a kind of big circle around the psychic mirror and arranges all the elements around it. If there is something that is not all right, it casts a sort of grey shadow upon the mirror: this element must be shifted, organised. It must be spoken to, made to understand, one must come out of that darkness. If you do that, you never get bored. When people are not kind, when one has a cold in the head, when one doesn’t know one’s lessons, and so on, one begins to look into this mirror. It is very interesting, one sees the canker. ‘I thought I was sincere!’—not at all.” (CWM 5: 10)

23. d. “If the difficulty comes from one part of the being wanting one thing and another part of the being knowing that one must not have it, then it becomes complicated because the part which wants can try to introduce its own will into the answer. So when one sits down, first one must begin by persuading it to make a little act of sincere surrender, and it is here that one can make true progress, saying, ‘Now I am conscious that it is this that I desire, but I am ready to give up my desire if that should be done.’ But you must do this not only in the head, it must be done sincerely, and then you proceed as I said. Then one knows — knows what’s to be done.

Sometimes it is easier when you write it down; you imagine that I am there and then take a paper and write on it what you wanted to tell me. Then just the very fact of formulating it clearly sometimes gives you the true picture of the situation and you can have the answer more easily. It depends, sometimes it is necessary, sometimes not, but if you are in a confusion, a kind of whirlwind, above all, if there is a vital upsurge, the fact of compelling yourself to put it on paper already quietens you, it begins the work of purification.” (CWM 7: 105–106)

24. Progress cannot take place if you cherish vital attachment to family

24. “It is necessary if you want to progress in your sadhana that you should make the submission and surrender of which you speak sincere, real and complete. This cannot be as long as you mix up your desires with your spiritual aspiration. It cannot be as long as you cherish vital attachment to family, child or anything or anybody else. If you are to do this Yoga, you must have only one desire and aspiration, to receive the spiritual Truth and manifest it in all your thoughts, feelings, actions and nature. You must not hunger after any relations with anyone. The relations of the sadhaka with others must be created for him from within, when he has the true consciousness and lives in the Light. They will be determined within him by the power and will of the Divine Mother according to the supramental Truth for the divine life and divine work; they must not be determined by his mind and his vital desires. … The Mother can only free you from these things, if you really want it, not only in your psychic being, but in your physical mind and all your vital nature.” (CWSA 32: 141–142)

“There can be no true integral surrender to the Divine if any human relations and their habits and attachments are still maintained. All relations must be turned upward and directed to the Divine alone and transformed into means for the union and surrender.” (CWM 14: 287)

25. The real bar to self–surrender is the individual’s love of his own limitations

25. “The real bar to self–surrender, whether to the Universal or to the Transcendent, is the individual’s love of his own limitations. It is a natural love, since in the very formation of the individual being there is a tendency to concentrate on limits. Without that, there would be no sense of separateness—all would be mixed, as happens quite often in the mental and vital movements of consciousness. It is the body especially which preserves separative individuality by not being so fluid. But once this separateness is established, there creeps in the fear of losing it—a healthy instinct in many respects, but misapplied with regard to the Divine. For, in the Divine you do not really lose your individuality: you only give up your egoism and become the true individual, the divine personality which is not temporary like the construction of the physical consciousness which is usually taken for your

self. One touch of the divine consciousness and you see immediately that there is no loss in it. On the contrary, you acquire a true individual permanence which can survive a hundred deaths of the body and all the vicissitudes of the vital–mental evolution.” (CWM 3: 169)

26. Surrender must be to Divine or to the Divine Mother and to no other

26. a. “And it must be a surrender and an opening to the Divine alone and to no other. For it is possible for an obscure mind or an impure life force in us to surrender to undivine and hostile forces and even to mistake them for the Divine. There can be no more calamitous error. Therefore our surrender must be no blind and inert passivity to all influences or any influence, but sincere, conscious, vigilant, pointed to the One and the Highest alone.

Self–surrender to the divine and infinite Mother, however difficult, remains our only effective means and our sole abiding refuge. Self–surrender to her means that our nature must be an instrument in her hands, the soul a child in the arms of the Mother.” (CWSA 12: 170–171)

26. b. “But the surrender must be to the Mother—not even to the Force, but to the Mother herself.” (CWSA 32: 147) (CWSA 29: 78)

27. Vital entities feed upon the vibration of human emotions of begging something from God in places of worship—one must leave all this far behind before one can climb higher

27. “In all religious monuments, in monuments considered the most... well, as belonging to the highest religion, whether in France or any other country or Japan—it was never the same temples or churches nor the same gods, and yet my experience was everywhere almost the same, with very small differences— I saw that whatever concentrated force there was in the church depended exclusively upon the faithful, the faith of the devotees. And there was still a difference between the force as it really was and the force as they felt it. For instance, I saw in one of the most beautiful cathedrals of France, which, from the artistic point of view, is one of the most magnificent monuments imaginable—in the most sacred spot I saw an enormous black, vital spider which had made its web and spread it over the whole place, and was catching in it and then absorbing all the forces emanating from people’s devotion, their prayers and all that. It was not a very cheering sight; the people who were there and were praying, felt a divine touch, they received all kinds of boons from their prayers, and yet what was there was this, this thing. But they had their faith which could change that evil thing into something good in them; they had their faith. So, truly, if I had gone and told them, ‘Do you think you are praying to God? It is an enormous vital spider that’s feeding upon all your forces!’, that would really not have been very charitable. And that’s how it is most of the time, almost everywhere; it is a vital force which is there, for these vital entities feed upon the vibration of human emotions, and very few people, very few, an insignificant number, go to church or temple with a true religious feeling, that is, not to pray and beg for something from God but to offer themselves, give thanks, aspire, give themselves. There is hardly one in a million who does that. So they do not have the power of changing the atmosphere. Perhaps when they are there, they manage to get across, break through and go somewhere and touch something divine. But the large majority of people who go only because of superstition, egoism and self–interest, create an atmosphere of this kind, and that is what you breathe in when you go to a church or temple. Only, as you go there with a very good feeling, you tell yourself, ‘Oh, what a quiet place for meditation!’

I am sorry, but that’s how it is. I tell you I have deliberately tried this experiment a little everywhere. Maybe I found some very tiny places, like a tiny village church at times, where there was a very quiet little spot for meditation, very still, very silent, where there was some aspiration; but this was so rare! I have seen the beautiful churches of Italy, magnificent places; they were full of these vital beings and full of terror. I remember painting in a basilica of Venice, and while I was working, in the confessional a priest was hearing the confession of a poor woman. Well, it was truly a frightful sight! I don’t know what the priest was like, what his character was, he could not be seen—you know, don’t you, that they are not seen. They are shut up in a box and receive the confession through a grille. There was such a dark and sucking power over him, and that poor woman was in such a state of fearful terror that it was truly painful to see it. And all these people believe this is something holy! But it is a web of the hostile vital forces which use all this to feed upon. Besides, in the invisible world hardly any beings love to be worshipped, except those of the vital. These, as I said, are quite pleased by it. And then, it gives them importance. They are puffed up with pride and feel very happy, and when they can get a herd of people to worship them they are quite satisfied.

But if you take real divine beings, this is not at all something they value. They do not like to be worshipped. No, it does not give them any special pleasure at all! Don’t think they are happy, for they have no pride. It is because of pride that a man likes to be worshipped; if a man has no pride he doesn’t like to be worshipped; and if, for instance, they see a good intention or a fine feeling or a movement of unselfishness or enthusiasm, a joy, a spiritual joy, these things have for them an infinitely greater value than prayers and acts of worship and pujas...

I assure you what I am telling you is very serious: if you seat a real god in a chair and oblige him to remain there all the while you are doing puja, he may perhaps have a little fun watching you do it, but it certainly gives him no satisfaction. None at all! He does not feel either flattered or happy or glorified by your puja. You must get rid of that idea. There is an entire domain between the spiritual and the material worlds which belongs to vital beings, and it is this domain that is full of all these things, because these beings live upon that, are happy with it, and it immediately gives them importance; and the one who has the greatest number of believers, devotees and worshippers is the happiest and the most puffed up. But how can anyone imagine that the gods could value... The gods—I am speaking of the true gods, even those of the Overmind, though they are still a bit... well, so–so... they seem to have taken on many human defects, but still, despite all that, they really have a higher consciousness—it does not please them at all. An act of true goodness, intelligence, unselfishness or a subtle understanding or a very sincere aspiration are for them infinitely higher than a small religious ceremony. Infinitely! There is no comparison. Religious ceremony! For example, there are so many of these entities called Kali who are given, besides, quite terrible appearances—so many are even placed in houses as the family goddess; they are full of a terrible vital force! I knew people who were so frightened of the Kali they had at home that indeed they trembled to make the least mistake, for when catastrophes came they thought it was Kali who sent them! It is a frightful thing, thought. I know them, those entities. I know them very well, but they are vital beings, vital forms which, so to say, are given a form by human thought, and what forms! And to think that men worship such terrible and monstrous things; and what’s more that these poor gods are given, are paid the compliment of believing that it is...

From this point of view, it is good that for some time men get out of this religious atmosphere, so full of fear, and this sort of blind, superstitious submission of which the hostile forces have taken a dreadful advantage. The period of denial, positivism, is from this viewpoint quite indispensable in order to free men from superstition. It is only when one comes out of that and the abject submission to monstrous vital forces that one can rise to truly spiritual heights and there become the collaborator and true instrument of the forces of Truth, the real Consciousness, the true Power.

One must leave all this far behind before one can climb higher." (CWM 6: 194–197)

28. One has to persist

28. a. “One cannot be sure of the immediate result, for the obstruction of the lower Nature or the pressure of the adverse forces can often act successfully for a time, even for a long time, against the necessary change. One has then to persist, to put always the will on the side of the Divine, rejecting what has to be rejected, opening oneself to the true Light and the true Force, calling it down quietly, steadfastly, without tiring, without depression or impatience, until one feels the Divine Force at work and the obstacles beginning to give way.

You say you are conscious of your ignorance and obscurity. If it is only a general consciousness, that is not enough. But if you are conscious of it in the details, in its actual working, then that is sufficient to start with; you have to reject steadfastly the wrong workings of which you are conscious and make your mind and vital a quiet and clear field for the action of the Divine Force.”

(CWSA 29: 85–86)

28. b. “Q: It is not possible, is it, for the surrender to be total from the very beginning?

A: Generally, no. It needs time. But there are instantaneous conversions; to explain all that to you in detail would take too much time. You know perhaps that in all schools of initiation it used to be said that it takes thirty–five years to change one’s character! So you must not expect the thing to be done in a minute.”

(CWM 4: 92)

28. c. “The path of surrender is indeed difficult, but if one perseveres in it with sincerity, there is bound to be some success and a partial overcoming or diminution of the ego which may help greatly a farther advance upon the way. … One must learn to go forward on the path of Yoga, as the Gita insists, with a consciousness free from despondency—anirviṇṇacetasā. Even if one slips, one must rectify the posture; even if one falls, one has to rise and go undiscouraged on the divine way. The attitude must be, ‘The Divine has promised himself to me if I cleave to him always; that I will never cease to do whatever may come.’ (CWSA 29: 213)

28. d. The surrender must necessarily be progressive. No one can make the complete surrender from the beginning, so it is quite natural that when one looks into oneself, one should find its absence. That is no reason why the principle of surrender should not be accepted and carried out steadily from stage to stage, from field to field, applying it successively to all the parts of the nature.” (CWSA 32: 141)

28. e. “After all, one has not a right to call on the Divine to manifest himself; it can come only as a response to a spiritual or psychic state of consciousness or to a long course of sadhana rightly done; or, if it comes before that or without any apparent reason, it is a grace; but one cannot demand or compel grace; grace is something spontaneous which wells out from the Divine Consciousness as a free flower of its being. The bhakta looks for it, but he is ready to wait in perfect reliance, even if need be all his life, knowing that it will come, never varying in his love and surrender because it does not come now or soon. That is the spirit of so many songs of the devotees, which you have sung yourself; I heard one such song from you in a record some time ago and a very beautiful song it was and beautifully sung—‘Even if I have not won thee, O Lord, still I adore.’ (CWSA 29: 473)

29. No complete surrender is possible without the psychic opening

29. a. “No complete surrender is possible without the psychic opening.” (CWSA 29: 76)

29. b. “It is the psychic coming forward that brings the force of surrender.” (CWSA 29: 77)

29. c. “It is the psychic surrender in the physical that you have begun to experience.

All the parts are essentially offered, but the surrender has to be made complete by the growth of the psychic self–offering in all of them and in all their movements separately and together.

To be enjoyed by the Divine is to be entirely surrendered so that one feels the Divine Presence, Power, Light, Ananda possessing the whole being rather than oneself possessing these things for one's own satisfaction. It is a much greater ecstasy to be thus surrendered and possessed by the Divine than oneself to be the possessor. At the same time by this surrender there comes also a calm and happy mastery of self and nature.” (CWSA 29: 77)

29. d. “When the psychic being and the heart and the thinking mind have surrendered, the rest is a matter of time and process–and there is no reason for disturbance. The central and effective surrender has been made.” (CWSA 29: 72)

29. e. “The psychic is realised as the Purusha behind the heart. It is not universalised like the Jivatman, but is the individual soul supporting from its place behind the heart–centre the mental, vital, physical, psychic evolution of the being in Nature. Its realisation brings Bhakti, self–giving, surrender, turning of all the movements Godward, discrimination and choice of all that belongs to the Divine Truth, Good, Beauty, rejection of all that is false, evil, ugly, discordant, union through love and sympathy with all existence, openness to the Truth of the Self and the Divine.” (CWSA 28: 106–107)

29. f. “No surrender to the psychic is demanded, the surrender is to the Divine.” (CWSA 29: 77)

30. Be perfectly sincere

“Fundamentally, whatever be the path one follows—whether the path of surrender, consecration, knowledge—if one wants it to be perfect, it is always equally difficult, and there is but one way, one only, I know of only one: that is perfect sincerity, but perfect sincerity!

Do you know what perfect sincerity is?...

Never to try to deceive oneself, never let any part of the being try to find out a way of convincing the others, never to explain favourably what one does in order to have an excuse for what one wants to do, never to close one’s eyes when something is unpleasant, never to let anything pass, telling oneself, ‘That is not important, next time it will be better.’

Oh! It is very difficult. Just try for one hour and you will see how very difficult it is. Only one hour, to be totally, absolutely sincere. To let nothing pass. That is, all one does, all one feels, all one thinks, all one wants, is exclusively the Divine.

‘I want nothing but the Divine, I think of nothing but the Divine, I do nothing but what will lead me to the Divine, I love nothing but the Divine.’

Try—try, just to see, try for half an hour, you will see how difficult it is! And during that time take great care that there isn’t a part of the vital or a part of the mind or a part of the physical being nicely hidden there, at the back, so that you don’t see it (Mother hides her hands behind her back) and don’t notice that it is not collaborating—sitting quietly there so that you don’t unearth it... it says nothing, but it does not change, it hides itself. How many such parts! How many parts hide themselves! You put them in your pocket because you don’t want to see them or else they get behind your back and sit there well-hidden, right in the middle of your back, so as not to be seen. When you go there with your torch—your torch of sincerity—you ferret out all the corners, everywhere, all the small corners which do not consent, the things which say ‘No’ or those which do not move: ‘I am not going to budge. I am glued to this place of mine and nothing will make me move.’... You have a torch there with you, and you flash it upon the thing, upon everything. You will see there are many of them there, behind your back, well stuck.

Try, just for an hour, try!” (CWM 6: 132–133)

31. Extend surrender to the obscurer parts of the physical and the subconscient

31. “I have said that if one has the principle of surrender and union in the mind and heart there is no difficulty in extending it to the obscurer parts of the physical and the subconscient. As you have this central surrender and union, you can easily complete it everywhere. A quiet aspiration for complete consciousness is all that is needed. Then the material and subconscient will become penetrated by the light like the rest and there will come in a quietude, wideness, harmony free from all reactions that will be the basis of the final change.” (CWSA 29: 72)

32. The surrender must be total and seize all the parts of the being

32. a. “The surrender must be total and seize all the parts of the being. It is not enough that the psychic should respond and the higher mental accept or even the inner vital submit and the inner physical consciousness feel the influence. There must be no part of the being, even the most external, anything that makes a reserve, anything that hides behind doubts, confusions and subterfuges, anything that revolts or refuses.

If the part of the being surrenders, but another part reserves itself, follows its own way or makes its own conditions, then each time that happens, you are yourself pushing the divine Grace away from you.”  (CWSA 32: 3)

32. b. “If you are surrendered only in the higher consciousness, with no peace or purity in the lower, certainly that is not enough and you have to aspire for the peace and purity everywhere.” (CWSA 29: 72)

32. c. “All our nature must make an integral surrender; it must offer itself in every part and every movement to that which seems to the unregenerated sense-mind so much less real than the material world and its objects. Our whole being—soul, mind, sense, heart, will, life, body—must consecrate all its energies so entirely and in such a way that it shall become a fit vehicle for the Divine. This is no easy task; for everything in the world follows the fixed habit which is to it a law and resists a radical change. And no change can be more radical than the revolution attempted in the integral Yoga.”

(CWSA 23: 72)

32. d. “Surrender does not ensure a smooth and unruffled and continuous progression. The reason is that your being is not yet one, nor your surrender absolute and complete. Only a part of you surrenders; and today it is one part and the next day it is another. The whole purpose of the Yoga is to gather all the divergent parts together and forge them into an undivided unity. Till then you cannot hope to be without difficulties—difficulties, for example, like doubt or depression or hesitation.”

(CWM 3: 6)

32. e. “What is the meaning of ‘surrender’ and of ‘every plane of the consciousness’?

It means surrender of the physical, surrender of the vital, surrender of the mind and surrender of the psychic. And if you are conscious of other parts of your being... You must first begin by distinguishing between the different parts of your being, and then, when you can distinguish them clearly, you offer them one by one.”

(CWM 6: 219–220)

32. f. “A human being is made of many different parts and it takes time and conscious effort to harmonise and unify all these parts. When you surrendered, it is not the whole of your being that did so. Little by little some other part that had not surrendered came to the surface and the joy of the surrender vanished and was replaced by dullness and indifference. But after some time this part also gets converted and thus the happy condition comes back.” (CWM 14: 333)

32. g. “Now I understand how I ought to surrender. But one part wants ordinary enjoyment and refuses a spiritual happiness that demands surrender. For this part, consecration is something terrible and it wants to flee from it.

You must remain firm in your will and use persuasion—gradually the rebellious part will surrender. It refuses to surrender out of ignorance. That ignorance must be dissolved.” (CWM 17: 138)

33. Unreserved self-giving in both the internal and external

33. a. “It is perfectly true that so long as there is not an unreserved self-giving in both the internal and external, there will always be veilings, dark periods and difficulties. But if there is unreserved self-giving in the internal, the unreserved self-giving in the external would naturally follow; if it does not, it means that the internal is not unreservedly surrendered; there are reservations in some part of the mind insisting on its own ideas and notions; reservations in some part of the vital insisting on its own demands, impulses, movements, ego-ideas, formations; reservations in the internal physical insisting on its own old habits of many kinds, and all claiming consciously, half-consciously or subconsciously that these should be upheld, respected, satisfied, taken as an important element in the work, the ‘creation’ or the Yoga.” (CWSA 30: 35–36)

33. b. “This [conscious sadhana goes on in their sleeping as in their waking hours] is different from the dream experiences that one has on the vital or mental plane which are themselves not ordinary dreams but actual experiences on the mental, vital, psychic or subtle physical planes. You have had several dreams which were vital dream experiences, those in which you met the Mother, and recently you had one such contact on the mental plane which, for those who understand these things, means that the inner consciousness is preparing in the mind as well as in the vital, which is a great advance.

... Again in you the waking mind has been too active in its insistence on the ideas and operations of the outer consciousness to give the inner mind a chance to project itself into the waking state. But it is through the inner consciousness and primarily through the inner mind that these things come; so, if there is not a clear passage from the inner to the outer, it must be in the inner states that they first appear. If the waking mind is subject or surrendered to the inner consciousness and willing to become its instrument, then even from the beginning these openings can come through the waking consciousness. That again is a familiar law of the Yoga.” (CWSA 30: 17)

34. One must replace mental control by a belief in surrender and surrender to the Supreme Presence and Force above the mind

34. a. “What I have said is merely an explanation of these [region of glory felt in the crown of head, lightning and the electric currents] experiences but it seems to me that he has advanced far enough to make a foundation for the beginning of the higher Yoga. If he wishes to do that he must replace his mental control by a belief in and a surrender to the Supreme Presence and Force above the mind, an aspiration in the heart and a will in the higher mind to the supreme truth and the transformation of the whole conscious being by its descent and power.” (CWSA 36: 366)

34. b. “The first effect of Yoga, however, is to take away the mental control, and the hungers that lie dormant are suddenly set free, they rush up and invade the being. So long as this mental control has not been replaced by the Divine control, there is a period of transition when your sincerity and surrender will be put to the test.” (CWM 3: 5)

35. By liberating from the ordinary Prakriti by a witness attitude the surrender to the divine Power becomes easy

35. a. “The attitude of the witness consciousness within ... is a very necessary stage in the progress. It helps the liberation from the lower prakriti—not getting involved in the ordinary nature movements; it helps the establishment of a perfect calm and peace within, for there is then one part of the being which remains detached and sees without being disturbed the perturbations of the surface; it helps also the ascent into the higher consciousness and the descent of the higher consciousness, for it is through this calm, detached and liberated inner being that the ascent and descent can easily be done. Also, to have the same witness look on the movements of Prakriti in others, seeing, understanding but not perturbed by them in any way is a very great help towards both the liberation and the universalisation of the being. I could not therefore possibly object to this movement in a sadhak.

As for the surrender it is not inconsistent with the witness attitude. On the contrary by liberating from the ordinary Prakriti, it makes easier the surrender to the higher or divine Power.”

(CWSA 30: 244–245)

35. b. “This is a state of freedom [Prakriti becoming free so that our inferior consciousness can be transformed by the greater consciousness] which can come in the Yoga of works through renunciation of ego and desire and personal initiation and the surrender of the being to the cosmic Self or to the universal Shakti; it can come in the Yoga of knowledge by the cessation of thought, the silence of the mind, the opening of the whole being to the cosmic Consciousness, to the cosmic Self, the cosmic Dynamis or to the supreme Reality; it can come in the Yoga of devotion by the surrender of the heart and the whole nature into the hands of the All-Blissful as the adored Master of our existence.” (CWSA 23: 242)

35. c. “But it is best not to struggle with the resistances but to stand back from them, observe as a witness, reject these movements and call on the Divine Power to remove them. Surrender of the nature is not an easy thing and may take a long time; surrender of the self, if one can do it, is easier and once that is done, that of the nature will come about sooner or later. But for that it is necessary to detach oneself from the action of the Prakriti and see oneself as separate... To observe the movements as a witness without being discouraged or disturbed is the best way to effect the necessary detachment and separation.” (CWSA 31:746–747)

36. Not to lose the idea of total self-giving even after having an experience, and to surrender that experience—then one is quite safe

36. “Whatever may be the nature, the strength and wonder of an experience, you must not be dominated by it to such an extent that it governs your entire being and you lose your balance and your contact with a reasonable and calm attitude. That is to say, when you enter in some way into contact with a force or consciousness which surpasses yours, instead of being entirely dominated by this consciousness or force, you must always be able to remind yourself that it is only one experience among thousands and thousands of others, and that, consequently, its nature is not absolute, it is relative. No matter how beautiful it may be, you can and ought to have better ones: however exceptional it may be, there are others still more marvellous; and however high it may be, you can always rise still higher in future. So, instead of losing one’s head one places the experience in the chain of development and keeps a healthy physical balance so as not to lose the sense of relativity with ordinary life. In this way, there is no risk.

The means?... One who knows how to do this will always find it very easy, but for one who doesn’t know it is perhaps a little... a little troublesome.

There is a means.

It is never to lose the idea of the total self-giving to the Grace which is the expression of the Supreme. When one gives oneself, when one surrenders, entrusts oneself entirely to That which is above, beyond all creation, and when, instead of seeking any personal advantage from the experience, one makes an offering of it to the divine Grace and knows that it is from This that the experience comes and that it is to This that the result of the experience must be given back, then one is quite safe.

In other words: no ambition, no vanity, no pride. A sincere self-giving, a sincere humility, and one is sheltered from all danger. There you are, this is what I call being greater than one’s experience.” (CWM 8: 278)

XI—Difficulties of Surrender and How to Overcome Them in Yoga

“It is rare that somebody can surrender entirely to the Divine’s Will without having to face one or another of the difficulties.” (CWM 14: 113)

“To talk of surrender is easy, very easy indeed. To think of surrender in all its complexity is not so easy, it is not so easy at all. But to achieve even the beginning of a genuine surrender of self—oh, how difficult it is, Mother!

There are many things wrong with me, I know. But there must be something fundamentally wrong. What is it, Mother?

“Nothing special to you. It is the same difficulty that exists for all human beings: the pride and blindness of the physical mind.” (CWM 16: 201)

1. The difficulty is in making a true and complete surrender, so go at first by small steps

1. a. “That does not mean that those whose faith is not so strong or surrender complete cannot arrive, but usually they have to go at first by small steps and to face the difficulties of their nature until by perseverance or tapasya they make a sufficient opening. Even a faltering faith and a slow and partial surrender have their force and their result, otherwise only the rare few could do sadhana at all.” (CWSA 29: 96)

1. a. “Tapasya has predominated in your sadhana, for you have a fervour and active energy which predisposes you to that. No way is entirely easy, and in that of surrender the difficulty is to make a true and complete surrender. Once it is made, it certainly makes things easier—not that things are all done in no time or that there are no difficulties, but there is an assurance, a support, an absence of tension which gives the consciousness rest as well as strength and freedom from the worst forms of resistance.” (CWSA 29: 81–82)

1. b. “Reject the false notion that the divine Power will do and is bound to do everything for you at your demand and even though you do not satisfy the conditions laid down by the Supreme. Make your surrender true and complete, then only will all else be done for you.”

(CWSA 32: 4)

2. Surrender is resisted by a large part of the nature–observe, detach and reject

2. “If difficulties that arise are in the nature itself, it is inevitable that they should rise and manifest themselves. Surrender is not easy, it is resisted by a large part of the nature. If the mind forms the will to surrender, all these inner obstacles are bound to show themselves; the sadhak has then to observe them and detach himself from them, reject them from his nature and overcome. This may take a very long time but it has to be done.

Outer obstacles cannot prevent the inner surrender unless they are supported by a resistance in the nature itself.” (CWSA 29: 69)

3. To test whether we are ready for an entire surrender–ready to renounce everything

3. “For if the struggle is not an actual one, that does not mean that it will not come one day in one form or another.

For always, at least once in our life, we are placed in some circumstance to test whether we are ready for an entire surrender to the Divine Will; whether we are, before all, human beings striving to attain and manifest the Godhead; ready to renounce everything in the world—what seems to us good as well as what seems bad—for that supreme conquest. In that ascent towards the heights, both virtues and duties—that is to say our mental prejudices and preferences—stand far more in our way than our exterior weaknesses and faults. An error can always be used as a spring–board, whilst a virtue is more often a limit, a barrier that must be surmounted. (CWM 14: 113)

4. If the Lord wills for you a hardship, do not protest, take it as a blessing

4. “If the Lord wills for you a hardship, do not protest. Take it as a blessing and indeed it will become so.”

(CWM 14: 115)

5. Decide if you want a Divine in keeping with your own conception of what He ought to be or True Divine as He is

5. “One thing you must know and decide:

It is if you want the True Divine as He is, or if you want a Divine in keeping with your own conception of what He ought to be.

And if you have decided to surrender sincerely and totally to the Divine and to be and do what He wants you to be and do according to His own will, or if you want the Divine to do what you want Him to do and to act according to your own will.” (CWM 14: 114)

6. Try not to impose your will on the Divine

6. a. “I have forwarded your prayer to the Supreme Lord. But if you want to live in Ananda, you must not try to impose your will on the Divine, but, on the contrary, you must be ready to accept all that comes to you from Him, with an equal peace; because He knows better than we what is good for our progress.” (CWM 14: 114)

6. b. “The way in which most people surrender:

Let God manifest his will but let it be the same as mine.”

(CWM 14: 114)

6. c. “The Lord is not an all-powerful automaton that human beings can move by the push-button of their will.

And yet most of those who surrender to God expect that from Him.” (CWM 14: 115)

7. Do not rely any more on one’s own petty will

7. “The time is come to rely only on the Divine will and to let it work freely through you.

I repeat, the time has come at last not to rely any more on one’s own petty will, to hand over the whole affair to the Divine’s will and let it do its work through you, not only your mind and feelings but mainly through the body; and if you do it sincerely, all this body nonsense will disappear and you will be strong and fit for your work.” (CWM 14: 114)

8. In difficulty not to look outside for support; but you pray, hand it over to the supreme

8. “But if, instead of looking outside for support, you concentrate and you pray—inside, to the supreme knowledge—to know at each moment what is to be done, the way to do it, and if you give all you are, all you do in order to acquire perfection, you will feel that the support is there, always guiding, showing the way. And if there is a difficulty, then instead of wanting to fight, you hand it over, hand it over to the supreme wisdom to deal with it—to deal with all the bad wills, all the misunderstandings, all the bad reactions. If you surrender completely, it is no more your concern: it’s the concern of the Supreme who takes it up and knows better than anybody else what is to be done. The only way out, only way out. There, my child.” (CWM 15: 400)

9. The Divine knows better than one knows what is the best for oneself

9. a. “When men will understand that the Divine knows better than they do what is the best for them, many of their difficulties will disappear.” (CWM 14: 115)

9. b. “I was told that when we have surrendered completely to God, God will take care of all our true needs.

He may give all that is truly needed—but people usually interpret this idea in the sense that He gives all that they think or feel that they need. He may do that—but also He may not.” (CWSA 35: 762)

10. The difficulties are always due to a resistance of some part or several parts of the being

10. “The difficulties are always due to a resistance, some part or several parts of the being refusing to receive the force, the consciousness and the light put upon them and revolting against the divine influence. It is rare that somebody can surrender entirely to the Divine’s Will without having to face one or another of these difficulties. But to keep steady one’s aspiration and to look at oneself with an absolute sincerity are the sure means to overcome all obstacles." (CWM 14: 218)

11. Difficulties are sent to us exclusively to make the realisation more perfect

11. “Difficulties are sent to us exclusively to make the realisation more perfect.

Each time we try to realise something and meet with a resistance or an obstacle or even a failure—what seems to be a failure—we should know, we should never forget that it is exclusively, absolutely, so that the realisation may be more perfect.

So this habit of cringing, of getting discouraged or even of feeling uncomfortable, or of abusing yourself and telling yourself: ‘There! Again I have made a mistake’—all that is absolute foolishness.

Simply tell yourself: We don’t know how to do things as they ought to be done; well, they are being done for us, come what may!’ And if we could see to what extent all that seems to be, yes, a difficulty, a mistake, a failure, an obstacle—all that is just to help us, so that the realisation may be more perfect.

Once you know that, everything becomes easy.” (CWM 14: 218–219)

12. To show us the points in our being where we fall short

12. “Shocks and trials always come as a divine grace to show us the points in our being where we fall short and the movements in which we turn our back on our soul by listening to the clamour of our mental being and vital being.

If we know how to accept these spiritual blows with due humility, we are sure to cover a great distance at a single bound.” (CWM 14: 219)

13. Difficulties come because there are possibilities in you

13. “Difficulties come because there are possibilities in you. If in life everything was easy, then it would be a life of nothing. Because difficulties come on your way it shows you have possibilities. Do not be afraid.”

(CWM 14: 220)

14. To complain is a sign of weakness and insincerity

14. a. “He who wants to advance on the path of perfection must never complain about the difficulties on the way, for each is an opportunity for a new progress. To complain is a sign of weakness and insincerity."

(CWM 14: 221)

15. To question, to resist in some part of the being increases trouble and difficulties

15. “To question, to resist in some part of the being increases trouble and difficulties.”

“For instance, when the guru tells you to do something, if you begin to ask, ‘Why should I do it? What is the necessity of doing it? Explain to me what I must do. Why do I have to do it?’ This is called questioning.

To resist means to try to evade the order and not accomplish it. So naturally this increases the difficulties very much. There is the explanation later. Sri Aurobindo says that this was the reason why an absolute unquestioning surrender was demanded; no argument was allowed in those days. You were told, ‘Do this’; it had to be done. You were told, ‘Don’t do it’; it had not to be done, and nobody had the right to ask why. If one didn’t understand, so much the worse for him.

It’s not like that here. You have the right to ask all that you want. Only, it is true that there are times when it doesn’t help. If one begins to argue in his mind, ‘Why have we been told to do this? Why are we told not to do that?’ and so on, this does not help. It increases difficulties very much, it hardens the consciousness, it puts a thick shell over it and so prevents it from being receptive. It is as though you were putting a varnish upon something to prevent its being touched.” (CWM 7: 8)

16. Each of the gunas has its particular danger for the sadhak who has made the resolution of self–surrender

16. “Each of the guṇas [modes of nature] working on the ahaṅkāra [ego–sense] has its particular danger for the sadhak who has made the saṅkalpa [resolution] of self–surrender, but has not yet attained to the full accomplishment of the surrender.” (CWSA 13: 84)

17. The danger of the rajoguna

17. a. “The danger of the rajoguṇa is when the sadhak is assailed by the pride that thinks, ‘I am a great sadhak, I have advanced so far, I am a great instrument in God’s hands,’ and similar ideas, or when he attaches himself to the work as God’s work which must be carried out, putting himself into it and troubling himself about it as if he had more interest in God’s work than God himself and could manage it better. Many, while they are acting all the while in the spirit of rajasic ahaṅkāra, persuade themselves that God is working through them and they have no part in the action. This is because they are satisfied with the mere intellectual assent to the idea without waiting for the whole system and life to be full of it. “ (CWSA 13: 84)

17. b. “A continual remembrance of God in others and renunciation of individual eagerness (spṛhā) are needed and a careful watching of our inner activities until God by the full light of self–knowledge, jñānadīpena bhāsvatā, dispels all further chance of self–delusion.” (CWSA 13: 84)

17. c. “So long as you had fully the attitude of surrender, the rajasic ego could only take the form of suggestions from outside, uprisings from the subconscient. It was suppressed in the vital. When the inertia rose and the energy of will receded, it began to try to come in again.” (CWSA 31: 227)

18. The danger of tamoguna

18. a. “The danger of tamoguṇa is twofold, first, when the Purusha thinks, identifying himself with the tamas in him, ‘I am weak, sinful, miserable, ignorant, good–for–nothing, inferior to this man and inferior to that man, adhama, what will God do through me?’—as if God were limited by the temporary capacities or incapacities of his instruments and it were not true that he can make the dumb to talk and the lame to cross the hills, (mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim,) —and again when the sadhak tastes the relief, the tremendous relief of a negative śānti and, feeling himself delivered from all troubles and in possession of peace, turns away from life and action and becomes attached to the peace and ease of inaction.” (CWSA 13: 84–85)

18. b. “Remember always that you too are Brahman and the divine Shakti is working in you; reach out always to the realisation of God’s omnipotence and his delight in the Lila. He bids Arjuna work lokasaṅgrahārthāya, for keeping the world together, for he does not wish the world to sink back into Prakriti, but insists on your acting as he acts,

...

‘These worlds would be overpowered by tamas and sink into Prakriti if I did not do actions.’ To be attached to inaction is to give up our action not to God but to our tamasic ahaṅkāra.” (CWSA 13: 84–85)

19. The danger of the sattvaguna

19. a. “The danger of the sattvaguṇa is when the sadhak becomes attached to any one–sided conclusion of his reason, to some particular kriyā or movement of the sadhana, to the joy of any particular siddhi of the yoga, perhaps the sense of purity or the possession of some particular power or the Ananda of the contact with God or the sense of freedom and hungers after it, becomes attached to that only and would have nothing else.” (CWSA 13: 85)

19. b. “Remember that the yoga is not for yourself; for these things, though they are part of the siddhi, are not the object of the siddhi, for you have decided at the beginning to make no claim upon God but take what he gives you freely and, as for the Ananda, the selfless soul will even forego the joy of God’s presence, when that is God’s will. You must be free even from the highest sattwic ahaṅkāra, even from the subtle ignorance of mumukṣutva, the desire of liberation, and take all joy and delight without attachment. You will then be the siddha or perfect man of the Gita.” (CWSA 13: 85)

20. Put the aspiration for surrender to the Divine on these social habits, and try to receive the divine inspiration to do things as it’s necessary

20. a. “Social habits are something terrible; your consciousness is stuffed with them from the time you are quite small; when a baby you are already told: ‘This should be done, that should not be done, you must do this in this way, you must not do it in that way’, and all that; these are ideas which usually parents or teachers have received in the same way when they were very young and to which they are accustomed and submit by habit; these are the most dangerous influences because they are subtle, they are not expressed outwardly by words; your head was stuffed with them and your feelings and reactions, when you were very small, and it is only later, much later, when you begin to reflect and try to know what the truth is... as soon as you understand that there is something which must be put above all the rest, that there is something which can truly teach you to live, which must form your character, rule your movements... when you understand that, you can look at yourself doing, objectivise yourself, laugh a little at all those multiple small bondages of habit, traditions, the education you have received, and then put the light, consciousness, aspiration for surrender to the Divine on these things, and try to receive the divine inspiration to do things as it’s necessary, not according to habits, not according to one’s vital impulses, not according to all the vital impulses and personal wills which one receives from others and which push him to do things which perhaps he would not have done without all that.” (CWM 7: 241–242)

20. a. “It cannot be said that it [one’s affinity for certain persons] is either bad or good in a general way. It depends on the person, the effects and many other things. As a general rule, all these affinities have to be surrendered to the Divine along with the rest of the old nature—so that only what is in harmony with the Divine Truth can be kept and transformed for its work in you. All relations with others must be relations in the Divine and not of the old personal nature.” (CWSA 31: 290)

21. Three Chief Enemies of Self-surrender:

You should be without the longing and reaching after things, free from the association of the dualities and free from egoism

21. “ ‘Laying down all actions upon Me, with thy whole conscious being in adhyātmayoga, become free from desire and the sense of belongings; fight, let the fever of thy soul pass from thee.’ For this great and complete liberation it is necessary that you should be niḥspṛha, nirdvandva and nirahaṅkāra, without the longing and reaching after things, free from the saṁskāra [association] of the dualities and free from egoism; for these three things are the chief enemies of self-surrender. If you are nirdvandva, you can be niḥspṛha,, but hardly otherwise, for every dvandva creates in the mind by the very nature of the mind some form of rāgadveṣa, like and dislike, attraction and repulsion, whether they are the lowest dualities that appeal to the mind through the body, hunger and thirst, heat and cold, physical pleasure and pain, or the middle sorts that appeal to it through the feelings and desires, success and failure, victory and defeat, fortune and misfortune, pleasure and displeasure, joy and grief, hate and love, or the highest which appeal to the mind through the discriminating buddhi, virtue and sin, reason and unreason, error and truth. These things can only be put under our feet by complete knowledge, the knowledge that sees God in all things and thus comes to understand the relations of things to each other in his great cosmic purpose, by complete Bhakti which accepts all things with joy,—thus abolishing the dvandvas,—because they come from the Beloved or by perfect action offering up all works as a sacrifice to God with an entire indifference to these dualities of success, failure, honour, disgrace, etc., which usually pursue all Karma. Such knowledge, such Bhakti, such Karma come inevitably as the eventual result of the saṅkalpa of self-surrender and the practice of it.” (CWSA 13: 82–83)

22. An imposition of the will of the lower consciousness on the Divine or the Guru is not admissible

“... basis of this Yoga is self-giving and surrender of the sadhak to the Divine, his acceptance of guidance by a higher consciousness than his own. A reversal of the position, an imposition of the will of the lower consciousness on the Divine or the Guru is not admissible; yet the position you have taken in your letters of demand amounts to that and nothing else. This attitude must cease if you want to get out of your difficulty.” (CWSA 31: 225)

23. All attachment and ego must disappear

23. a. “All attachment and ego must disappear. No temptation of power, for power is given only to do the Divine’s work and the power itself is the Divine’s. No attachment to work, for the work is not the ego’s, but the Divine’s. No attachment or insistence on the fruits, for that too belongs to the Divine and will come when mind and circumstances are ready. It is the same with sadhana. Only one thing is to be the aim, to be in union and contact with the Divine through love and surrender,—the rest will come out of that, whatever is needed for the manifestation.” (CWSA 31: 233)

Getting Rid of the Ego Altogether

23. b. “But what is this ego of which you speak? Everybody has the ego and it is impossible to get rid of it altogether except by two things—the opening of the psychic within and the descent of a wider ego-free consciousness from above. The psychic being opening does not get rid of the ego at once but purifies it and offers it and all the movements to the Divine, so that one becomes unegoistic through self-giving and surrender. At the same time the nature opens above and the wider ego-free consciousness comes down and ego disappears and by the power of the psychic you know your own true being which is a portion of the Mother. This is what has to happen, but it cannot happen in so short a time. Do not be always thinking of the vital movements and the ego—you have seen them and know that they are, it is enough. Concentrate rather in the heart on the opening there; concentrate persistently and aspire persistently and do not mind if it takes time. Call in any way, even if you cannot call yet deeply—then the deeper call will come.” (CWSA 31: 236)

23. d. “So long as desire and ego remain, there can be no surrender to the Divine, no fulfilment in the Yoga. They are movements of the vital and cannot be anything else.” (CWSA 31: 254)

23. e. “Our ego, boasting of freedom, is at every moment the slave, toy and puppet of countless beings, powers, forces, influences in universal Nature. The self-abnegation of the ego in the Divine is its self-fulfilment; its surrender to that which transcends it is its liberation from bonds and limits and its perfect freedom.” (CWSA 23: 60)

23. f. “Life, not a remote silent or high-uplifted ecstatic Beyond Life alone, is the field of our Yoga. The transformation of our superficial, narrow and fragmentary human way of thinking, seeing, feeling and being into a deep and wide spiritual consciousness and an integrated inner and outer existence and of our ordinary human living into the divine way of life must be its central purpose. The means towards this supreme end is a self-giving of all our nature to the Divine. Everything must be given to the Divine within us, to the universal All and to the transcendent Supreme. An absolute concentration of our will, our heart and our thought on that one and manifold Divine, an unreserved self-consecration of our whole being to the Divine alone—this is the decisive movement, the turning of the ego to That which is infinitely greater than itself, its self-giving and indispensable surrender.” (CWSA 23: 89)

23. g. “The first thing to do is to make the full consecration and offering in the heart—the increase of the spiritual calm and the surrender are the condition for making the rejection of ego, rajoguna etc. effective.” (CWSA 29: 131)

23. h. “In fact, as long as the ego is there, one cannot say that a being is perfectly sincere, even though he is striving to become sincere. One must pass beyond the ego, give oneself up totally to the divine Will, surrender without reserve and without calculation... then one can be perfectly sincere, but not before.” (CWM 8: 399)

24. In self-surrender arrogance, violence and self-assertion must go

24. “Arrogance, violence and self-assertion have always been the bane of X’s character. But in her relations with the Mother these things must go. She must learn not to force her will on the Mother but to accept the Mother’s will in everything without opposition or murmur. That is the main point. If she does not take this resolve, she will always go on as she has done and relapse into revolts and that will bring no good to her. In short, however difficult it may be to her nature, she must learn self-surrender to the Divine.” (CWSA 32: 392)

25. Faith, surrender and samata have to be put into every part of the being so that there may be no possibility of a contrary vibration anywhere

25. “They [faith, surrender and samata] have to be put into every part and atom of the being so that there may be no possibility of a contrary vibration anywhere.” (CWSA 29: 102)

26. The superior power will remove all the obstacles in your nature but the condition is that you must open and surrender to it and refuse to surrender to other powers

26. “The calm and strength will descend from above, what you have to do is to open yourself and receive it and at the same time reject all the movements of the lower nature which prevent it from remaining and which are ruled by desires and habits inconsistent with the true being, the true power and the true knowledge. Of course the superior power will itself reveal to you and remove all the obstacles in your nature. But the condition is that not only your mental but your vital and physical being must open and surrender to it and refuse to surrender themselves to other powers and forces. As you yourself experienced at that time, this greater consciousness will of itself bring the development of the higher will and knowledge. Psychic experiences of a proper kind are of course a great help but in your case it may be that any rich development of the psychic will only come after or in proportion as this consciousness with its calm, knowledge, will and samata takes possession of the different parts of the being.” (CWSA 36: 377)

27. a. When the effort is exclusively mental the effort may become mechanical, then make the mind quiet, and make a movement of self-giving, full of peace, quietude, confidence

27. b. All the tension arising from this effort gives way when this movement of complete surrender to the divine Will is done and there is a relaxation in the being

27. c And the progress one could not make by this purely mental effort usually comes about almost automatically, by the very fact that one has relaxed in confidence and self-giving to the divine Will

“In the inner life, why are there periods when one can no longer make a conscious effort, and if one enforces it, parts of the nature revolt or else everything in the being seems to become petrified; effort becomes the mechanical repetition of past movements. What should be done at such times?”

... This happens when the effort is almost exclusively mental and quite arbitrary, in the sense that it does not at all take into account the state of the rest of the being; it has its own idea, its own will, and without any consideration for the rest of the being, it imposes this will on the being as a whole. This is what usually brings about the revolt or the petrifaction. And the only thing to do is to make the mind quiet. And this is the time to make a movement of self-giving, full of peace, quietude, confidence. If one makes this movement of self-giving, of complete surrender to the divine Will, all the tension arising from the effort, an effort which could be called premature or unconsidered—all the tension arising from this effort gives way. There is a relaxation in the being. And the progress one could not make by this purely mental effort usually comes about almost automatically, by the very fact that one has relaxed in confidence and self-giving to the divine Will.” (CWM 8: 370)

28. The last resistances, sometimes quite insignificant, are the most obstinate and difficult to conquer

“The hours preceding Victory are most often the most difficult.

For the individual’s surrender, it is the last resistances, sometimes quite insignificant, that are the most obstinate and difficult to conquer.

But with a greater obstinacy a victorious conclusion of the fight is certain.” (CWM 14: 220–221)

XII—The Process of Surrender in Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga

1. “For here, there are two movements with a transitional stage between them, two periods of this Yoga,—one of the process of surrender, the other of its crown and consequence. In the first the individual prepares himself for the reception of the Divine into his members. For all this first period he has to work by means of the instruments of the lower Nature, but aided more and more from above.” (CWSA 23: 86)

2.  “But the entire substitution of the divine for the human personal action is not at once entirely possible. All interference from below that would falsify the truth of the superior action must first be inhibited or rendered impotent, and it must be done by our own free choice. A continual and always repeated refusal of the impulsions and falsehoods of the lower nature is asked from us and an insistent support to the Truth as it grows in our parts; for the progressive settling into our nature and final perfection of the incoming informing Light, Purity and Power needs for its development and sustenance our free acceptance of it and our stubborn rejection of all that is contrary to it, inferior or incompatible.” (CWSA 23: 86–87)

3. a. “In the first movement of self–preparation, the period of personal effort, the method we have to use is this concentration of the whole being on the Divine that it seeks and, as its corollary, this constant rejection, throwing out, katharsis, of all that is not the true Truth of the Divine. An entire consecration of all that we are, think, feel and do will be the result of this persistence. This consecration in its turn must culminate in an integral self–giving to the Highest; for its crown and sign of completion is the whole nature’s all–comprehending absolute surrender.” (CWSA 23: 87)

3. b. “It depends on what is meant by absolute surrender–the experience of it in some part of the being or the fact of it in all parts of the being. The former may easily come at any time; it is the latter that takes time to complete.” (CWSA 29: 73)

4. “But in the later transitional stage of this movement our personal and necessarily ignorant effort more and more dwindles and a higher Nature acts; the eternal Shakti descends into this limited form of mortality and progressively possesses and transmutes it.” (CWSA 23: 86)

5. “In the second stage of the Yoga, transitional between the human and the divine working, there will supervene an increasing purified and vigilant passivity, a more and more luminous divine response to the Divine Force, but not to any other; and there will be as a result the growing inrush of a great and conscious miraculous working from above.” (CWSA 23: 87)

6. a. “In the last period there is no effort at all, no set method, no fixed sadhana; the place of endeavour and tapasya will be taken by a natural, simple, powerful and happy disclosing of the flower of the Divine out of the bud of a purified and perfected terrestrial nature. These are the natural successions of the action of the Yoga.” (CWSA 23: 87)

6. b. “Now, Sri Aurobindo means that when one is well prepared and the nature is ready, then the last movement is like a spontaneous blossoming—it’s no longer an effort, it’s an answer. It is a truly divine action in the being: one is prepared and the moment has come, then the bud opens." (CWM 8: 24)

6. c. “Then indeed yours is a glorious walk towards transformation, for you no longer go from darkness to knowledge but from knowledge to knowledge, light to light, happiness to happiness.” (CWM 3: 127)

7. “These movements are indeed not always or absolutely arranged in a strict succession to each other. The second stage begins in part before the first is completed; the first continues in part until the second is perfected; the last divine working can manifest from time to time as a promise before it is finally settled and normal to the nature. Always too there is something higher and greater than the individual which leads him even in his personal labour and endeavour.” (CWSA 23: 87)

8. “Often he may become, and remain for a time, wholly conscious, even in parts of his being permanently conscious, of this greater leading behind the veil, and that may happen long before his whole nature has been purified in all its parts from the lower indirect control. Even, he may be thus conscious from the beginning; his mind and heart, if not his other members, may respond to that seizing and penetrating guidance with a certain initial completeness from the very first steps of the Yoga. But it is the constant and complete and uniform action of the great direct control that more and more distinguishes the transitional stage as it proceeds and draws to its close. This predominance of a greater diviner leading, not personal to ourselves, indicates the nature’s increasing ripeness for a total spiritual transformation. It is the unmistakable sign that the self–consecration has not only been accepted in principle but is fulfilled in act and power. The Supreme has laid his luminous hand upon a chosen human vessel of his miraculous Light and Power and Ananda.” (CWSA 23: 87–88)

9. "The Shakti, the power of the Infinite and the Eternal descends within us, works, breaks up our present psychological formations, shatters every wall, widens, liberates, presents us with always newer and greater powers of vision, ideation, perception and newer and greater life–motives, enlarges and new models increasingly the soul and its instruments, confronts us with every imperfection in order to convict and destroy it, opens to a greater perfection, does in a brief period the work of many lives or ages so that new births and new vistas open constantly within us. Expansive in her action, she frees the consciousness from confinement in the body; it can go out in trance or sleep or even waking and enter into worlds or other regions of this world and act there or carry back its experience. It spreads out, feeling the body only as a small part of itself, and begins to contain what before contained it; it achieves the cosmic consciousness and extends itself to be commensurate with the universe. It begins to know inwardly and directly and not merely by external observation and contact the forces at play in the world, feels their movement, distinguishes their functioning and can operate immediately upon them as the scientist operates upon physical forces, accept their action and results in our mind, life, body or reject them or modify, change, reshape, create immense new powers and movements in place of the old small functionings of the nature. We begin to perceive the working of the forces of universal Mind and to know how our thoughts are created by that working, separate from within the truth and falsehood of our perceptions, enlarge their field, extend and illumine their significance, become master of our own minds and active to shape the movements of Mind in the world around us. We begin to perceive the flow and surge of the universal life–forces, detect the origin and law of our feelings, emotions, sensations, passions, are free to accept, reject, new–create, open to wider, rise to higher planes of Life–Power. We begin to perceive too the key to the enigma of Matter, follow the interplay of Mind and Life and Consciousness upon it, discover more and more its instrumental and resultant function and detect ultimately the last secret of Matter as a form not merely of Energy but of involved and arrested or unstably fixed and restricted consciousness and begin to see too the possibility of its liberation and plasticity of response to higher Powers, its possibilities for the conscious and no longer the more than half–inconscient incarnation and self–expression of the Spirit. All this and more becomes more and more possible as the working of the Divine Shakti increases in us and, against much resistance or labour to respond of our obscure consciousness, through much struggle and movement of progress and regression and renewed progress necessitated by the work of intensive transformation of a half–inconscient into a conscious substance, moves to a greater purity, truth, height, range. All depends on the psychic awakening in us, the completeness of our response to her and our growing surrender." (CWSA 23: 183–184)

XIII—Attitude One Must Have to Surrender

1. I aspire, I try to cure my imperfections but for the result I put myself entirely into the hands of the Divine

1. “Once you have taken up the Yoga, whatever you do must be done in a spirit of complete surrender. This must be your attitude,—‘I aspire, I try to cure my imperfections, I do my best, but for the result I put myself entirely into the hands of the Divine.’ (CWM 3: 97)

2. Confession helps to purge the consciousness of hampering elements

2. “When one takes sincerely to surrender, nothing must be concealed that is of any importance for the life of the sadhana. Confession helps to purge the consciousness of hampering elements and it clears the inner air and makes for a closer and more intimate and effective relation between the Guru and the disciple.” (CWSA 29: 193)

3. To accept whole–heartedly the influence that comes from the Divine

3. “The essence of surrender is not to ask the Mother before doing anything–but to accept whole–heartedly the influence and the guidance when the joy and peace come down, to accept them without question or cavil and let them grow; when the Force is felt at work, to let it without opposition, when the Knowledge is given, to receive and follow it, when the Will is revealed, to make oneself its instrument.

The Divine can lead, he does not drive. There is an internal freedom permitted to every mental being called man to assent or not to assent to the Divine leading: how else can any real spiritual evolution be done?”

(CWSA 29: 67–68) (CWSA 32: 143–144)

4. a. To act not with a personal, egoistic aim, for success, glory, gain, material profit or out of pride

4. b. Action must be done as a service and an offering, in order to become more conscious of the divine will

4. c. Till you have made enough progress to know and to feel that it is the Divine who acts in you, His force that impels you and His will that supports you

4. d. This must not be a mental knowledge, but the power of a living experience

4. “Sweet Mother,

You have often told us that our activities should be an offering to the Divine. What does this mean exactly, and how can it be done? For instance, when we play tennis or basketball, how can we do it as an offering? Mental formations are not enough, of course!

It means that what you do should not be done with a personal, egoistic aim, for success, for glory, for gain, for material profit or out of pride, but as a service and an offering, in order to become more conscious of the divine will and to give yourself more entirely to it, until you have made enough progress to know and to feel that it is the Divine who acts in you, His force that impels you and His will that supports you—not just a mental knowledge, but the sincerity of a state of consciousness and the power of a living experience.

For that to be possible, all egoistic motives and all egoistic reactions must disappear.” (CWM 16: 267–268)

5. Three modes of total self–giving to the Divine are to prostrate oneself at His feet, open oneself exposing one’s centres which allows nothing to remain hidden and nestle in His arms

5. a. “Three typical modes of total self–giving to the Divine:

(1) To prostrate oneself at His feet, giving up all pride in perfect humility.

(2) To unfold one’s being before Him, open one’s whole body from head to foot, as one opens a book, exposing one’s centres so as to make all their movements visible in a complete sincerity that allows nothing to remain hidden.

(3) To nestle in His arms, to merge in Him in a loving and absolute trust.” (CWM 14: 102–103)

5. b. “There are two ways of uniting with the Divine. One is to concentrate in the heart and go deep enough to find there His Presence; the other is to fling oneself in His arms, to nestle there as a child nestles in its mother’s arms, with a complete surrender; and of the two the latter seems to me the easier.” (CWM 16: 161)

6. Offer your will and act with aspiration to know the Divine Will

6. “You have a will and you can offer that will. … The surrender comes in when you take the attitude that says, ‘I give my will to the Divine. … I have not the knowledge, let the Divine Will work it out for me.’ Your will must continue to act steadily, not in the way of choosing a particular action or demanding a particular object, but as an ardent aspiration concentrated upon the end to be achieved. This is the first step. If you are vigilant, if your attention is alert, you will certainly receive something in the form of an inspiration of what is to be done and that you must forthwith proceed to do. Only, you must remember that to surrender is to accept whatever is the result of your action, though the result may be quite different from what you expect. On the other hand, if your surrender is passive, you will do nothing and try nothing; you will simply go to sleep and wait for a miracle.

Now to know whether your will or desire is in agreement with the Divine Will or not, you must look and see whether you have an answer or have no answer, whether you feel supported or contradicted, not by the mind or the vital or the body, but by that something which is always there deep in the inner being, in your heart.” (CWM 3: 19)

7. If the Divine wants you to enjoy anything, enjoy it; but be ready too to give it up with a smile

7. “The only true attitude for a Yogi is to be plastic and ready to obey the Divine Command whatever it may be; nothing must be indispensable to him, nothing a burden. Often the first impulse of those who want to live the spiritual life is to throw away all they have; but they do it because they want to be rid of a burden, not because they want to surrender to the Divine. Men who possess wealth and are surrounded by the things that give them luxury and enjoyment turn to the Divine, and immediately their movement is to run away from these things,—or, as they say, ‘to escape from their bondage’. But it is a wrong movement; you must not think that the things you have belong to you,—they belong to the Divine. If the Divine wants you to enjoy anything, enjoy it; but be ready too to give it up the very next moment with a smile.”

(CWM 3: 54–55)

8. Criticism incites you to surpass yourself by surrendering to the Divine

“When there is somebody who is in contact with the Divine Truth and can express it, then the opinions given out are no mere compliments or criticisms but what the Divine thinks of you, the value it sets on your qualities, its unerring stamp on your efforts. It must be your desire to hold nothing in esteem except the word of the Truth; ... The encomium [high praise] lavished on you by others so disgusts you that you feel almost bitter towards those whom you would have once considered your friends; whereas all criticism comes as a welcome fuel to your humble aspiration towards the Truth. No longer do you feel depressed or slighted by the hostility of others. For, at least, you are able to ignore it with the greatest ease; at the most, you appreciate it as one more testimony to your present unregenerate state, inciting you to surpass yourself by surrendering to the Divine.” (CWM 3: 138)

9. In surrender you say ‘Even if you make me suffer, I surrender myself’

“But it is the attitude that is important, not the consequences (I am sure that the inconveniences are not indispensable); it is the attitude that is important. Well, it must be like this (gesture of open hands). In fact I have found that in the majority of cases surrender to the Divine does not necessarily mean trust in the Divine—because you surrender to the Divine, you say, ‘Even if you make me suffer, I surrender myself’, but it is an absolute lack of trust! Yes, it is really amusing, surrender does not imply trust; trust is something else, it is... a kind of knowledge—an ‘unshakable’ knowledge which nothing can disturb—that it is we who change into difficulties, sufferings and miseries what, in the Divine Consciousness, is... perfect Peace. It is we who bring about this little transformation.”

(CWM 11: 282)

10. a. Stop expecting appreciation from human beings

10. b. Unless people are completely surrendered to the Supreme, they can’t understand spiritual experiences

“One thing is that whatever I do there, it is not liked by my own people.

Your own people are all mixed up, as everybody is.

But my feeling is so strong—not only strong but it is as clear as daylight, as if I am just sitting in your presence—that I do not do anything myself. This is such a great, clear experience to me for all these years. Whatever is being done by me, it is being done by some Force and not by me at all. And it gets it done, but then the...

What! You expect the world to understand that?

...

I never told you that you were doing wrong, did I? Now, once and for all you must understand that unless people are true yogis, out of the ego, completely surrendered to the Supreme, they can’t understand. How could they? They see with all the exterior eyes and knowledge; they see exterior things and appearances. They don’t see the inside. When we have stopped expecting appreciation from the outside, that is from human beings, we have no reason to complain. They appreciate, so much the better for them. They don’t appreciate, it doesn’t matter. It’s their own look-out. We do things not to please them, we do things because we feel that that is to be done.”

(CWM 15: 400–401)

11. a. We are satisfied with a fulfilment of the Divine through the individual

11. b. We are content with the delight of oneness in being

11. c. We are content to leave the supreme Self to do whatever is the will of his absolute wisdom and knowledge

11. d. This is the sense of the self-surrender of the individual self to the Divine

“And in fact the claim of our being upon the Divine is fulfilled absolutely only then when it ceases at all to be a claim and is instead a fulfilment of the Divine through the individual, when we are satisfied with that alone, when we are content with the delight of oneness in being, content to leave the supreme Self and Master of existence to do whatever is the will of his absolute wisdom and knowledge through our more and more perfected Nature. This is the sense of the self-surrender of the individual self to the Divine, ātma-samarpaṇa. It does not exclude a will for the delight of oneness, for participation in the divine consciousness, wisdom, knowledge, light, power, perfection, for the satisfaction of the divine fulfilment in us, but the will, the aspiration is ours because it is his will in us.” (CWSA 24: 766)

XIV—Wrong Attitude of Putting Conditions for Surrender

1. “Here you say: ‘When you come to the Divine, you must abandon all mental conceptions; but, instead of doing that, you throw your conceptions upon the Divine and want the Divine to obey them.’

Yes, everyone. All the while, constantly. If the Divine is not as you understand him, well, that is not the Divine. If he does not do what you want, if he does not act as you think he should, if he has not the character you lend him, it is not the Divine: ‘I recognise you as the Divine if you do exactly what I want you to do!’ Naturally, people are not sincere enough to admit that, but it is so. I could give you millions of examples—not hundreds, but millions. And there is not a single one among you who does not do this unconsciously. It is a rule, you know; one says: ‘Yes, I am quite ready to surrender to the Divine and do his will, to accept his presence and his action, but on condition that it is like this or like that, that he thinks like that, feels like that, acts like that, etc.’ At the first opportunity I shall show you a little example dangling before your eyes. That will not fail. It will come one of these days. Quite soon.” (CWM 5: 158)

2. “They implore, at times even demand that things should be like that; and what they ask for is absolutely contrary to the truth; and if the Grace obeyed their demand, it would go against its own purpose and defeat its own purpose, that is, it would go against its own work and aim. It comes here to realise the truth; if it obeys the falsehood, it turns its back on truth. And people, you see, very often put the cart before the horse—most often through ignorance and stupidity; but sometimes it is also through bad will that they insist on having their conditions fulfilled, that they go in for a kind of bargaining in exchange for their surrender, and they do it.... Yes, many do it unconsciously—I said through ignorance and stupidity. There are others who do it consciously, and so they want their conditions fulfilled. They say, ‘If it is like this and like that...’ And finally they go as far as to say to the Divine, ‘If you are like this and like that, if you fulfil the conditions I lay down for you, I shall obey you!’ They don’t put it in this way because that would be too ridiculous, but they almost constantly do it. You see, they say, ‘Oh, the Divine is like this. The Divine does this. The Divine must respond like this.’ And they continue in this way, and they are not aware that they are quite simply imposing their conceptions and also their desires on what the Divine ought to be and do. And so, when the Divine does not do what they want or does not fulfil the conditions they lay down, they say, ‘You are not the Divine!’ (Laughter) It is very simple. ‘You do not fulfil the conditions I lay down, so you are not the Divine!’ But they do it constantly, you know. So, naturally, if to please people, the Divine Grace were to submit to their demands, it would be working entirely against its own purpose and would destroy its own Work.” (CWM 6: 206)

3. “Mother, it is said: ‘Reject the false notion that the divine Power will do and is bound to do everything for you at your demand and even though you do not satisfy the conditions laid down by the Supreme.’ Then...

But, you know, there are people who are told, ‘You should surrender.’ Then they answer you with a smile, ‘Well, make me surrender!’ Why, this is very simple!

...

But what is said here means to sit idly not doing anything, not making the shadow of an effort, nor even aspiring or willing, nothing, and then say, ‘Well, God will do this for me; the Divine will do everything for me. The Divine Grace will give me aspiration. If I need aspiration, It will give it to me. If I need surrender, It will give me that’, and so on. ‘I have to do nothing except to remain passively seated, without stirring and without willing anything. Well, there are people like that, many! They are told ‘Aspire.’ ‘Give me aspiration.’ (Laughter) They are told, ‘Be generous.’ ‘Oh, make me generous; and I shall give everything!’ (Laughter)” (CWM 6: 208–209)

4. “Be honest towards yourself—(no self-deception). Be sincere towards the Divine—(no bargaining in the surrender).” (CWM 14: 70)

XV—Surrender, Offering and Self-giving

1. “Q: What is the difference between surrender and offering?

A: The two words are almost synonymous: ‘I make the offering of myself and I surrender myself’, but in the gesture of offering there is something more active than in the gesture of surrender. … between the words ‘surrender’ and ‘offering’ there is hardly any difference.” (CWM 4: 132)

2. “ Q: Does not offering imply surrender?

A: Not at all. You can give for the joy of giving, without any idea of surrender. In a movement of enthusiasm, when you have glimpsed something infinitely higher than yourself, you can give yourself in an élan, but when it is a question of living that every minute, of surrendering oneself every minute to the higher Will and when every minute requires this surrender, it is more difficult. But if by ‘offering’ you mean the integral offering of all your movements, all your activities, that is equivalent to surrender, without implying it necessarily. But then it is no longer a movement made in enthusiasm, it is something which has to be realised in detail. One may say that any movement made in ardour and enthusiasm is relatively easy (that depends upon the intensity of the movement in you), but when it is a question of realising one’s aspiration every minute of one’s life and in all its details, the enthusiasm recedes a little and one feels the difficulty.” (CWM 4: 134)

3. “Q: Are not offering and surrender to the Divine the same thing?

A: They are two aspects of the same thing, but not altogether the same. One is more active than the other. They do not belong to quite the same plane of existence.” (CWM 5: 52)

4. “One offers to the Divine in order to get rid of the illusion of separation—the very act of offering implies that all belongs to the Divine.” (CWSA 29: 104)

5. “Then, the first movement is a self giving; you tell yourself, ‘I do not want any longer to belong to myself, for the sake of my little personal satisfaction, I wish to belong to this marvellous thing which one must find, must know, must live and for which I aspire.’ (CWM 4: 68)

6. “The only offering that truly enriches is the one made to the Divine.” (CWM 14: 99)

7. “Offering: the placing of your entire being, with all its movements true and false, good and bad, right and wrong, before the Divine for transformation.”

(CWM 14: 99)

8. “Offer sincerely to the Divine your obscurities and you will be able to receive the light.” (CWM 14: 99)

9. “Whatever is the nature of the offering, when it is made with sincerity it always contains a spark of divine light which can grow into a full sun and illuminate the whole being. You can be sure of my love, you can be sure of my help, and our blessings are always with you.”

(CWM 16: 211)

10. “Q: Sweet Mother,

How can one remember at every moment that whatever one does is for You? Particularly when one wants to make a complete offering, how should one proceed, never forgetting that it is for the Divine?

A: To achieve that, one must have an obstinate will and a great patience. But once one has taken the resolution to do it, the divine help will be there to support and to help. This help is felt inwardly in the heart. Blessings.” (CWM 16: 398)

11. “An indomitable courage, a perfect sincerity, a total self-giving to the extent that you do not calculate or bargain, you do not give with the idea of receiving, you do not offer yourself with the intention of being protected, you do not have a faith that needs proofs,—this is indispensable for advancing on the path,—this alone can shelter you against all dangers.” (CWM 15: 190)

12. “The culmination of the soul’s constant touch with the Supreme is that self–giving which we call surrender to the divine Will and immergence of the separated ego in the One who is all.” (CWSA 23:204)

13. “What matters [in the spiritual path] is one’s own aspiration for the Divine, one’s own faith, surrender, selfless self-giving. Others can be left to the Divine who will lead each according to his nature. Meditation, work, bhakti are each means of preparative help towards fulfilment; all are included in this path. If one can dedicate one-self through work, that is one of the most powerful means towards the self-giving which is itself the most powerful and indispensable element of the sadhana.

To cleave to the path means to follow it without leaving it or turning aside. It is a path of self-offering of the whole being in all its parts, the offering of the thinking mind and the heart, the will and actions, the inner and the outer instruments so that one may arrive at the experience of the Divine, the Presence within, the psychic and spiritual change. The more one gives of oneself in all ways, the better for the sadhana. But all cannot do it to the same extent, with the same rapidity, in the same way.” (CWSA 29: 213–214)

XVI—Surrender and Sacrifice

1. “In the spiritual sense, however, sacrifice has a different meaning—it does not so much indicate giving up what is held dear as an offering of oneself, one's being, one's mind, heart, will, body, life, actions to the Divine. It has the original sense of ‘making sacred’ and is used as an equivalent of the word Yajna. When the Gita speaks of the ‘sacrifice of knowledge’, it does not mean a giving up of anything, but a turning of the mind towards the Divine in the search for knowledge and an offering of oneself through it. It is in this sense, too, that one speaks of the offering or sacrifice of works. The Mother has written somewhere that the spiritual sacrifice is joyful and not painful in its nature. On the spiritual path, very commonly, if a seeker still feels the old ties and responsibilities strongly he is not asked to sever or leave them, but to let the call in him grow till all within is ready. Many, indeed, come away earlier because they feel that to cut loose is their only chance, and these have to go sometimes through a struggle. But the pain, the struggle, is not the essential character of this spiritual self–offering.” (CWSA 28: 433)

2. “It [pain and struggle in offering oneself to the Divine] simply means that your sacrifice is still mental and has not yet become spiritual in its character. When your vital being consents to give up its desires and enjoyments, when it offers itself to the Divine, then the yajna will have begun. What I meant was that the European sense of the word is not the sense of the word ‘yajna’ or the sense of ‘sacrifice’ in such phrases as ‘the sacrifice of works’. It doesn't mean that you give up all works for the sake of the Divine–for there would be no sacrifice of works at all. Similarly the sacrifice of knowledge doesn't mean that you painfully and resolutely make yourself a fool for the sake of the Lord. Sacrifice means an inner offering to the Divine and the real spiritual sacrifice is a very joyful thing. Otherwise one is only trying to make oneself fit and has not yet begun the real yajna. It is because your mind is struggling with your vital, the unwilling animal and asking it to allow itself to be immolated that there is the pain and struggle. If the spiritual will (or psychic) were more in the front then you would not be lamenting over the loss of the ghee and butter and curds thrown into the Fire or trying to have a last lick at it before casting it. The only difficulty would be about bringing down the gods fully enough (a progressive labour), not about lamentation over the ghee. By the way, do you think that the Mother or myself or others who have taken up the spiritual life had not enjoyed life and that it is therefore that the Mother was able to speak of a joyous sacrifice to the Divine as a true spirit of spiritual sacrifice? Or do you think we spent the preliminary stages in longings for the lost fleshpots of Egypt and that it was only later on we felt the joy of the spiritual sacrifice? Of course we did not; we and many others had no difficulty on the score of giving up anything anything we thought necessary to give up and no hankering afterwards. Your rule is as usual a stiff rule that does not at all apply generally.”

(CWSA 28: 433–434)

3. “But the true essence of sacrifice is not self–immolation, it is self–giving; its object not self–effacement, but self–fulfilment; its method not self–mortification, but a greater life, not self mutilation, but a transformation of our natural human parts into divine members, not self–torture, but a passage from a lesser satisfaction to a greater Ananda.” (CWSA 23: 109)

4. “But, most often, the sacrifice is done unconsciously, egoistically and without knowledge or acceptance of the true meaning of the great world–rite. It is so that the vast majority of earth creatures do it; and, when it is so done, the individual derives only a mechanical minimum of natural inevitable profit, achieves by it only a slow painful progress limited and tortured by the smallness and suffering of the ego. Only when the heart, the will and the mind of knowledge associate themselves with the law and gladly follow it, can there come the deep joy and the happy fruitfulness of divine sacrifice.” (CWSA 23: 107)

5. “Sacrifice and self–giving are indeed a true principle and a spiritual necessity, for we cannot affirm our being rightly without sacrifice or without self–giving to something larger than our ego; but that too must be done with a right consciousness and will founded on a true knowledge.” (CWSA 21: 652)

6. “The seeker has to regard all his action as a sacrifice to the Lord of works who is the eternal and universal Being and his own highest Self and the Self of all others and the supreme all–inhabiting, all–containing, all–governing Godhead in the universe. The whole action of Nature is such a sacrifice,—offered at first indeed to the divine Powers that move her and move in her, but these powers are only limited forms and names of the One and Illimitable. Man ordinarily offers his sacrifice openly or under a disguise to his own ego; his oblation is the false action of his own self–will and ignorance. Or he offers his knowledge, action, aspiration, works of energy and effort to the gods for partial, temporal and personal aims. The man of knowledge, the liberated soul offers on the contrary all his activities to the one eternal Godhead without any attachment to their fruit or to the satisfaction of his lower personal desires. He works for God, not for himself, for the universal welfare, for the Soul of the world and not for any particular object which is of his own personal creation or for any construction of his mental will or object of his vital longings, as a divine agent, not as a principal and separate profiteer in the world commerce. And this, it must be noted, is a thing that cannot be really done except in proportion as the mind arrives at equality, universality, wide impersonality, and a clear freedom from every disguise of the insistent ego: for without these things the claim to be thus acting is a pretension or an illusion.” (CWSA 19: 457–458)

7. “The law of sacrifice travels in Nature towards its culmination in this complete and unreserved self–giving; it awakens the consciousness of one common self in the giver and the object of the sacrifice. This culmination of sacrifice is the height even of human love and devotion when it tries to become divine; for there too the highest peak of love points into a heaven of complete mutual self–giving, its summit is the rapturous fusing of two souls into one.” (CWSA 23: 108)

8. “The one entirely acceptable sacrifice is a last and highest and uttermost self–giving,—it is that surrender made face to face, with devotion and knowledge, freely and without any reserve to One who is at once our immanent Self, the environing constituent All, the Supreme Reality beyond this or any manifestation and, secretly, all these together, concealed everywhere, the immanent Transcendence.” (CWSA 23: 110)

9. “For to the soul that wholly gives itself to him, God also gives himself altogether. Only the one who offers his whole nature, finds the Self. Only the one who can give everything, enjoys the Divine All everywhere. Only a supreme self–abandonment attains to the Supreme. Only the sublimation by sacrifice of all that we are, can enable us to embody the Highest and live here in the immanent consciousness of the transcendent Spirit.”

(CWSA 23: 110)

10. “The Divine gives itself to those who give themselves without reserve and in all their parts to the Divine. For them the calm, the light, the power, the bliss, the freedom, the wideness, the heights of knowledge, the seats of Ananda.” (CWSA 29: 67)

11. Q: Sweet Mother, what does the ‘sacrifice to the Divine’ mean?

It is self–giving. It is the word the Gita uses for self–giving.

Only, the sacrifice is mutual, this is what Sri Aurobindo says at the beginning: the Divine has sacrificed Himself in Matter to awaken consciousness in Matter, which had become inconscient. And it is this sacrifice, this giving of the Divine in Matter, that is to say, His dispersion in Matter, which justifies the sacrifice of Matter to the Divine and makes it obligatory; for it is one and the same reciprocal movement. It is because the Divine has given Himself in Matter and scattered Himself everywhere in Matter to awaken it to the divine consciousness, that Matter is automatically under the obligation to give itself to the Divine. It is a mutual and reciprocal sacrifice.

And this is the great secret of the Gita: the affirmation of the divine Presence in the very heart of Matter. And that is why, Matter must sacrifice itself to the Divine, automatically, even unconsciously—whether one wants it or not, this is what happens.

Only, when it is done unconsciously, one doesn’t have the joy of sacrifice; while if it is done consciously, one has the joy of sacrifice which is the supreme joy.

The word ‘sacrifice’ in French has slightly too narrow a sense, which it doesn’t have in the original Sanskrit; for in French sacrifice implies a sort of suffering, almost a regret. While in Sanskrit this sense is not there at all; it corresponds to ‘self–giving’.” (CWM 8: 74–75)

12. “It is the inner offering of the heart’s adoration, the soul of it in the symbol, the spirit of it in the act, that is the very life of the sacrifice. If this offering is to be complete and universal, then a turning of all our emotions to the Divine is imperative. This is the intensest way of purification for the human heart, more powerful than any ethical or aesthetic catharsis could ever be by its half–power and superficial pressure.” (CWSA 23: 165)

13. “Sacrifice diminishes the being.

That is true, but why? One thing is so, so simple—it is the very meaning of the word. To sacrifice means to give up something to which one clings. To sacrifice one’s life is to give up one’s life to which one clings; otherwise it would not be a sacrifice, it would be a gift. If you use the word ‘sacrifice’, it means it is something which makes you suffer when you give it up. The word ‘sacrifice’ is used at random, that is understood, but I am speaking of the true sense. One can sacrifice only what one holds dear. If one does not cling to it, it is not a sacrifice, it is a gift with all the joy of the giving. Surrender has no value if it is painful, if it is a sacrifice. Surrender must be truly a joyous offering (I am using the word soumission in the sense of surrender, but it is not quite surrender—surrender is between soumission and abandon). One gives up something, surrenders oneself, but without sacrifice.” (CWM 4: 314)

14. “Q: Why does sacrifice have such a great value in religion?

A: Many religions are founded upon the idea of sacrifice; for instance, all the Chaldean religions. The reforms of the Muslim religion also had a very strong tendency towards sacrifice. All the first adepts, the first faithful, paid with their life for changing their religion. In Persia, they were persecuted beyond all telling. There are even many writings in which the joys of sacrifice are praised highly—that is a Chaldean idea. But you should be on your guard; all depends upon the meaning given to the word. It is obvious that for him who sacrifices himself willingly, that is, who gives up his life voluntarily and with joy, it is no longer a sacrifice, by the very definition we have given to the word.

We also speak of the ‘sacrifice’ of the Divine. But I have noticed that one calls it ‘sacrifice’ when one understands that if obliged to do it oneself it would be very difficult! It would give you much pain, it would be very hard (laughing) so one speaks of sacrifice, but it is probable that for the Divine it was not painful and he did it willingly, with all the joy of self–giving.

I knew Abdul Baha very well, the successor of Baha Ullah, founder of the Bahai religion; Abdul Baha was his son. He was born in prison and lived in prison till he was forty, I believe. When he came out of prison his father was dead and he began to preach his father’s religion. He told me his story and what had happened in Persia at the beginning of the religion. And I remember him telling me with what intense joy, what a sense of the divine Presence, of the divine Force, these people went to the sacrifice—it can’t be called ‘sacrifice’, it was a very joyful gift of their life.... He always spoke to me of someone who was, it appears, a very great poet and who had been arrested as a heretic because he followed the Bahai religion. They wanted to take him away to kill him—or burn him, hang him, crucify him, I don’t know what, the manner of death in vogue at the time—and, because he expressed his faith and said he would be happy to suffer anything for his faith and his God, people devised the plan of fixing small lighted candle–ends on his body, his arms, his shoulders. Naturally the candles melted with the hot wax all over, till the wick of the candle burnt the skin. It seems Abdul Baha was there when this man was tortured and as they came to the spot where he was to be killed, Abdul Baha went up to speak to him affectionately—and he was in an ecstasy of joy. Abdul Baha spoke to him of his sufferings; he replied, ‘Suffer! It is one of the most beautiful hours of my life....’ This cannot be called a sacrifice, can it?

Generally, all those who have suffered tortures for their faith, that is, for their highest thought, their most sublime ideal, have always felt a kind of divine grace helping them and keeping them from suffering. Of course, outsiders call this a ‘sacrifice’ (that is understandable, they have sacrificed their life), but one cannot use the word for what personally concerns them, because for them it was not a sacrifice, it was a joy. All depends on the inner attitude. Now, if for a single moment during the torture they had had the least idea, ‘Why am I being tortured?’ they would have undergone unbearable suffering. A single passing thought suffices.” (CWM 4: 315–316)

XVII—Surrender and Consecration

1. “Consecration is a process by which one trains the consciousness to give itself to the Divine.”

(CWSA 29: 103)

2. “Consecration means offering and making sacred to the Mother so that whole nature belongs to her and not to the lower nature.” (CWSA 31: 113)

3. “Self–consecration may help to open one to the touch or the touch may come of itself.” (CWSA 29: 63)

4. “Q: What is the exact meaning of the word ‘consecration?

A: ‘Consecration’ generally has a more mystical sense but this is not absolute. A total consecration signifies a total giving of one’s self; … You feel a flame in the word ‘consecration’, a flame even greater than in the word ‘offering’. To consecrate oneself is ‘to give oneself to an action’; hence, in the yogic sense, it is to give oneself to some divine work with the idea of accomplishing the divine work.” (CWM 4: 132)

5. “An entire self–consecration, a complete equality, an unsparing effacement of the ego, a transforming deliverance of the nature from its ignorant modes of action are the steps by which the surrender of all the being and nature to the Divine Will can be prepared and achieved,—a self–giving true, total and without reserve.’ (CWSA 23: 221)

6. “Consecration is the consummation, when the Light has illuminated all the parts of your being, with a central will acting on the feelings, impulses, thoughts, emotions, activities, directing them always towards the Divine and when you move no more from darkness to light or from falsehood to truth or from misery to happiness but from light to more light, from truth to greater truth, from happiness to increasing happiness.” (CWM 14: 99)

7. “It is nothing less that is meant in the end when we speak of the absolute consecration of the individual to the Divine. But this total fullness of consecration can only come by a constant progression when the long and difficult process of transforming desire out of existence is completed in an ungrudging measure. Perfect self-consecration implies perfect self-surrender.” (CWSA 23: 86)

8. “The ideal Sadhaka should be able to say in the Biblical phrase: ‘My zeal for the Lord has eaten me up.’

Does this mean an intense, constant and integral aspiration?

Yes, it means that the entire being is absorbed in its consecration.” (CWM 16: 385)

9. “Q: Dear Mother, This subject was given for composition in our French class—

Develop this thought:

Consecration to the Divine is the secret of existence; a perpetual renewal of force comes from communion with the Infinite.

A: My dear little smile,

It is very simple, as you will see.

1) The Infinite is the inexhaustible storehouse of forces. The individual is a battery, a storage cell which runs down after use. Consecration is the wire that connects the individual battery to the infinite reserve of forces.

Or

2) The Infinite is the river that flows without cease; the individual is the little pond that dries up slowly in the sun. Consecration is the canal that connects the river to the pond and prevents the pond from drying up.

With these two images, I think you will understand.

Tender love.” (CWM 16: 61–62)

10. “The work given by the Mother is always meant as field for that self-consecration, it has to be done as an offering to her so that through the self-offering one may come to feel her force acting and her presence.”

(CWSA 29: 246)

XVIII—Surrender and Grace

1. “There are two powers that alone can effect in their conjunction the great and difficult thing which is the aim of our endeavour, a fixed and unfailing aspiration that calls from below and a supreme Grace from above that answers.

But the supreme Grace will act only in the conditions of the Light and the Truth; it will not act in conditions laid upon it by the Falsehood and the Ignorance. For if it were to yield to the demands of the Falsehood, it would defeat its own purpose.

These are the conditions of the Light and Truth, the sole conditions under which the highest Force will descend; and it is only the very highest supramental Force descending from above and opening from below that can victoriously handle the physical Nature and annihilate its difficulties . . . There must be a total and sincere surrender; there must be an exclusive self–opening to the divine Power; there must be a constant and integral choice of the Truth that is descending, a constant and integral rejection of the falsehood of the mental, vital and physical Powers and Appearances that still rule the earth–Nature.” (CWSA 32: 3)

2. a. “If behind your devotion and surrender you make a cover for your desires, egoistic demands and vital insistences, if you put these things in place of the true aspiration or mix them with it and try to impose them on the Divine Shakti, then it is idle to invoke the divine Grace to transform you.

If you open yourself on one side or in one part to the Truth and on another side are constantly opening the gates to hostile forces, it is vain to expect that the divine Grace will abide with you. You must keep the temple clean if you wish to instal there the living Presence.

If each time the Power intervenes and brings in the Truth, you turn your back on it and call in again the falsehood that has been expelled, it is not the divine Grace that you must blame for failing you, but the falsity of your own will and the imperfection of your own surrender.

If you call for the Truth and yet something in you chooses what is false, ignorant and undivine or even simply is unwilling to reject it altogether, then always you will be open to attack and the Grace will recede from you. Detect first what is false or obscure in you and persistently reject it, then alone can you rightly call for the divine Power to transform you.”  (CWSA 32: 3–4)

2. b. “ ‘If behind your devotion and surrender you make a cover for your desires, egoistic demands . . .’ [p. 3]. Does this mean ‘you use devotion and surrender as a means of fulfilling your desires and demands’?

Yes, practically it means that. I put it in that way so as to avoid suggesting that the devotion is altogether insincere and meant only as a cover.” (CWSA 35: 109)

3. “The complete consecration is undoubtedly not an easy matter, and it might take an almost indefinitely long time if you had to do it all by yourself, by your own independent effort. But when the Divine’s Grace is with you it is not exactly like that. With a little push from the Divine now and then, a little push in this direction and in that, the work becomes comparatively quite easy. Of course the length of time depends on each individual, but it can be very much shortened if you make a really firm resolve. Resolution is the one thing required—resolution is the master–key. (CWM 3: 127)

4. “Of course, if one is in a state of complete surrender and gives oneself entirely, if one simply offers oneself to the Grace and lets it do what it likes, that is very good. But after that one must not question what it does! One must not say to it, ‘Oh! I did that with the idea of having this’, for if one really has the idea of obtaining something, it is better to formulate it in all sincerity, simply, just as one sees it. Afterwards, it is for the Grace to choose if it will do it or not; but in any case, one will have formulated clearly what one wanted. And there is no harm in that.

Where it becomes bad is when the request is not granted and one revolts. Then naturally it becomes bad. It is at that moment one must understand that the desire one has, or the aspiration, may not have been very enlightened and that perhaps one has asked for something which was not exactly what was good for one. Then at that moment one must be wise and say simply, ‘Well, let Thy Will be done.’ But so long as one has an inner perception and an inner preference, there is no harm in formulating it. It is a very natural movement.

For example, if one has been foolish or has made a mistake and one truly, sincerely wishes never to do it again, well, I don’t see any harm in asking for it. And in fact, if one asks for it with sincerity, a true inner sincerity, there is a great chance that it will be granted.

You must not think that the Divine likes to contradict you. He is not at all keen on doing it! He can see better than you what is really good for you; but it is only when it is absolutely indispensable that He opposes your aspiration. Otherwise He is always ready to give what you ask.” (CWM 8: 254–255)

5. “That is to say, when you enter in some way into contact with a force or consciousness which surpasses yours, instead of being entirely dominated by this consciousness or force, you must always be able to remind yourself that it is only one experience among thousands and thousands of others, and that, consequently, its nature is not absolute, it is relative. No matter how beautiful it may be, you can and ought to have better ones: however exceptional it may be, there are others still more marvellous; and however high it may be, you can always rise still higher in future. So, instead of losing one’s head one places the experience in the chain of development and keeps a healthy physical balance so as not to lose the sense of relativity with ordinary life. In this way, there is no risk.

…

There is a means.

It is never to lose the idea of the total self–giving to the Grace which is the expression of the Supreme. When one gives oneself, when one surrenders, entrusts oneself entirely to That which is above, beyond all creation, and when, instead of seeking any personal advantage from the experience, one makes an offering of it to the divine Grace and knows that it is from This that the experience comes and that it is to This that the result of the experience must be given back, then one is quite safe.

In other words: no ambition, no vanity, no pride. A sincere self–giving, a sincere humility, and one is sheltered from all danger." (CWM 8: 278)

“What are the signs of the coming of the Divine Grace? Does the Divine Grace take full charge of the sadhana as soon as the sadhak gives the charge? If not, when will it take full charge?

If he gives full charge truly and really, with an absolute sincerity of total surrender and does not come in the way of the divine Grace. How many can do that? It cannot be done by a word or by taking up a mental posture.” (CWSA 35: 107)

XIX—Surrender and Work

1. “There is no stage of the sadhana in which works are impossible, no passage in the path where there is no foothold and action has to be renounced as incompatible with concentration on the Divine. The foothold is there always; the foothold is the reliance on the Divine, the opening of the being, the will, the energies to the Divine, the surrender to the Divine. All work done in that spirit can be made a means for the sadhana.” (CWSA 29: 216)

2. “That is the most important thing to get over—ego, anger, personal dislikes, self–regarding sensitiveness etc. Work is not only for work’s sake, but as a field of sadhana, for getting rid of the lower personality and its reactions and acquiring a full surrender to the Divine. As for the work itself it must be done according to the organisation arranged or sanctioned by the Mother. You must always remember that it is her work and not personally yours.” (CWSA 29: 239) (CWSA 32: 419)

3. “For the sadhak outward struggles, troubles, calamities are only a means of surmounting ego and rajasic desire and attaining to complete surrender. So long as one insists on success, one is doing the work partly at least for the ego; difficulties and outward failures come to warn one that it is so and to bring complete equality. This does not mean that the power of victory is not to be acquired; but it is not success in the immediate work that is all–important; it is the power to receive and transmit a greater and greater correct vision and inner Force that has to be developed and this must be done quite coolly and patiently without being elated or disturbed by immediate victory or failure.” (CWSA 29: 241–242)

4. “But I do not regard the ascetic way of living as indispensable to spiritual perfection or as identical with it. There is the way of spiritual self–mastery and the way of spiritual self-giving and surrender to the Divine, abandoning ego and desire even in the midst of action or of any kind of work or all kinds of work demanded from us by the Divine. If it were not so, there would not have been great spiritual men like Janaka or Vidura in India and even there would have been no Krishna or else Krishna would have been not the Lord of Brindavan and Mathura and Dwarka or a prince and warrior or the charioteer of Kurukshetra, but only one more great anchorite.” (CWSA 29: 250) (CWSA 35: 771)

5. “If there is the full surrender in the work and you feel it is the Mother’s and that the Mother’s force is working in you, then fatigue does not come.” (CWSA 29: 273)

6. “Do not worry about mistakes in work. Often you imagine that things are badly done by you when really you have done them very well; but even if there are mistakes, it is nothing to be sad about. Let the consciousness grow—only in the divine consciousness is there an entire perfection. The more you surrender to the Divine, the more will there be the possibility of perfection in you.” (CWSA 29: 285)

7. “The work was meant as a service to the Divine and as a field for the inner opening to the Divine, surrender to the Divine alone, rejection of ego and all the ordinary vital movements and the training in a psychic elevation, selflessness, obedience, renunciation of all mental, vital or other self–assertion of the limited personality."

(CWSA 35: 752)

8. “Work is part of the Yoga and it gives the best opportunity for calling down the Presence, the Light and the Power into the vital and its activities; it increases also the field and the opportunity of surrender.

It is not enough to remember that the work is the Mother’s—and the results also. You must learn to feel the Mother’s force behind you and to open to the inspiration and the guidance. Always to remember by an effort of the mind is too difficult; but if you get into the consciousness in which you feel always the Mother’s force in you or supporting you, that is the true thing."

(CWSA 32: 247–248)

9. “The spiritual effectivity of work of course depends on the inner attitude. What is important is the spirit of offering put into the work. If one can in addition remember the Mother in the work or through a certain concentration feel the Mother’s presence or force sustaining or doing the work, that carries the spiritual effectivity still farther. But even if one cannot in moments of clouding, depression or struggle do these things, yet there can be behind a love or bhakti which was the original motive power of the work and that can remain behind the cloud and reemerge like the sun after dark periods. All sadhana is like that and it is why one should not be discouraged by the dark moments, but realise that the original urge is there and that therefore the dark moments are only an episode in the journey which will lead to greater progress when they are once over.”

(CWSA 29: 242)

10. “As for the work, it is a means of preparation, it can also be a means of growing into the inner consciousness. But then it must be done not as work only but as an offering to the Mother, without insisting on the ego, with an aspiration to feel her Force working in one, her Presence presiding over the work, seeking to give all to her, not claiming anything for oneself. That is the spirit of work offered as a sacrifice; done like that, work becomes a sadhana and a Yoga.” (CWSA 29: 242)

11. “I make no difference between work and yoga. Work itself is yoga if it is done in a spirit of dedication and surrender.” (CWM 14: 298)

12. “Undoubtedly, the Gita is a Gospel of Works, but of works which culminate in knowledge, that is, in spiritual realisation and quietude, and of works motivated by devotion, that is, a conscious surrender of one’s whole self first into the hands and then into the being of the Supreme, and not at all of works as they are understood by the modern mind, not at all an action dictated by egoistic and altruistic, by personal, social, humanitarian motives, principles, ideals.” (CWSA 19: 30–31)

13. “The disciple has to rise beyond this Force and its three modes or guṇas; he has to become triguṇātīta. Not to her [Prakriti] has he to surrender his actions, over which he has no longer any claim or ‘right’, but into the being of the Supreme. Reposing his mind and understanding, heart and will in Him, with self-knowledge, with God-knowledge, with world-knowledge, with a perfect equality, a perfect devotion, an absolute self-giving, he has to do works as an offering to the Master of all self energisings and all sacrifice.” (CWSA 19: 37)

14. “The argument of the Gita resolves itself into three great steps by which action rises out of the human into the divine plane leaving the bondage of the lower for the liberty of a higher law. First, by the renunciation of desire and a perfect equality works have to be done as a sacrifice by man as the doer, a sacrifice to a deity who is the supreme and only Self though by him not yet realised in his own being. This is the initial step. Secondly, not only the desire of the fruit, but the claim to be the doer of works has to be renounced in the realisation of the Self as the equal, the inactive, the immutable principle and of all works as simply the operation of universal Force, of the Nature-Soul, Prakriti, the unequal, active, mutable power. Lastly, the supreme Self has to be seen as the supreme Purusha governing this Prakriti, of whom the soul in Nature is a partial manifestation, by whom all works are directed, in a perfect transcendence, through Nature. To him love and adoration and the sacrifice of works have to be offered; the whole being has to be surrendered to Him and the whole consciousness raised up to dwell in this divine consciousness so that the human soul may share in His divine transcendence of Nature and of His works and act in a perfect spiritual liberty.”

(CWSA 19: 37–38)

15. “The Yoga of works has been crowned by the surrender of all works to their Master,—for the natural man is now only an instrument of his will.”

(CWSA 19: 356)

16. “To work impersonally, desirelessly and without attachment to the fruits of our work, for the sake of God and the world and the greater Self and the fulfilment of the universal will,—this is the first step towards liberation and perfection.

But beyond this step there lies that other greater motion, the inner surrender of all our actions to the Divinity within us. For it is infinite Nature that impels our works and a divine Will in and above her that demands action of us; the choice and turn our ego gives to it is a contribution of our tamasic, rajasic, sattwic quality, a deformation in the lower Nature.”

(CWSA 19: 458–459)

17. “And by doing also all actions always lodged in Me he attains by my grace the eternal and imperishable status.” This liberating action is of the character of works done in a profound union of the will and all the dynamic parts of our nature with the Divine in ourself and the cosmos. It is done first as a sacrifice with the idea still of our self as the doer. It is done next without that idea and with a perception of the Prakriti as the sole doer. It is done last with the knowledge of that Prakriti as the supreme power of the Divine and a renunciation, a surrender of all our actions to him with the individual as a channel only and an instrument. Our works then proceed straight from the Self and Divine within us, are a part of the indivisible universal action, are initiated and performed not by us but by a vast transcendent Shakti. All that we do is done for the sake of the Lord seated in the heart of all, for the Godhead in the individual and for the fulfilment of his will in us, for the sake of the Divine in the world, for the good of all beings, for the fulfilment of the world action and the world purpose, or in one word for the sake of the Purushottama and done really by him through his universal Shakti.” (CWSA 19: 538)

18. “ ‘He who can see inaction in action and action in inaction, he is the wise among men, he does all actions with a soul in union with God.’

From this lofty platform the great creed rises to its crowning ideas, for since we must act but neither for any human or future results of action nor for the sake of the action itself, and yet action must have some goal to which it is devoted, there is no goal left but God. We must devote then our actions to God & through that rise to complete surrender of the personality to him, whether in the idea of him manifest through Yoga or the idea of him Unmanifest through Godknowledge.” (CWSA 1: 326)

19. “To create the union of his soul with the Divine Presence and Power through a perfect surrender of the will in all his activities, is the high aspiration of the seeker on the Way of Works.” (CWSA 12: 349)

20. “This is the attitude of the Karmayogin who puts himself in God’s hands and does work for His sake only, knowing that it is God’s force that works in him. The result of that attitude of self-surrender is that the Lord of all takes charge and according to the promise of the Gita delivers His servant and lover from all sin and evil, the vṛttis working in the bodily machine without affecting the soul and working only when He raises them up for His purposes.” (CWSA 13: 35)

21. “All work here must be done in a spirit of acceptance, discipline and surrender, not with personal demands and conditions, but with a vigilant conscious submission to control and guidance.” (CWSA 30: 302–303)

22. “There is no opposition between work and sadhana. Work itself done in the right spirit is sadhana. Meditation is not the only means of sadhana. Work is one means; love and worship and surrender are another.”

(CWSA 29: 209)

23. “This total consecration and surrender and this resultant entire transformation and free transmission make up the whole fundamental means and the ultimate aim of an integral Karmayoga.

Even for those whose first natural movement is a consecration, a surrender and a resultant entire transformation of the thinking mind and its knowledge, or a total consecration, surrender and transformation of the heart and its emotions, the consecration of works is a needed element in that change. Otherwise, although they may find God in other-life, they will not be able to fulfil the Divine in life; life for them will be a meaningless undivine inconsequence.” (CWSA 23: 92–93)

24. “All action must be done in a more and more Godward and finally a God-possessed consciousness; our works must be a sacrifice to the Divine and in the end a surrender of all our being, mind, will, heart, sense, life and body to the One must make God-love and God-service our only motive. This transformation of the motive force and very character of works is indeed its master idea; it is the foundation of its unique synthesis of works, love and knowledge.” (CWSA 23: 104)

25. “The Mother refuses to relieve you of all work—work is a necessary part of this Yoga. If you do not do work and spend all the time in ‘meditation’, you and your sadhana will lose all hold of realities; you will lose yourself in uncontrolled subjective imaginations such as those you are now allowing to control you and lead you into actions—like your absenting yourself from Pranam, becoming fanciful and irregular in your taking of food, coming to the Mother at a wrong time and place under the imagination that she has called you—actions dictated by error and false suggestion and not by Truth. It is by doing work for the Mother with surrender to her, with obedience to her expressed will, without fancies and vital self-will that you can remain in touch with the embodied Mother here and progress in the Yoga. Mere subjective experiences without control by us will not lead you to the Truth and may lead you far from it into sheer confusion and error.” (CWSA 32: 248)

XX—The Foundation for the Surrender of Action

1. “The best foundation for the surrender of action is the realisation that Prakriti is doing all our actions at God’s command and God through our svabhāva determines the action. From that moment the action belongs to him, it is not yours nor the responsibility yours; there is indeed no responsibility, no bondage of Karma, for God has no responsibility, but is in every way master and free. Our actions become not only like the Shastric man’s svabhāvaniyata, regulated by nature and therefore dharma, but the svabhāva itself is controlled like a machine by God.” (CWSA 13: 80)

2. “It is not easy for us, full as we are of the Sanskaras of ignorance, to arrive at this stage of knowledge, but there are three stages by which it can be rapidly done. The first is to live in the spirit of the [Gita’s] śloka

...

‘According as I am appointed by Thee, O Hrishikesha! seated in my heart, so I act.’ When this has entered into your daily life, it will be easier to accomplish the second stage and live in the knowledge of the Gita,

...

‘God stands in the heart of all beings, whirling round all, as on a wheel, by the Maya of the three guṇas.’ You will then be able to perceive the action of the three guṇas in you and watch the machinery at its work, no longer saying, tathā karomi, I do, but guṇā vartanta eva, it is merely the guṇas that work. One great difficulty in these stages, especially before you can distinguish the action of the guṇas, is the perception of the impurity of the svabhāva, the haunting idea of sin and virtue. You must always remember that, since you have put yourself in God’s hands, he will work out the impurities and you have only to be careful, as you cannot be attached either to pāpa or puṇya, sin or virtue. For he has repeatedly given the abhaya vacana, the assurance of safety. ‘Pratijānīhi,’ he says in the Gita, ‘na me bhaktaḥ praṇaśyati,´  he who is devoted to Me cannot perish.’

The third stage comes out of the second, by full realisation of God, or of itself by the grace of God. Not only will the Purusha stand apart and be triguṇātīta, beyond the three guṇas, but the Prakriti, though using the guṇas, will be free from their bondage. Sattwa, as we know it, will disappear into pure prakāśa and jyotiḥ, and the nature will live in a pure, free and infinite self-existing illumination. Tamas, as we know it, will disappear into pure śama or śānti, and the nature will take its firm stand on an infinite and ineffable rest and peace. Rajas, as we know it, will disappear into pure tapas, and the nature will flow a free and infinite ocean of divine force. On that foundation of calm and in that heaven of light, action will occur as the spontaneous objective expression of God’s knowledge, which is one with God’s will. This is the condition of infinity, ānantya, in which this struggle of bound and limited sattwa, rajas and tamas is replaced by a mighty harmony of free prakāśa, tapas and śama.” (CWSA 13: 80–82)

3. “And even before you reach that condition [the condition of infinity, ānantya ], on the way to it, you will find that some mighty force not your own, not situated in your body though possessing and occupying it, is thinking for you, feeling for you, acting for you, your very body as well as your mind and heart being moved by that force and not by yourself. You will enjoy that thought, feeling, action, but will neither possess nor be possessed by it,—karmāṇi pravilīyante, your actions will disappear without leaving in you mark or trace, as a wave disappears from the surface of the sea, as water falls from the lotus leaf. Your mind, heart, body will not be yours, but God’s; you yourself will be only a centre of being, knowledge and bliss through which God works in that Adhar. This is the condition in which one is utterly taccittaḥ, given up in all his conscious being to God, in which there is utter fulfilment of the description,

...

‘One whose state of being is free from egoism and whose understanding receives no stain.’ This is the surrender of action to which Sri Krishna gives so much importance.” (CWSA 13: 82)

4. “All action, all creation must be turned into a form, a symbol of the cult, the adoration, the sacrifice; it must carry something that makes it bear in it the stamp of a dedication, a reception and translation of the Divine Consciousness, a service of the Beloved, a self-giving, a surrender. This has to be done wherever possible in the outward body and form of the act; it must be done always in its inward emotion and an intensity that shows it to be an outflow from the soul towards the Eternal.” (CWSA 23: 164–165)

5. “The total surrender, then, of all our actions to a supreme and universal Will, an unconditioned and standardless surrender of all works to the government of something eternal within us which will replace the ordinary working of the ego-nature, is the way and end of Karmayoga.” (CWSA 23: 213)

6. “The essential of the sacrifice of works must be there and the essential is the surrender of all desire for the fruit of our works, the renunciation of all attachment to the result for which yet we labour. For so long as we work with attachment to the result, the sacrifice is offered not to the Divine, but to our ego.” (CWSA 23: 221)

7. “Power of action: the power which results from a true surrender to the Divine.” (CWM 14: 324)

XXI—How to Progressively Surrender Our Ignorant Personal Will into a Greater Divine Will

1. You must first acquire a perfect sincerity in order to be sure of not deceiving yourself

2. And you must have clear evidence that it is truly the Divine Will which moves and guides you

“If one gives oneself completely to the Divine, is it necessary to develop one’s personal will, one’s power of choice, etc.? Will these things not become obstacles?

Personal will and power of choice are necessary qualities for those who live in the ordinary ignorance and illusion.

True self-giving to the Divine of course means their surrender. But unfortunately, many people live in the illusion that they have entirely given themselves to the Divine, and yet preserve in themselves a very active ‘ego’ which prevents them from clearly perceiving the Divine Will; if these people abandon their personal will and discernment, they are in danger of becoming incoherent and erratic.

You must first acquire a perfect sincerity in order to be sure of not deceiving yourself, and you must have clear evidence that it is truly the Divine Will which moves and guides you.” (CWM 10: 285)

3. How to Offer One’s Will to the Divine When One Does Not Know What the Divine Will Is?

4. You could first silence your will and wait for the inner voice before acting, not to will any longer

5. Do what everybody wants except oneself

6. Then offer to the Divine what one has done

7. But one can also formulate to oneself one’s will and try to pass it before the screen of one’s higher ideal

8. If it vacillates, you may be sure there is something there to check up

9. If, on the other hand, it passes very quietly and without protest, you may risk doing what you wanted and see the result

10. If you expand your vision sufficiently, both in height and wideness, you can immediately see the consequences your will would have had if it had been realised

“How can one make an offering of one’s will?... Some people, when they offer their will, stop willing! This is more convenient, but evidently this is not the right way.

How to offer one’s will to the Divine when one does not know what the divine Will is? This is a very interesting problem.

Some men think that all that comes to them from outside is the divine Will, and they accept it as such.

Yes, unfortunately. But all that they do is to accept the collective will or that of the strongest.

Should not one offer all one’s willed actions to the Divine? That is, first do the willed actions and then offer them?

Perhaps you could first silence your will and wait for the inner voice before acting! That would be wiser.

You see, we have already found many ways of offering our will to the Divine: first, not to will any longer! Second, do what everybody wants except oneself! Third, want no matter what and do no matter what, then, afterwards, offer to the Divine what one has done!

But one can also formulate to oneself one’s will and try to pass it before the screen of one’s higher ideal, and see what it looks like in front of this ideal, whether it cuts a fine figure or not. If it vacillates, you may be sure there is something there to check up. If, on the other hand, it passes very quietly and without protest, you may risk doing what you wanted and see the result. But here too we are before a very difficult problem.... Those who wish to remain in an inner peace say that everything that happens is the will of God—this is very convenient for being quiet, it is the best way, there is no better; if there is a better way, it is much more difficult. So, if your will is contradicted, you say it is the will of God; you are quiet, you have done what you could and the result is different from what you expected, and you are in peace. (Note that this is not very easy; it is quite good already, but this is not all.) But it may also be quite possible that your will was contradicted by circumstances and yet it was right. Then the solution is much more difficult. First, how to know that it was right?... If you are quite impartial, quiet, peaceful, and as little egoistic as possible, if you look straight in the face at what has happened and see a sort of contradiction, the impression that a light has gone out and you are in the presence of a falsehood, you remain quite calm, but you see and understand that your will has been contradicted for some unknown reason, though in itself it was not false, that what you had seen was the truth but it did not manifest itself for some reason or other. So you must start on the adventure of discovering the reason why your truth did not manifest itself. This is a problem a little more difficult... but if you expand your vision sufficiently, both in height and wideness, you can immediately see the consequences your will would have had if it had been realised, and the consequences of what would have happened; and if you fling your view far enough, you will be able to see that your will, however true it was, was a partial truth—it was not a collective, general truth, and still less a universal one—and, consequently, if this truth had been realised at that moment, it would have dislocated a certain ensemble and many things which form a part of the divine Work (for everything, in fact, is a part of the divine Work, the entire creation, the entire universe): one part of the whole would have been left behind.” (CWM 4: 114–115)

11. Elimination of personal vital desire

“The progressive surrender of our ignorant personal will and its merger into a greater divine or on the highest summits greatest supreme Will is the whole secret of Karma Yoga. To bring about the conditions in which alone this vast and happy identity becomes possible and to work out the lines we must follow to their end if we are to reach it, is all the deeper purpose of this discipline. The first condition is the elimination of personal vital desire, for if desire intervenes, all harmony with the supreme Divine Will becomes impossible. Even if we receive it, we shall disfigure its working and distort its dynamic impulse.” (CWSA 12: 351)

12. Reject ego sense, mental claim and vital clamour

13. Offer up your will

14. Have perfect equality

15. Surrender to the Highest

“Offer up your will to him and make it one with his eternal will: surrender all your actions in the silence of your self and spirit to the transcendent Master of your nature. This cannot be really done or done perfectly so long as there is any ego sense in you or any mental claim or vital clamour. Action done in the least degree for the sake of the ego or tinged with the desire and will of the ego is not a perfect sacrifice. Nor can this great thing be well and truly done so long as there is inequality anywhere or any stamp of ignorant shrinking and preference. But when there is a perfect equality to all works, results, things and persons, a surrender to the Highest and not to desire or ego, then the divine Will determines without stumbling or deflection and the divine Power executes freely without any nether interference or perverting reaction all works in the purity and safety of your transmuted nature.” (CWSA 19: 587)

16. Create image of divine Will full of peace, by constant submission to the Truth

17. And by surrendering

“When we are obscure and revolt against the Truth and the Law, our progress seems to be a stumbling from ignorance to ignorance and is full of pain and disturbance. By constant submission to the Truth, surrenderings, namobhiḥ [pious resignation], we create in ourselves that image of the divine Will which is on the contrary full of peace, because it is assured of the Truth and the Law.” (CWSA 15: 282)

18. Consecration of our actions

19. Progressive surrender of our capacities of working into the hands of a greater Power

20. All must be given into the hands of the divine Will

“But if this total conversion is to be done, there must be a consecration of our actions and outer movements as much as of our mind and heart to the Divine. There must be accepted and progressively accomplished a surrender of our capacities of working into the hands of a greater Power behind us and our sense of being the doer and worker must disappear. All must be given for a more direct use into the hands of the divine Will which is hidden by these frontal appearances; for by that permitting Will alone is our action possible.” (CWSA 23: 92)

21. Surrendering the will of the ego to the Divine Will at every opportunity and finally in a constant way

22. For the Divine knows better than we know what is good for us and what we truly need

“But before eliminating the will of the ego, which takes a very long time, one can begin by surrendering the will of the ego to the Divine Will at every opportunity and finally in a constant way. For this, the first step is to understand that the Divine knows better than we what is good for us and what we truly need, not only for our spiritual progress but also for our material wellbeing, the health of our body and the proper functioning of all the activities of our being.” (CWM 16: 224)

23. Surrender will be not only to a divine Will but also to a divine Wisdom in the Will and to divine Love

“But if this greater perfection is to arrive, the soul’s impartial high-seatedness looking down from above on the flux of forms and personalities and movements and forces [a method of gaining equality, Indifference] must be modified and change into a new sense of strong and calm submission and a powerful and intense surrender. This submission will be no longer a resigned acquiescence but a glad acceptance: for there will be no sense of suffering or of the bearing of a burden or cross; love and delight and the joy of self-giving will be its brilliant texture. And this surrender will be not only to a divine Will which we perceive and accept and obey, but to a divine Wisdom in the Will which we recognise and a divine Love in it which we feel and rapturously suffer, the wisdom and love of a supreme Spirit and Self of ourselves and all with which we can achieve a happy and perfect unity.” (CWSA 23: 228)

24. When our surrender to Divine Shakti is absolute only then can we see our work throw itself into the mould of the Divine Will

“The Master of the work does not reveal himself at once to the seeker. Always it is his Power that acts behind the veil, but it is manifest only when we renounce the egoism of the worker, and its direct movement increases in proportion as that renunciation becomes more and more complete. Only when our surrender to his Divine Shakti is absolute, shall we have the right to live in his absolute presence. And only then can we see our work throw itself naturally, completely and simply into the mould of the Divine Will.” (CWSA 23: 243)

25. The aim of Karma Yoga is the surrender of one’s own will to the Divine Will

“The merging of the little ego in union with the Divine, purification, surrender, the substitution of the Divine guidance for one’s own ignorant self-guidance based on one’s personal ideas and personal feelings is the aim of Karma Yoga, the surrender of one’s own will to the Divine Will.” (CWSA 35: 752–753)

26. First a consecration, then a surrender of our human personal will

27. Then merger of personal will in a greatest supreme Will is the central secret and core of intention of the Karmayoga

28. But this cannot be entirely done by our mental consciousness

29. Our only safety is to push on beyond the mind to a Truth consciousness with a larger dynamic light in it

30. In this supramental consciousness is the Truth and there we meet it and its Master

31. The supermind is the primal creative and organic instrument of the Supreme Will, the Will that is free from error because it is eternal, one and infinite

“At first a consecration, then a surrender and subordination of our human personal will, then its merger in a greater divine or greatest supreme Will is the central secret and core of intention of the Karmayoga. But this cannot be entirely done by our mental consciousness in its little human boundaries. Our Yoga must help us to leave it and enter into a greater consciousness enlightened by a truer radiance of knowledge, armed with a mightier unerring strength, open to that vaster delight in which are drowned for ever our petty human pain and pleasure. Still even what can be done within the limits of our human consciousness brings a great liberation.

But even to do that little is not easy to the physical mind of man, even when his higher mind and will consent and demand it. There is something in us wedded to ignorance, eternally in revolt against all surrender, attached to its own blind activity, its own freedom of will, a ‘freedom’ that rattles its hundred chains at every step;—but to that element in us even that seems a divine music. And our human mind will invent a hundred good reasons against any such surrender to something not ourselves or even to our highest Self,—unless that be nothing more than a magnified reflection of our ego; for then it will be willing enough to surrender. And even our highest spiritual achievement on the mental plane is tainted and limited, when it is not distorted, by this ever unredeemed element in our nature.

Our only safety is to push on beyond the mind to a Truth consciousness with a larger dynamic light in it that is ever free by its inherent knowledge and illumined power from these pettinesses and this egoistic darkness. For in this supramental consciousness is the Truth and there we meet it and its Master. The supermind is the primal creative and organic instrument of the Supreme Will, the Will that is free from error because eternal, one and infinite.” (CWSA 12: 354–355)

32. We shall attain to a true freedom; living in the divine liberty

33. We shall no longer cling to our shackled so-called freewill, a puppet freedom ignorant, illusory, relative, bound to the error of its own inadequate vital motives and mental figures

“If we surrender our conscious will and allow it to be made one with the will of the Eternal, then, and then only, shall we attain to a true freedom; living in the divine liberty, we shall no longer cling to this shackled so-called freewill, a puppet freedom ignorant, illusory, relative, bound to the error of its own inadequate vital motives and mental figures.” (CWSA 23: 97–98)

34. To convert the whole being into a higher spiritual consciousness for those who are dynamic and active

35. It is best to centre themselves in the will and enlarge their being through works

36. United with the Self and source of all by their surrender of their will into its infinity

37. Surrendered to the Lord of the cosmic action as the master and mover of all their energies

38. Becoming by this enlargement of being selfless and universal

39. They can reach by works some first fullness of a spiritual status

“An Integral Yoga includes as a vital and indispensable element in its total and ultimate aim the conversion of the whole being into a higher spiritual consciousness and a larger divine existence. Our parts of will and action, our parts of knowledge, our thinking being, our emotional being, our being of life, all our self and nature must seek the Divine, enter into the Infinite, unite with the Eternal. But man’s present nature is limited, divided, unequal,—it is easiest for him to concentrate in the strongest part of his being and follow a definite line of progress proper to his nature ... Some therefore must choose as a starting point a concentration in thought or contemplation or the mind’s one-pointedness to find the eternal reality of the Self in them; others can more easily withdraw into the heart to meet there the Divine, the Eternal: yet others are predominantly dynamic and active; for these it is best to centre themselves in the will and enlarge their being through works. United with the Self and source of all by their surrender of their will into its infinity, guided in their works by the secret Divinity within or surrendered to the Lord of the cosmic action as the master and mover of all their energies of thought, feeling, act, becoming by this enlargement of being selfless and universal, they can reach by works some first fullness of a spiritual status.” (CWSA 23: 279)

“There is no assumption of personal will in the instrument; it is seen that all is already worked out in the omniscient prescience and omnipotent effective power of the universal Divine and that the egoism of men cannot alter the workings of that Will. Therefore, the final attitude is that enjoined on Arjuna in a later chapter, ‘All has been already done by Me in my divine will and foresight; become only the occasion, O Arjuna,’ nimitta-mātraṁ bhava savyasācin. This attitude must lead finally to an absolute union of the personal with the Divine Will and, with the growth of knowledge, bring about a faultless response of the instrument to the divine Power and Knowledge. A perfect, an absolute equality of self-surrender, the mentality a passive channel of the divine Light and Power, the active being a mightily effective instrument for its work in the world, will be the poise of this supreme union of the Transcendent, the universal and the individual.” (CWSA 19: 209)

40. Only when one is perfectly surrendered to the divine Will that one can act safely without reason

“When one no longer listens to reason, one can be led into all sorts of absurdities. Naturally, it is neither the ideal nor the summit, it is only a kind of control and a guide for leading a good life, it keeps you from extravagances, excesses, inordinate passions and above all from those impulsive actions which may lead you to the abyss. There you are.

One must be very sure of oneself, quite free from the ego and perfectly surrendered to the divine Will to be able to do safely without reason.” (CWM 8: 374)

“Is it possible to disregard reason?... It is possible only when you have passed beyond mental activity. It is possible only when you have achieved a surrender, a total giving of yourself.” (CWM 8: 373)

499 – God is our wise and perfect Friend; because He knows when to smite as well as when to fondle, when to slay us no less than when to save and to succour. (Thoughts and Aphorisms)

There is only one true wisdom, the wisdom of the Supreme Lord. Thus, to surrender all personal will and to want only what the Divine wants, is the only way to be truly wise.” (CWM 10: 350)

“How can one get rid of one’s vanity and selfishness?

By a complete consecration to the Divine and a loving surrender to the Divine’s Will.” (CWM 14: 258)

41. Willing and spontaneous surrender to the Divine Will is a much surer way to be happy in peace and light than the satisfaction of any desire

“It is certain that for someone who has desires, when his desires are not satisfied, it is a sign that the Divine Grace is with him and wants, through experience, to make him progress rapidly, by teaching him that a willing and spontaneous surrender to the Divine Will is a much surer way to be happy in peace and light than the satisfaction of any desire.” (CWM 10: 261)

“Receptivity: conscious of the Divine Will and surrendered to it.” (CWM 14: 146)

42. The condition of supramental is to have the Divine Will first

“It is true that I want the supramental not for myself but for the earth and souls born on the earth, and certainly therefore I cannot object if anybody wants the supramental. But there are the conditions. He must want the Divine Will first and the soul’s surrender and spiritual realisation (through works, bhakti, knowledge, self-perfection) on the way.” (CWSA 29: 413–414)

XXII—The Indispensable Faith Required in Integral Yoga

1. The Indispensable Faith Required is a Total Self-surrender to the Divine and his Shakti in Us

2. Then We Can Attain to Oneness, Freedom, Victory and Perfection

“There is one kind of faith demanded as indispensable by the integral Yoga and that may be described as faith in God and the Shakti, faith in the presence and power of the Divine in us and the world, a faith that all in the world is the working of one divine Shakti, that all the steps of the Yoga, its strivings and sufferings and failures as well as its successes and satisfactions and victories are utilities and necessities of her workings and that by a firm and strong dependence on and a total self-surrender to the Divine and to his Shakti in us we can attain to oneness and freedom and victory and perfection.” (CWSA 24: 771)

“To understand divine movements one must enter into the divine consciousness; till then faith and surrender are the only right attitude. How can the mind judge what is beyond all its measures?” (CWSA 31: 5)

“In the course of the sadhana a state of blankness, of ‘neutral quiet’ like this often comes—especially when the sadhana is in the physical consciousness. .... But one must not feel disturbed or disappointed when this comes, but remain calm in the full confidence that it is a stage only, a ground that has to be crossed in the sadhana. In whatever condition, the faith and the fixed idea of surrender must be kept before the mind.” (CWSA 30: 78–79)

“I may say a word in passing about Nalineswar. I have read through his experiences and they confirm what I have said about the deficient capacity of his adhar. The mental, vital and physical beings are full of weakness and Tamas and the debility and torpor which he constantly experiences are the result of this deficient adhar trying to bear the pressure of the Sadhana. At the same time he has one thing which can carry him through if he keeps it steadily,—the persistent faith and self-surrender. If the physical lightness, which he experienced for the last four or five days before he wrote, can be made permanent then probably the worst part of the difficulty is over. In any case that permanence whenever it comes will be the sign of a certain fundamental safety and the other deficiencies can be gradually rectified by the coming in of the light and the power into the mind and the vital being.” (CWSA 36: 358)

XXIII—Psychic Being and Surrender

1. “It is only the psychic that knows how to surrender and the psychic is usually very much veiled in the beginning. When the psychic awakes, it can bring a sudden and true surrender of the whole being, for the difficulty of the rest is rapidly dealt with and disappears.” (CWSA 29: 84)

2. “On the other hand, there are some people who start with a genuine and dynamic will for a total surrender. It is those who are governed by the psychic ...” (CWSA 29: 84)

3. “Psychic protection: the protection resulting from surrender to the Divine.” (CWM 15: 47)

4. “It is the psychic inmost being that replaces the ego. It is through love and surrender to the Divine that the psychic being becomes strong and manifest, so that it can replace the ego.” (CWSA 28: 124)

5. "... psychic faith opens to the direct touch of the Divine and helps to bring union and surrender.” (CWSA 29: 99)

6. “That is why we insist on the psychic transformation as the first necessity—for that does change the nature—and its chief instrument is bhakti, surrender, etc.” (CWSA 35: 365–366)

7. “The Guru’s touch or grace may open something, but the difficulties have always to be worked out still. What is true is that if there is complete surrender which implies the prominence of the psychic, these difficulties are no longer felt as a burden or obstacle but only as superficial imperfections which the working of the grace will remove.” (CWSA 29: 197)

8. “Love, bhakti, surrender, the psychic opening are the only short cut to the Divine—or can be; for if the love and bhakti are too vital, then there is likely to be a seesaw between ecstatic expectation and viraha, abhimāna, despair, which will make it not a short cut but a long one, a zigzag, not a straight flight, a whirling round one’s own ego instead of a running towards the Divine.” (CWSA 29: 212) (CWSA 35: 743)

9. “After getting your letter [above], I was frightened, thinking that all my experiences about the Self were untrue and were misleading influences. Then I thought I would not aspire for the higher opening any more; what is necessary for me now is the growth of the psychic. So I began to concentrate on the heart and have been trying to depend on the psychic strength.

You must not try to stop any opening. My remarks were only meant to keep you on your guard against certain errors that sadhaks often make when the cosmic consciousness opens. If there is the psychic opening with its surrender and the higher opening with its wideness and self-realisation, the two together, there is little danger of any such error.” (CWSA 32: 59)

10. “What is the conscious way to bring the psychic to the front? Does awakening of the psychic being mean its coming to the front?

No. Awakening is a different thing, it means the conscious action of the psychic from behind. When it comes to the front it invades the mind and vital and body and psychicises their movements. It comes best by aspiration and an unquestioning and entire turning and surrender to the Mother. But also it sometimes comes of itself when the Adhar is ready.” (CWSA 32: 162)

11. “In the evening meditation, there was an intense movement of surrender from the heart. I had the feeling of Mother’s presence immediately in front of me and aspiration rose up from below. There was a willing and loving surrender from the heart, from the entire being, as if for fulfilment. I suppose the psychic being came to the front.

You had the psychic condition there and that means a coming of the influence of the psychic being to the front.” (CWSA 32: 188)

12. “Sweet Mother, what is the meaning of ‘the psychic surrender in the physical’?

... It is the psychic surrender expressing itself in the physical consciousness; that is, the physical consciousness takes an attitude of psychic surrender. The physical consciousness receives the influence of the psychic and takes the attitude which psychic surrender gives.” (CWM 6: 419)

13. “Sadhana must be the main thing and sadhana means the purification of the nature, the consecration of the being, the opening of the psychic and the inner mind and vital, the contact and presence of the Divine, the realisation of the Divine in all things, surrender, devotion, the widening of the consciousness into the cosmic Consciousness, the Self one in all, the psychic and the spiritual transformation of the nature.” (CWSA 27: 711) (CWSA 31: 78)

14. “What you have to aspire for most is the improved quality of the recipient consciousness in you—discrimination in the mind, the unattached impersonal Witness look on all that goes on in you and around you, purity in the vital, calm equanimity, enduring patience, absence of pride and the sense of greatness—and more especially, the development of the psychic being in you—surrender, self-giving, psychic humility, devotion.” (CWSA 30: 33)

15. “Eventually it is the psychic growth that makes this surrender too possible and that again comes most easily by bhakti.” (CWSA 30: 58)

16. “The divine Force ... will work first to purify, to widen and enlighten and transform the consciousness, to open it to Light and Truth, to awaken the heart and the psychic being. Only afterwards will it take gradual and quiet control through a pure and conscious surrender.” (CWSA 30: 199)

17. “It is possible to have a guiding Voice, but it is also easy to make a mistake in this matter. For the mind imitates the guiding voice and, if there are demands and desires in the vital, these also put themselves in the same form and are mistaken for a guiding voice. Make yourself pure of demand and desire, full only of psychic aspiration, surrendered, and in time a real guidance from within will come.” (CWSA 30: 309)

18. “The first opening [of the heart to the psychic being] is effected by a concentration in the heart, a call to the Divine to manifest within us and through the psychic to take up and lead the whole nature. Aspiration, prayer, bhakti, love, surrender are the main supports of this part of the sadhana—accompanied by a rejection of all that stands in the way of what we aspire for.”

(CWSA 30: 327–328)(CWSA 32: 205)

19. “Get the psychic being in front and keep it there, putting its power on the mind, vital and physical — so that it shall communicate to them its force of single-minded aspiration, trust, faith, surrender, direct and immediate detection of whatever is wrong in the nature and turned towards ego and error, away from Light and Truth.” (CWSA 30: 333)

20. “It [the psychic being] has to be surrendered consciously and with more and more knowledge. The psychic aspires to the Divine or answers to things divine, it is surrendered in principle, but it has to develop its surrender in detail carrying with it the surrender of all the being.” (CWSA 30: 345–346)

21. “Awakening [of the psychic being] is a different thing [from its coming to the front], it means the conscious action of the psychic from behind. When it comes to the front it invades the mind and vital and body and psychicises their movements. It comes best by aspiration and an unquestioning and entire turning and surrender to the Mother. But also it sometimes comes of itself when the Adhar is ready.” (CWSA 30: 354–355)

22. “A central love, bhakti, surrender, giving everything, a sight within that sees always clearly what is spiritually right or wrong and automatically rejects the latter—a movement of entire consecration and dedication of all in one to the Mother [are the signs of the psychic’s coming forward].” (CWSA 30: 356)

23. “If there is the firm psychic foundation underneath, it will be felt as an underlying quietude and confidence or a fixed spirit of surrender.” (CWSA 30: 367)

24. “But the surrender is not sure, there is no absolute certitude of the guidance so long as we are besieged by mind formations and life impulses and instigations of ego which may easily betray us into the hands of a false experience. This danger can only be countered by the opening of a now nine-tenths concealed inmost soul or psychic being that is already there but not commonly active within us. That is the inner light we must liberate; for the light of this inmost soul is our one sure illumination so long as we walk still amidst the siege of the Ignorance and the Truth-consciousness has not taken up the entire control of our Godward endeavour. The working of the Divine Force in us under the conditions of the transition and the light of the psychic being turning us always towards a conscious and seeing obedience to that higher impulsion and away from the demands and instigations of the Forces of the Ignorance, these between them create an ever progressive inner law of our action which continues till the spiritual and supramental can be established in our nature. In the transition there may well be a period in which we take up all life and action and offer them to the Divine for purification, change and deliverance of the truth within them, another period in which we draw back and build a spiritual wall around us admitting through its gates only such activities as consent to undergo the law of the spiritual transformation, a third in which a free and all-embracing action, but with new forms fit for the utter truth of the Spirit, can again be made possible.” (CWSA 23: 138)

25. “There is only one way of escape from this siege of the lower vital nature. It is the entire rejection of all egoistic vital demand, claim and desire and the replacement of the dissatisfied vital urge by the purity of psychic aspiration. Not the satisfaction of these vital clamours nor, either, an ascetic retirement is the true solution, but the surrender of the vital being to the Divine and a single-minded consecration to the supreme Truth into which desire and demand cannot enter. For the nature of the supreme Truth is Light and Ananda, and where desire and demand are there can be no Ananda.” (CWSA 31: 160)

26. “The defects of which you speak are common to all human nature and the external being of every sadhak is full of them; to become aware of them is necessary for the transformation, but it must be done with a quiet mind and with the faith and surrender to the Divine and assured aspiration to the higher consciousness which are proper to the psychic being.” (CWSA 31: 207)

27. “It was indeed a microscopically small cause for so strong an upsetting, but really it is the whole difficulty of this raw and unreasonable sensitiveness which cropped up with this very infinitesimally small excuse—and that sensitiveness is one of the most persistent obstacles of many sadhaks here. There are two remedies for it—the psychic’s confidence in the Mother and the surrender that goes with it, i.e. ‘whatever she wills is best for me’, and the vastness which you feel now,—it is the wideness of the true self, of the true mental, vital, physical being also, from which such things fall off like dust, for they are of no importance to it whatever.” (CWSA 31: 211)

28. “Now that you are here, try to enter into the higher ways of the sadhana. Withdraw from the vital and its demands and desires, make the inner heart and the psychic being your centre and seek union with the Mother’s consciousness through self-giving and surrender.” (CWSA 32: 145)

29. “If you want the psychic in the physical, you cannot get it by merely sitting in meditation and having abstract experiences; you can get it only by seeking it in physical life and action, by work for the Mother, obedience and surrender in work to the Mother who is present in her own body here.” (CWSA 32: 249–250)

30. “But what you want from the Mother does not come through a pull in the vital—it can come only by the faith and surrender—the psychic purifying the mind and the vital of all wrong desire.” (CWSA 32: 400)

31. “If you want to succeed in this Yoga, you must take your stand on the psychic relation and reject the egoistic vital movement. The psychic being coming to the front and staying there is the decisive movement in the Yoga. It is that which happened when you saw the Mother last—the psychic being came in front. But you must keep it in front. You will not be able to do that if you listen to the vital ego and its outcries. It is by faith and surrender and the joy of pure self-giving—the psychic attitude—that one grows into the Truth and becomes united with the Divine.” (CWSA 32: 465)

32. “How shall I be able to judge that I am in the full state of psychic love?

By the absence of ego, by pure devotion, by submission and surrender to the Divine.” (CWSA 32: 467)

33. “The psychic relation is the true relation, the psychic gives itself without any demand asking only for love and surrender and union with the Divine, and even in that the asking is not a vital demand but an aspiration.” (CWSA 32: 473)

34. “What the sadhak has to seek is the full opening to the Divine, the psychic change of his consciousness, the spiritual change. Of that change of consciousness, selflessness, desirelessness, humility, bhakti, surrender, calm, equality, peace, quiet, sincerity are necessary constituents.” (CWSA 29:22)

35. “... psychic faith opens to the direct touch of the Divine and helps to bring union and surrender.” (CWSA 29: 99)

36. “The power of the concentration in the heart-centre is to open that centre and by the power of aspiration, love, bhakti, surrender remove the veil which covers and conceals the soul and bring forward the soul or psychic being to govern the mind, life and body and turn and open them all—fully—to the Divine, removing all that is opposed to that turning and opening.” (CWSA 29: 307)

37. “The love that belongs to the spiritual planes is of a different kind—the psychic has its own more personal love, bhakti, surrender. Love in the higher or spiritual mind is more universal and impersonal. The two must join together to make the highest divine love.”

(CWSA 29: 337)

38. “For the psychic has the happy confidence, the ready understanding and response, the spontaneous surrender; it knows that the touch of the Guru is meant to help and not to hurt, or, like Radha in the poem, that whatever the Beloved does is meant to lead to the Divine Rapture.” (CWSA 29: 386)

39. “To be reborn means to enter, first of all, into our psychic consciousness where we are one with the Divine and eternally free from the reactions of Karma. Without becoming aware of the psychic, it is not possible to do so; but once we are securely conscious of the true soul in us which is always surrendered to the Divine, all bondage ceases. Then incessantly life begins afresh, then the past no longer cleaves to us. To give you an idea of the final height of spiritual rebirth, I may say that there can be a constant experience of the whole universe actually disappearing at every instant and being at every instant newly created!” (CWM 3: 176–177)

40. “Demand and desire are only two different aspects of the same thing—nor is it necessary that a feeling should be agitated or restless to be a desire; it can be, on the contrary, quietly fixed and persistent or persistently recurrent. Demand or desire comes from the mental or the vital and a psychic or spiritual need is a different thing. The psychic does not demand or desire; it aspires; it does not make conditions for its surrender or withdraw if its aspiration is not immediately satisfied—for the psychic has complete trust in the Divine or in the guru and can wait for the right time or the hour of the divine grace. The psychic has an insistence of its own, but it puts its pressure not on the Divine, but on the nature, placing a finger of light on all the defects there that stand in the way of the realisation, sifting out all that is mixed, ignorant or imperfect in the experience or in the movements of the Yoga and never satisfied with itself or with the nature till it has got it perfectly open to the Divine, free from all forms of ego, surrendered, simple and right in the attitude and all the movements. This is what has to be established entirely in the mind and vital and in the physical consciousness before supramentalisation of the whole nature is possible.” (CWSA 31: 259–260)

41. “As for experiences, they are all right but the trouble is that they do not seem to change the nature, they only enrich the consciousness—even the realisation, on the mind level, of the Brahman seems to leave the nature almost where it was, except for a few. That is why we insist on the psychic transformation as the first necessity—for that does change the nature—and its chief instrument is bhakti, surrender etc.”

(CWSA 31: 617)

42. “There is also the way of the psychic,—when the psychic being comes out in its inherent power, its consecration, adoration, love of the Divine, self-giving, surrender and imposes these on the mind, vital and physical consciousness and compels them to turn all their movements Godward.” (CWSA 31: 669)

43. “It is a necessity for the soul in the universe—and therefore the inner trend of the evolutionary Energy and its ultimate intention—to know and to grow into this truth of itself, to become one with the Divine Being, to raise its nature to the Divine Nature, its existence into the Divine Existence, its consciousness into the Divine Consciousness, its delight of being into the divine Delight of Being, and to receive all this into its becoming, to make the becoming an expression of that highest Truth, to be possessed inwardly of the Divine Self and Master of its existence and to be at the same time wholly possessed by Him and moved by His Divine Energy and live and act in a complete self-giving and surrender.” (CWSA 22: 688–689)

XXIV—The Central Being and Surrender

1. “The phrase ‘central being’ in our Yoga is usually applied to the portion of the Divine in us which supports all the rest and survives through death and birth. This central being has two forms—above, it is the Jivatman, our true being, of which we become aware when the higher self-knowledge comes,—below, it is the psychic being which stands behind mind, body and life. The Jivatman is above the manifestation in life and presides over it; the psychic being stands behind the manifestation in life and supports it.” (CWSA 28: 61)

2. “The central being—the Jivatman which is not born nor evolves, but presides over the individual birth and evolution—puts forward a representative of himself on each plane of the consciousness. On the mental plane it is the true mental being, manomaya puruṣa, on the vital plane the true vital being, praṇāmaya puruṣa, on the physical plane the true physical being, annamaya puruṣa. Each being therefore is, so long as the Ignorance lasts, centred round his mental, vital or physical Purusha, according to the plane on which he predominantly lives, and that is to him his central being. But the true representative all the time is concealed behind the mind, vital and physical—it is the psychic, our inmost being.” (CWSA 28: 59)

3. “The central being is that on which all the others depend. If it makes its surrender, that is, renounces its separate fulfilment in order to be an instrument of the Divine, then it is easier for the mental, vital and physical to surrender.” (CWSA 28: 61)

4. “It [the central being’s surrender to the Divine] has nothing to do with suitable circumstances. If the will of the central being turns towards union with the Divine, then it renounces its separate fulfilment.” (CWSA 28: 61)

5. “Once you have turned to the Divine, saying, ‘I want to be yours’, and the Divine has said, ‘Yes’, the whole world cannot keep you from it. When the central being has made its surrender, the chief difficulty has disappeared. The outer being is like a crust. In ordinary people the crust is so hard and thick that they are not conscious of the Divine within them.” (CWM 3: 7)

6. “If there is the will to surrender in the central being, then the psychic can come forward.” (CWSA 30: 361)

XXV—The Parts of the Being which Are Surrendered

1. The third level of the higher mind is surrendered

“What you see is perfectly correct. These three are three levels of the higher Mind—on the lowest the consciousness is in connection with the Divine not directly but through the touch of the Light, Peace, Power and Knowledge, on the second it is in the Light etc. and already sees the Divine, on the third it is in union with the Divine and surrendered. These are three well known conditions of the higher consciousness in its approach to the Divine.”

(CWSA 30: 406)

2. Awakened psychic brings surrender

“When the psychic awakes, it can bring a sudden and true surrender of the whole being, for the difficulty of the rest is rapidly dealt with and disappears.” (CWSA 29: 84)

3. The psychic being is always surrendered to the Mother

“The best way is to live in the psychic being, for that is always surrendered to the Mother and can lead the others in the right way.” (CWSA 32: 145)

XXVI—The Sunlit Path Can Be Followed by Those who Practice Surrender

1. “The sunlit path can be followed by those who are able to practice surrender, first a central surrender and afterwards a more complete self–giving in all the parts of the being.” (CWSA 31: 685)

2. “If one gets some habit of true surrender, then all this is not necessary; one can enter into the sunlit way. Or if one can get some touch of what is called pure bhakti, śuddhā bhakti, then whatever happens that is enough; the way becomes easy or, if it does not, still this is a sufficient start to support us to the end without the sufferings and falls that happen so often to the ignorant seeker.” (CWSA 31: 686)

3. “If the ego is gone and the full surrender is there, then there should be no obstacles [to following the sunlit path of sadhana]. If however the rajas of the vital is only quiescent, then its quiescence may bring up the tamas in its place, and that would be the obstacle.” (CWSA 31: 233)

4. “It is on that consciousness of complete surrender that the psychic foundation of sadhana can be made. If once it fixes itself, then, whatever difficulties remain to be overcome, the course of the sadhana becomes perfectly easy, sunlit, natural like the opening of a flower. The feeling you have is an indication of what can and must develop in you.” (CWSA 29: 73)

5. “The sunlit path can only be followed if the psychic is constantly or usually in front or if one has a natural spirit of faith and surrender or a face turned habitually towards the sun or psychic predisposition (e.g. a faith in one’s spiritual destiny) or if he has acquired the psychic turn. That does not mean that the sunlit man has no difficulties; he may have many, but he regards them cheerfully as ‘all in the day’s work’. If he gets bad beatings, he is capable of saying, ‘Well, that was a queer go, but the Divine is evidently in a queer mood and if that is his way of doing things, it must be the right one; I am surely a still queerer fellow myself and that, I suppose, was the only means of putting me right.’ But everybody can’t be of that turn, and surrender which would put everything right is, as you say, difficult to do completely. That is why we do not insist on total surrender at once, but are satisfied with a little to begin with, the rest to grow as it can.” (CWSA 31: 618)

XXVII—In Surrender You Say ‘Let thy Will be Done’

1. “If God assigns to me my place in Hell, I do not know why I should aspire to Heaven. He knows best what is for my welfare.” (Thoughts and Aphorisms)

...

The hell which Sri Aurobindo speaks of here is more a state of consciousness than a place, it is a psychological condition that one creates for oneself.

Just as you can carry within you a heaven of blissful communion with the Divine, you can, if you do not take care to master the asuric tendencies in your nature, also carry in your consciousness a hell of misery and desolation.

There are moments in life when everything around you, people and circumstances, is so obscure, so adverse, so ugly that all hope of a higher realisation seems to vanish. The world seems irremediably doomed to a night of cruel hatred, unconscious and obstinate ignorance and intractable bad will. Then one may say with Sri Aurobindo, ‘God has assigned to me a place in hell’; and, with him too, in all circumstances, however terrible they may seem, one should dwell in the peaceful joy of total surrender to the Divine and say to the Lord in all sincerity, ‘Let Thy will be done’.” (CWM 10: 64–65)

2. “Three typical modes of total self–giving to the Divine:

(1) To prostrate oneself at His feet, giving up all pride in perfect humility.

(2) To unfold one’s being before Him, open one’s whole body from head to foot, as one opens a book, exposing one’s centres so as to make all their movements visible in a complete sincerity that allows nothing to remain hidden.

(3) To nestle in His arms, to merge in Him in a loving and absolute trust.

These movements may be accompanied by three formulas or any one of them according to the case:

(1) Let Thy Will be done and not mine.

(2) As Thou willest, as Thou willest.

(3) I am Thine for eternity.

Generally, when these done in the true way, they are followed by a perfect identification, a dissolution of the ego, giving rise to a sublime felicity. (CWM 14: 102–103)

3. “In the psychic aspiration there are none of these reactions; there is no revolt, no justification of revolt: for the psychic aspires through inner union with the Divine and surrender. It does not question and challenge, but seeks to understand through unity with the Divine Will. It does not ask for small personal satisfactions, but finds its satisfaction in the growth of the Truth within the being; what it seeks and finds is not any indulgence of a vital and physical claim, but the true nearness which consists in the constant presence of the Divine in the heart and the rule of the Divine in all the nature. The cry of the psychic is always, ‘Let the Truth prevail, let Thy will be done and not mine.’ But the clamour of the vital is the very opposite: it calls to the Divine, ‘Let my will be Thine; obey my insistences, satisfy my desires, then only will I seek and accept Thee, for then only will I consent to see the Divine in Thee.’ It is hardly necessary to say which is the way to the Truth or which the right solution of any struggle in the nature.” (CWSA 31: 161)

4. “Instead of being upset and struggling, the best thing to do is to offer one’s body to the Divine with the sincere prayer, ‘Let Thy Will be done.’ If there is any possibility of cure, it will establish the best conditions for it; and if cure is impossible, it will be the very best preparation for getting out of the body and the life without it.

In any case the first indispensable condition is a quiet surrender to the Divine’s will.

With love and blessings.” (CWM 15: 149)

5. “It is quite wrong to go on brooding about the past. The true attitude is to remember that nothing happens but by God’s will and to submit to that will quietly. If you have made mistakes in the past it is by lack of true surrender and the only way to repair the mistakes is to surrender truly.” (CWM 14: 236)

XXVIII—Surrender Can Bring Following Results in Yoga

1. a. The first result is to be obedient without questioning

1. b. The second is to have the power of rejecting all influences except that of the Divine

1. a. “He [Sri Aurobindo] says that the determination to surrender brings certain results. The first result is simply to be obedient without questioning, and the second is to have the power of rejecting all influences except that of the Divine. These are great results. When one has attained these, one is already quite advanced.”

(CWM 6: 129)

1. b. “But as Sri Aurobindo says there, you understand, one must be in a state of perfect obedience which does not question, does not discuss and obeys spontaneously, acts rightly as one is guided. Nothing in the thought or the vital must revolt or contradict or question or try to justify, to prove to oneself (and sometimes even to the Divine) that one is right, that what one has done is the right thing.” (CWM 6: 132)

1. c. “To judge that a thing comes from the Divine because you find it good may lead you into terrible mistakes.

This is not how one should sense things. It is not by a perception of this kind of consciousness, not in this way. It comes when one has a sufficiently delicate and refined sensitivity to perceive clearly the value of a vibration; all vibrations that come from external activities, whether mental, vital or physical, or even psychic, have a particular quality, but what comes from the divine influence is of an absolutely different nature and quality. In order to be able to distinguish this, one must first of all have felt both; and even when one has felt both, one must be very calm, very attentive, indeed very still within, to be able to distinguish between them and not make a mistake. If your active thought comes in the way, it is finished, you cannot distinguish clearly any longer; you begin to question. And then you make use of your notions of good and evil to judge whether this comes from the Divine or doesn’t come from the Divine. That’s absurd. It is impossible.

Even when one has had this double experience and can make the distinction, there are still precautions to be taken and a check to be kept in order to be sure of not being mistaken. Only when one has opened wide the door of the psychic being, has entered consciously, and had the absolute, total, complete contact with the Divine, when one has the feeling of being born to a new life, when one is another being, does not see anything in the same way any longer, does not feel anything in the same way any more—then one knows intimately, profoundly, completely what the divine life is. And even afterwards, if the door closes again, one can keep a precise memory. And it is in this way that it is seen. It is impossible to make a mistake. It is something quite different, there is no comparison, none: one can compare nothing with this. It is unique and absolute. That is why I asked you, ‘Can you make the distinction?’ For surely if one among you has had the experience, he knows in this way what comes from the Divine, and necessarily if he knows absolutely what comes from the Divine, he knows perforce all that does not. So there I asked you the question. For I should have been very happy that one among you could tell me with sincerity, ‘I have had the experience and I know.’ But it is only after this experience that one knows, not before. That is why, if one sincerely wants to progress, one must at each step inquire, be sure from where the influence comes: ‘Who has given me this suggestion? Is it a part of myself? Is it something external? Does this come from the Divine’?”

(CWM 6: 130–132)

2. Instinctively one chooses the right thing and rejects the wrong

2. “Naturally, if one’s surrender is truly sincere and there is this constant attitude in the being, this total self–giving to the Divine, ‘Thy Will be done’, in this way, one can, without knowing, without understanding, instinctively, choose the thing that should be done and reject the one that should not, but this becomes an instinct, a sort of automatic thing, if your surrender is perfect. And that is the very advantage of surrender, for you can do the right thing in the right way automatically, before having the knowledge.”

(CWM 6: 132)

3. No risk of making a mistake and of taking false lights for true ones

3. a. “And the surest means to discernment [discrimination] is a conscious and willing surrender, as complete as possible, to the divine Will and Guidance. Then there is no risk of making a mistake and of taking false lights for true ones.” (CWM 8: 3)

3. b. “In a total surrender to the Divine there can be no longer errors or faults or any insufficiency since it is what the Divine has willed that he does and it is done as the Divine has willed it.” (CWM 14: 111)

3. c. “If you are truly surrendered to the Divine, in the right manner and totally, then at every moment you will be what you ought to be, you will do what you ought to do, you will know what you ought to know.

But for that you should have transcended all the limitations of the ego.” (CWM 14: 107)

4. The feeling that one does not exist outside the Divine

4. “There are others, for instance, like wanting to surrender completely to the Divine, to give oneself up totally to His Will and His Guidance, and at the same time, when the experience comes—a common experience on the path when one sincerely tries to give oneself up to the Divine—the feeling that one is nothing, that one can do nothing, that one doesn’t even exist outside the Divine; that is to say, if He were not there, one would not exist and could not do anything, one would not be anything at all.... This experience naturally comes as a help on the path of total self–giving, but there is a part of the being which, when the experience comes, rises up in a terrible revolt and says, ‘But, excuse me! I insist on existing, I insist on being something, I insist on doing things myself, I want to have a personality.’ And naturally, the second one undoes all that the first had done.”

(CWM 8: 284)

5. With more surrender we shall understand that the things the Divine sends are a manifestation of Divine’s all–compassionate Grace

5. “When man becomes a little wiser, he will not complain about anything and will take the things the Divine sends him as a manifestation of His all–compassionate Grace.

The more surrendered we are, the more we shall understand.

The more grateful we are, the happier we shall be.” (CWM 10: 342)

6. Surrender is the supreme liberation, gives a constant peace, an uninterrupted joy

6. a. “... when one is perfectly surrendered to the Divine one is perfectly free, and this is the absolute condition for freedom, to belong to the Divine alone; you are free from the whole world because you belong only to Him. And this surrender is the supreme liberation, you are also free from your little personal ego and of all things this is the most difficult—and the happiest too, the only thing that can give you a constant peace, an uninterrupted joy and the feeling of an infinite freedom from all that afflicts you, dwarfs, diminishes, impoverishes you, and from all that can create the least anxiety in you, the least fear.”

(CWM 7: 242)

6. b. “It is certain that for someone who has desires, when his desires are not satisfied, it is a sign that the Divine Grace is with him and wants, through experience, to make him progress rapidly, by teaching him that a willing and spontaneous surrender to the Divine Will is a much surer way to be happy in peace and light than the satisfaction of any desire.” (CWM 10: 261)

6. c. “In the integrality and absoluteness of bhakti and surrender, we find the essential condition of perfect peace leading to uninterrupted bliss.” (CWM 14: 108)

6. d. “As for peace one can gain it by an entire reliance on the Divine and surrender to the Divine Will.”

(CWSA 28: 520)

6. e. “The true repose [rest] is that of a perfect surrender to the Divine.” (CWM 14: 108)

6. f. “He is the sole Master of your being and your life. If in all sincerity you surrender entirely to Him He will take charge of you and your heart will be in peace.”

(CWM 14: 105)

7. Cultivate order and harmony by surrendering unreservedly to the Divine Will

7. “Actually, everything in the world is a question of equilibrium or disequilibrium, of harmony or disorder. Vibrations of harmony attract and encourage harmonious events; vibrations of disequilibrium create, as it were, a disequilibrium in circumstances (illnesses, accidents, etc.). This may be collective or individual, but the principle is the same—and so is the remedy: to cultivate in oneself order and harmony, peace and equilibrium by surrendering unreservedly to the Divine Will.”

(CWM 16: 322)

8. Those who have surrendered to the Divine are surrounded by the divine protection

8. a. “None can reach heaven who has not passed through hell.” (Savitri, Book II, Canto 8.)

But still, Mother, doesn’t the soul chosen by the

Divine go through hell in a different way than others?

The quotation means that in order to reach the divine regions one must, while on earth, pass through the vital, which in some of its parts is a veritable hell. But those who have surrendered to the Divine and been adopted by Him are surrounded by the divine protection and for them the passage is not difficult.” (CWM 16: 388–389)

8. b. [In total, complete and unconditional surrender] So, you feel above the surrounding human reactions—not only above them but protected from them by the wall of the Divine’s Grace.” (CWM 15: 398)

8. c. “Surrender to the Divine is the best emotional protection.” (CWM 14: 108)

8. d. “Physical protection is possible only with a total surrender to the Divine and the absence of all desires.” (CWM 15: 47)

9. Surrender will increase, strengthen and enhance your personality

9. a. “Surrender will not diminish, but increase; it will not lessen or weaken or destroy your personality, it will fortify [strengthen] and aggrandize [enhance] it.” (CWM 3: 114)

9. b. “In Conversations the Mother writes: ‘Surrender will not diminish, but increase; it will not lessen or weaken or destroy your personality, it will fortify and aggrandise it’. Is this meant in an external sense or in an internal sense only?

It means in the inner sense only—no outer greatness is meant. All submission is regarded by the ego as lowering and lessening itself, but really submission to the Divine increases and greatens the being, that is what is meant.” (CWSA 32: 621)

10. True surrender enlarges you; it increases your capacity

10. a. “True surrender enlarges you; it increases your capacity; it gives you a greater measure in quality and in quantity which you could not have had by yourself. This new greater measure of quality and quantity is different from anything you could attain before: you enter into another world, into a wideness which you could not have entered if you did not surrender. It is as when a drop of water falls into the sea; if it still kept there its separate identity, it would remain a little drop of water and nothing more, a little drop crushed by all the immensity around, because it has not surrendered. But, surrendering, it unites with the sea and participates in the nature and power and vastness of the whole sea.” (CWM 3: 115)

10. b. “Certainly, we all carry in our souls the divine end of the eternal journey, and our personal incapacity is the only thing that prevents us from being immediately aware of it.

Total and unconditional surrender to the Supreme Lord (Brahman) is the sole and wonderful way to cure this incapacity.” (CWM 10: 302)

11. In surrendering one’s mind, one loses its limitations and deformation, receives vastness and luminous clearness

11. “If a small human mind stands in front of the Divine Universal Mind and clings to its separateness, it will remain what it is, a small bounded thing, incapable of knowing the nature of the higher reality or even of coming in contact with it. The two continue to stand apart and are, qualitatively as well as quantitatively, quite different from each other. But if the little human mind surrenders, it will be merged in the Divine Universal Mind; it will be one in quality and quantity with it; losing nothing but its own limitations and deformations, it will receive from it its vastness and luminous clearness. The small existence will change its nature; it will put on the nature of the greater truth to which it surrenders. But if it resists and fights, if it revolts against the Universal Mind, then a conflict and pressure are inevitable in which what is weak and small cannot fail to be drawn into that power and immensity. If it does not surrender, its only other possible fate is absorption and extinction. A human being, who comes into contact with the Divine Mind and surrenders, will find that his own mind begins at once to be purified of its obscurities and to share in the power and the knowledge of the Divine Universal Mind. If he stands in front, but separated, without any contact, he will remain what he is, a little drop of water in the measureless vastness. If he revolts, he will lose his mind; its powers will diminish and disappear. And what is true of the mind is true of all the other parts of the nature. It is as when you fight against one who is too strong for you—a broken head is all you gain. How can you fight something that is a million times stronger? Each time you revolt, you get a knock, and each blow takes away a portion of your strength, as when one who engages in a pugilistic [boxing] encounter with a far superior rival receives blow after blow and each blow makes him weaker and weaker till he is knocked out. There is no necessity of a willed intervention, the action is automatic. Nothing else can happen if you dash yourself in revolt against the Immensity. As long as you remain in your corner and follow the course of the ordinary life, you are not touched or hurt; but once you come in contact with the Divine, there are only two ways open to you. You surrender and merge in it, and your surrender enlarges and glorifies you; or you revolt and all your possibilities are destroyed and your powers ebb away and are drawn from you into That which you oppose.” (CWM 3: 115–116)

12. If one surrenders, that would be the swiftest and the most radical way to get rid of the ego

12. a. “The Buddha said or has been made to say that when one is free from all desire, one necessarily enters into infinite bliss. This bliss may be a little dry and anyway it does not seem to me to be the quickest way.

If at the outset one were to seize the problem bodily, jump into it with courage and determination and, instead of undertaking a long, arduous, painful, disappointing hunt after desires, one gives oneself simply, totally, unconditionally, if one surrenders to the Supreme Reality, to the Supreme Will, to the Supreme Being, putting oneself entirely in His hands, in an upsurge of the whole being and all the elements of the being, without calculating, that would be the swiftest and the most radical way to get rid of the ego. People will say that it is difficult to do it, but at least a warmth is there, an ardour, an enthusiasm, a light, a beauty, an ardent and creative life.

It is true that without desire nothing much remains to sustain the ego ….” (CWM 3: 268)

13. Surrender makes us increasingly receptive to Divine influence

13. “For those who want always to progress, there are three major ways of progressing:

(1) To widen the field of one’s consciousness.

(2) To understand ever better and more completely what one knows.

(3) To find the Divine and surrender more and more to his Will.

In other words, this means:

(1) To constantly enrich the possibilities of the instrument.

(2) To ceaselessly perfect the functioning of this instrument.

(3) To make this instrument increasingly receptive and obedient to the Divine.

To learn to understand and do more and more things. To purify oneself of all that prevents one from being totally surrendered to the Divine. To make one’s consciousness more and more receptive to the Divine Influence.

One could say: to widen oneself more and more, to deepen oneself more and more, to surrender oneself more and more completely.” (CWM 16: 435–436)

14. Surrender makes the path short and sure of reaching

14. a. “What is surrender?

It means that one gives oneself entirely to the Divine.

Yes, and then what happens? If you give yourself entirely to the Divine, it is He who does the Yoga, it is no longer you; hence this is not very difficult; while if you do tapasya, it is you yourself who do the yoga and you carry its whole responsibility—it is there the danger lies. But there are people who prefer to have the whole responsibility, with its dangers, because they have a very independent spirit. They are not perhaps in a great hurry—if they need several lives to succeed, it does not matter to them. But there are others who want to go quicker and be more sure of reaching the goal; well, these give over the whole responsibility to the Divine.” (CWM 4: 72)

14. b. “And there comes a time when one feels a kind of inner guidance, something which is leading one very perceptibly in all that one does. But then, for the guidance to have its maximum power, one must naturally add to it a conscious surrender: one must be sincerely determined to follow the indication given by the higher force. If one does that, then... one saves years of study, one can seize the result extremely rapidly. If one also does that, the result comes very rapidly. But for that, it must be done with sincerity and... a kind of inner spontaneity. If one wants to try without this surrender, one may succeed—as one can also succeed in developing one’s personal will and making it into a very considerable power—but that takes a very long time and one meets many obstacles and the result is very precarious; one must be very persistent, obstinate, persevering, and one is sure to succeed, but only after a great labour.

Make your surrender with a sincere, complete self–giving, and you will go ahead at full speed, you will go much faster—but you must not do this calculatingly, for that spoils everything!” (CWM 9: 359–360)

15. Only when the surrender is complete that the full flood of the sadhana is possible

15. a. “Surrender is the main power of the yoga, but the surrender is bound to be progressive; a complete surrender is not possible in the beginning, but only a will in the being for that completeness,—in fact it takes time; yet it is only when the surrender is complete that the full flood of the sadhana is possible. Till then there must be the personal effort with an increasing reality of surrender. One calls in the power of the Divine Shakti and once that begins to come into the being, it at first supports the personal endeavour, then progressively takes up the whole action, although the consent of the sadhak continues to be always necessary.” (CWSA 29: 207–208)

16. The more you give yourself to the Divine the more He is with you, totally, constantly

16. “Sweet Mother, what is meant by ‘the Divine gives Himself’?

It means exactly this: that the more you give yourself the more you have the experience—it is not just a feeling or impression or sensation, it is a total experience—that the more you give yourself to the Divine the more He is with you, totally, constantly, at every minute, in all your thoughts, all your needs, and that there’s no aspiration which does not receive an immediate answer; and you have the sense of a complete, constant intimacy, of a total nearness. It is as though you carried... as though the Divine were all the time with you; you walk and He walks with you, you sleep and He sleeps with you, you eat and He eats with you, you think and He thinks with you, you love and He is the love you have. But for this one must give himself entirely, totally, exclusively, reserve nothing, keep nothing for himself and not keep back anything, not disperse anything also: the least little thing in your being which is not given to the Divine is a waste; it is the wasting of your joy, something that lessens your happiness by that much, and all that you don’t give to the Divine is as though you were holding it in the way of the possibility of the Divine’s giving Himself to you. You don’t feel Him close to yourself, constantly with you, because you don’t belong to Him, because you belong to hundreds of other things and people; in your thought, your action, your feelings, impulses... there are millions of things which you do not give Him, and that is why you don’t feel Him always with you, because all these things are so many screens and walls between Him and you. But if you give Him everything, if you keep back nothing, He will be constantly and totally with you in all that you do, in all that you think, all that you feel, always, at each moment. But for this you must give yourself absolutely, keep back nothing; each little thing that you hold back is a stone you put down to build up a wall between the Divine and yourself." (CWM 7: 243)

17. In surrender there is an assurance, an absence of tension

17. “Tapasya has predominated in your sadhana, for you have a fervour and active energy which predisposes you to that. No way is entirely easy, and in that of surrender the difficulty is to make a true and complete surrender. Once it is made, it certainly makes things easier—not that things are all done in no time or that there are no difficulties, but there is an assurance, a support, an absence of tension which gives the consciousness rest as well as strength and freedom from the worst forms of resistance.” (CWSA 29: 81–82)

18. In surrender we hand over our worries and leave the care of guiding our life and organising everything

18. “Truly speaking there is no condition more miserable than being responsible for an existence to which one doesn’t have the key, that is, of which one doesn’t have the threads that can guide and solve the problems. ... With man is born the sense of having to depend on himself, and as he does not have the necessary knowledge the result is a perpetual torment. This torment can come to an end only with a total surrender to a higher consciousness than his own to which he can totally entrust himself, hand over his worries and leave the care of guiding his life and organising everything.

How can a problem be solved when one doesn’t have the necessary knowledge? And the unfortunate thing is that man believes that he has to resolve all the problems of his life, and he does not have the knowledge needed to do it. That is the source, the origin of all his troubles—that perpetual question, ‘What should I do?...’ which is followed by another one still more acute, ‘What is going to happen?’ and at the same time, more or less, the inability to answer.

That is why all spiritual disciplines begin with the necessity of surrendering all responsibility and relying on a higher principle. Otherwise peace is impossible."

(CWM 9: 304–305)

19. Become truly free as all that binds you falls away in surrender

19. a. “… so long as the divine consciousness in me or in one whom I have chosen as my Guru does not tell me ‘This is to be done’, ‘This is not to be done’, I am indifferent to what others may tell me. For I think that the divine presence in the one in whom I have put my trust is capable of knowing what is good and what is bad, what is to be done and what is not to be done.

And that is the best way of being free. Let your surrender to the Divine be entire and you will become completely free.

The only way of being truly free is to make your surrender to the Divine entire, without reservation, because then all that binds you, ties you down, chains you, falls away naturally from you and has no longer any importance. If someone comes and blames you, you may say, ‘On what authority does he blame me, does he know the supreme will?’ And the same thing when you are congratulated. This is not to advise you not to profit by what comes to you from others—I have learnt throughout my life that even a little child can give you a lesson. Not that he is less ignorant than you but he is like a mirror which reflects the image of what you are; he may tell you something which is not true but also may show you something that you did not know. You can hence profit a great deal by it if you receive the lesson without any undesirable reaction.” (CWM 4: 91)

19. b. “... I consider that there is only one truth in the world which can know something, and this is the Supreme Truth. Then one is quite free. And it is this freedom that I want of you—free from all attachment, all ignorance, all reaction; free from everything except a total surrender to the Divine. This is the way out from all responsibility towards the world. The Divine alone is responsible.”

(CWM 4: 91)

20. The Divine can purify the heart and nature, awaken the inner consciousness, remove the veils, if one gives oneself to the Divine with trust and confidence

20. “All can be done by the Divine, the heart and nature purified, the inner consciousness awakened, the veils removed, if one gives oneself to the Divine with trust and confidence—and even if one cannot do so fully at once, yet the more one does so, the more the inner help and guidance comes and the contact and the experience of the Divine grows within. If the questioning mind becomes less active and humility and the will to surrender grow in you, this ought to be perfectly possible. No other strength and tapasya are then needed, but this alone.”

(CWSA 29: 69)

21. If man surrenders totally to the Divine he identifies himself with the Divine

21. a. “ ‘If’ says the divine Teacher ‘even a man of very evil conduct turns to me with a sole and entire love, he must be regarded as a saint, for the settled will of endeavour in him is a right and complete will. Swiftly he becomes a soul of righteousness and obtains eternal peace.’ In other words a will of entire self–giving opens wide all the gates of the spirit and brings in response an entire descent and self–giving of the Godhead to the human being, and that at once reshapes and assimilates everything in us to the law of the divine existence by a rapid transformation of the lower into the spiritual nature. The will of self–giving forces away by its power the veil between God and man; it annuls every error and annihilates every obstacle.” (CWSA 19: 334–335)

21. b. “If man surrenders totally to the Divine, he identifies himself with the Divine.

*

Perfect surrender: the indispensable condition for identification.” (CWM 14: 108)

21. c. “The principle [of Integral Yoga] in view is a self–surrender, a giving up of the human being into the being, consciousness, power, delight of the Divine, a union or communion at all the points of meeting in the soul of man, the mental being, by which the Divine himself, directly and without veil master and possessor of the instrument, shall by the light of his presence and guidance perfect the human being in all the forces of the Nature for a divine living.” (CWSA 24: 613)

21. d. “It is because of the spiritual Person, the Divinity in the individual, that perfection or liberation—salvation, as it is called in the West—has to be individual and not collective; for whatever perfection of the collectivity is to be sought after, can come only by the perfection of the individuals who constitute it. It is because the individual is That [Divine] that to find himself is his great necessity. In his complete surrender and self–giving to the Supreme it is he who finds his perfect self–finding in a perfect self–offering.” (CWSA 22: 723)

22. The strongest and central way is self–offering and surrender to the Divine Being

22. “For this penetration into the luminous crypt of the soul one has to get through all the intervening vital stuff to the psychic centre within us, however long, tedious or difficult may be the process. The method of detachment from the insistence of all mental and vital and physical claims and calls and impulsions, a concentration in the heart, austerity, self–purification and rejection of the old mind movements and life movements, rejection of the ego of desire, rejection of false needs and false habits, are all useful aids to this difficult passage: but the strongest, most central way is to found all such or other methods on a self–offering and surrender of ourselves and of our parts of nature to the Divine Being, the Ishwara.” (CWSA 22: 940)

23. Through self–giving or surrender we can attain to our highest self and supreme Reality

23. “It is true that there is something in us, not in the ego but in the self and inmost being, that surpasses cosmic Nature and belongs to the Transcendence. But this too finds itself independent of Nature only by dependence on a higher Reality; it is through self–giving or surrender of soul and nature to the Divine Being that we can attain to our highest self and supreme Reality, for it is the Divine Being who is that highest self and that supreme Reality, and we are self–existent and eternal only in his eternity and by his self–existence.” (CWSA 21: 373)

24. Through aspiration and true surrender one can enter the higher region and from up there the supreme determinism will come down to transform  the lower determinism

24. a. “There are many fields of consciousness, zones of consciousness superimposed upon one another; and in each one of these fields of consciousness or action there is a determinism which seems absolute. But the intervention in one field of even the next higher field, like the intervention of the vital in the physical, introduces the determinism of the vital in that of the physical, and necessarily transforms the determinism of the physical. And if through aspiration, the inner will, self–giving and true surrender one can enter into contact with the higher regions or even the supreme region, from up there the supreme determinism will come down and transform all the intermediate determinisms and it will be able to bring about in a so–to–say almost inexistent span of time what would have otherwise taken either years or lives to be accomplished. But this is the only way.” (CWM 7: 361)

24. b. “If at the time of some event or circumstance— take for instance, to simplify things, of a danger—if at that time instead of trying to struggle in the domain where one is, one can traverse in a great soaring all the domains which are rungs in the consciousness, and go to the supreme region, what Sri Aurobindo calls the Transcendent, if one can enter into contact with this Transcendent, in a state of perfect surrender, it is He who will act and change everything, in all circumstances — to the extent that this will be what people call miracles, because they do not understand how it can happen.

The sole secret is to know how to climb up right to the top.” (CWM 7: 362)

25. If there is no surrender then there is no transformation of the whole being

25. a. “If there is no surrender, there can be no transformation of the whole being.” (CWSA 29: 79)

25. b. “Even when centrally fitted, prepared, open already, it will still be long before all our movements of mind, life and body, all the multiple and conflicting members and elements of our personality consent or, consenting, are able to bear the difficult and exacting process of the transformation. And hardest of all, even if all in us is willing, is the struggle we shall have to carry through against the universal forces attached to the present unstable creation when we seek to make the final supramental conversion and reversal of consciousness by which the Divine Truth must be established in us in its plenitude and not merely what they would more readily permit, an illumined Ignorance.

It is for this that a surrender and submission to That which is beyond us enabling the full and free working of its Power is indispensable.” (CWSA 23: 132–133)

25. c. “If you desire this transformation, put yourself in the hands of the Mother and her Powers without cavil or resistance and let her do unhindered her work within you. Three things you must have, consciousness, plasticity, unreserved surrender. For you must be conscious in your mind and soul and heart and life and the very cells of your body, aware of the Mother and her Powers and their working; … All your nature must be plastic to her touch, … The unreserved surrender of your inner and outer being will bring this plasticity into all the parts of your nature; consciousness will awaken everywhere in you by constant openness to the Wisdom and Light, the Force, the Harmony and Beauty, the Perfection that come flowing down from above. Even the body will awake and unite at last its consciousness subliminal no longer to the supramental superconscious Force, feel all her powers permeating from above and below and around it and thrill to a supreme Love and Ananda.” (CWSA 32: 24–25)

25. d. “What we want is the transformation of the physical consciousness, not its rejection.

And so, in this case, what Sri Aurobindo has recommended as the most direct and most total way is surrender to the Divine—a surrender made more and more integral, progressively, comprising the physical consciousness and physical activities. And if one succeeds in this, then the physical, instead of being an obstacle, becomes a help.” (CWM 8: 300)

25. e. “Silence all outside noise, aspire for the Divine’s help; open integrally to it when it comes and surrender to its action, and it will effectively bring about your transformation.” (CWM 15: 87)

25. f. “A total surrender, an exclusive self-opening to the divine influence, a constant and integral choice of the Truth and rejection of the falsehood, these are the only conditions made [for transformation in the Integral Yoga]. But these must be fulfilled entirely, without reserve, without any evasion or pretence, simply and sincerely down to the most physical consciousness and its workings[.]” (CWSA 12: 373)

25. g. “Doesn’t transformation demand a very high degree of aspiration, surrender and receptivity?

Transformation demands a total and integral consecration. But isn’t this the aspiration of all sincere sadhaks?

Total means vertically in all the states of being, from the most material to the most subtle.

Integral means horizontally in all the different and often contradictory parts which constitute the outer being, physical, vital and mental.” (CWM 15: 88)

26. When one has surrendered completely then lower nature stops being active

26. “Generally, the lower nature is always active. It is only when one has surrendered completely that it stops being active. When one is no longer in his lower consciousness, when one has made a total surrender, then the lower nature is no longer active. But so long as it is active, personal effort is necessary.

In fact, so long as one is conscious of one’s own self as a separate person, personal effort has to be made. It is only when the sense of separation is lost, when one is not only completely surrendered, but completely fused in the Divine that there is no longer any need of personal effort. But so long as one feels that one is a separate being, one must make a personal effort. This is what he calls the activity of the lower consciousness.” (CWM 6: 220–221)

27. Through surrender tamas can be changed

27. “I can assure you that to go inward and to receive the force is more helpful than to throw oneself into an agitated action. Certainly ‘tamas’ is not good, but it is only through surrender to the Divine Consciousness that tamas can be changed.” (CWM 17: 283)

28. You become the supreme master of your destiny because it is the Divine who wills in you

28. “[when one is perfectly surrendered to the Divine] You are no longer afraid of anything, you no longer fear anything, you are the supreme master of your destiny because it is the Divine who wills in you and guides everything. But this does not happen overnight: a little time and a great deal of ardour in the will, not fearing to make any effort and not losing heart when one doesn’t succeed, knowing that the victory is certain and that one must last out until it comes.” (CWM 7: 242)

29. Knowledge, Bhakti, Karma inevitably comes as the result of self–surrender

29. “These things can only be put under our feet by complete knowledge, the knowledge that sees God in all things and thus comes to understand the relations of things to each other in his great cosmic purpose, by complete Bhakti which accepts all things with joy,—thus abolishing the dvandvas,—because they come from the Beloved or by perfect action offering up all works as a sacrifice to God with an entire indifference to these dualities of success, failure, honour, disgrace, etc., which usually pursue all Karma. Such knowledge, such Bhakti, such Karma come inevitably as the eventual result of the sankalpa of self–surrender and the practice of it.”

(CWSA 13: 83)

30. If we turn our whole life into a conscious sacrifice then highest devotion is possible, then complete and Integral Knowledge comes and it eliminates egoism

30. a. “This, in short, is the demand made on us, that we should turn our whole life into a conscious sacrifice.

… It is clear that a conception of this kind and its effective practice must carry in them three results that are of a central importance for our spiritual ideal. It is evident, to begin with, that, even if such a discipline is begun without devotion, it leads straight and inevitably towards the highest devotion possible; for it must deepen naturally into the completest adoration imaginable, the most profound God–love. … Now these implications of the Yoga of works are also of the very essence of an integral and absolute Bhakti. … The way of works turns by this road of sacrifice to meet the path of Devotion; it can be itself a devotion as complete, as absorbing, as integral as any the desire of the heart can ask for or the passion of the mind can imagine.” (CWSA 23: 111–112)

30. b. “Next, the practice of this Yoga demands a constant inward remembrance of the one central liberating knowledge, and a constant active externalising of it in works comes in too to intensify the remembrance. In all is the one Self, the one Divine is all; all are in the Divine, all are the Divine and there is nothing else in the universe,—this thought or this faith is the whole background until it becomes the whole substance of the consciousness of the worker. A memory, a self–dynamising meditation of this kind, must and does in its end turn into a profound and uninterrupted vision. … In its close, if not long before it, this way of works turns by communion with the Divine Presence, Will and Force into a way of Knowledge more complete and integral than any the mere creature intelligence can construct or the search of the intellect can discover.” (CWSA 23: 112–113)

30. c. “Lastly, the practice of this Yoga of sacrifice compels us to renounce all the inner supports of egoism, casting them out of our mind and will and actions, and to eliminate its seed, its presence, its influence out of our nature. All must be done for the Divine; all must be directed towards the Divine. Nothing must be attempted for ourselves as a separate existence; nothing done for others, whether neighbours, friends, family, country or mankind or other creatures merely because they are connected with our personal life and thought and sentiment or because the ego takes a preferential interest in their welfare. In this way of doing and seeing all works and all life become only a daily dynamic worship and service of the Divine in the unbounded temple of his own vast cosmic existence.” (CWSA 23: 113)

30. d. “It has all the power of a way of works integral and absolute, but because of its law of sacrifice and self–giving to the Divine Self and Master, it is accompanied on its one side by the whole power of the path of Love and on the other by the whole power of the path of Knowledge. At its end all these three divine Powers work together, fused, united, completed, perfected by each other.” (CWSA 23: 114)

31. Surrender is the easiest, most powerful and rapturous way of getting the Divine

31. “Quite possible and practical and a very rapturous thing [is absolute surrender to the Divine] as anyone who has done it can tell you. It is also the easiest and most powerful way of ‘getting the Divine’. So it is the best policy also.” (CWSA 29: 21)

32. Surrender to Divine Shakti’s control brings the guiding law of spiritual experience

32. “In the meanwhile our only safety is to find a guiding law of spiritual experience—or else to liberate a light within that can lead us on the way until that greater direct Truth-consciousness is reached above us or born within us. For all else in us that is only outward, all that is not a spiritual sense or seeing, the constructions, representations or conclusions of the intellect, the suggestions or instigations of the life-force, the positive necessities of physical things are sometimes half-lights, sometimes false lights that can at best only serve for a while or serve a little and for the rest either detain or confuse us. The guiding law of spiritual experience can only come by an opening of human consciousness to the Divine Consciousness; there must be the power to receive in us the working and command and dynamic presence of the Divine Shakti and surrender ourselves to her control; it is that surrender and that control which bring the guidance.” (CWSA 23: 137–138)

33. Money-force can be conquered back for the Divine Mother by those who are surrendered without any claim, pure and powerful channels for the Supreme Puissance

33. a. “In the supramental creation the money-force has to be restored to the Divine Power and used for a true and beautiful and harmonious equipment and ordering of a new divinised vital and physical existence in whatever way the Divine Mother herself decides in her creative vision. But first it must be conquered back for her and those will be strongest for the conquest who are in this part of their nature strong and large and free from ego and surrendered without any claim or withholding or hesitation, pure and powerful channels for the Supreme Puissance.” (CWSA 32: 11)

33. b. “This Yoga does not mean a rejection of the powers of Life, but an inner transformation and a change of the spirit in the life and the use of the powers. These powers are now used in an egoistic spirit and for undivine ends; they have to be used in a spirit of surrender to the Divine and for the purposes of the divine Work. That is what is meant by conquering them back for the Mother. If anyone feels himself too weak to resist the clutch of the egoistic money–force he need not make the endeavour.” (CWSA 29: 384)

33. c. “How can one know if one’s way of using money is in accordance with the divine Will?

One must first know what the divine Will is. But there is a surer way—to surrender money for the divine work, if one is not sure oneself. “Divinely” means at the service of the Divine—it means not to use money for one’s own satisfaction but to place it at the Divine’s service.”

(CWM 4: 374)

34. By surrendering falsehood to the Divine one can find true happiness

34. “The lords of Falsehood hold, at present, almost complete sway over poor humanity. Not only the lower life-energy, the lower vital being, but also the whole mind of man accepts them. Countless are the ways in which they are worshipped, for they are most subtle in their cunning and seek their ends in variously seductive disguises. The result is that men cling to their falsehood as if it were a treasure, cherishing it more than even the most beautiful things of life. Apprehensive of its safety, they take care to bury it deep down in themselves; but unless they take it out and surrender it to the Divine they will never find true happiness.

Indeed the very act of bringing it out and showing it to the Light would be in itself a momentous conversion and pave the way to the final victory. For the laying bare of each falsehood is in itself a victory—each acknowledgment of error is the demolition of one of the lords of Darkness.” (CWM 3: 141)

35. If there is vital consent to surrender there is no suffering

35. a. “There is no reason why suffering should be indispensable for making progress. You bring the suffering on yourself by the wrong ideas of the mind and by the revolts of the vital. The Mother’s grace and love are there, but the mind refuses to recognise it. If there is confidence, if the mind and vital consent to surrender and have full faith and reliance, then there may be difficulties but there is no suffering.” (CWSA 31: 671)

35. b. “The Divine does not want human beings to suffer, but, in their ignorance, human beings react in such a way that they bring suffering upon themselves. In peace, quietness and surrender is the only solution.”

(CWM 14: 96)

36. Search to find divine Love with a purity of aspiration and surrender

36. “Note, I don’t know how many millions of times one feels within a little stirring up of human instinct and imagines that if one had at one’s disposal divine Love, great things could be accomplished, and one says, ‘I am going to try and find divine Love and we shall see the result.’ This is the worst possible way. Because, before having even touched the very beginning of realisation you have spoilt the result. You must take up your search with a purity of aspiration and surrender which in themselves are already difficult to acquire. You must have worked much on yourself only to be ready to aspire to this Love.” (CWM 4: 244)

37. The individual cannot be perfect until he has surrendered all

37. a. “The individual cannot be perfect until he has surrendered all he now calls himself to the divine Being. So also, until mankind gives all it has to God, never shall there be a perfected society.” (CWSA 12: 466)

37. b. “Perfection comes by renunciation of desires and surrender to a higher Will.” (CWSA 35: 675)

38. Samata is dependent on the soul’s self–giving to the Divine by an inner surrender

38. a. “Complete samata takes long to establish and it is dependent on three things—the soul’s self–giving to the Divine by an inner surrender, the descent of the spiritual calm and peace from above and the steady, long and persistent rejection of all egoistic, rajasic and other feelings that contradict samata.” (CWSA 29: 131)

38. b. “Equality of soul created by the surrender to the universal Wisdom gives us a supreme peace and calm. And since that Wisdom guides all our steps in the straight paths of the Truth we are carried by it beyond all stumblings (duritāni).” (CWSA 15: 282)

38. c. “The third way [of arriving at passive equality] is that of submission, which may be the Christian resignation founded on submission to the will of God, or an unegoistic acceptance of things and happenings as a manifestation of the universal Will in time, or a complete surrender of the person to the Divine, to the supreme Purusha. ... so this is a way of the temperament and heart and very intimately connected with the principle of Bhakti. If it is pushed to the end, it arrives at the same result of a perfect equality. For the knot of the ego is loosened and the personal claim begins to disappear, we find that we are no longer bound to joy in things pleasant or sorrow over the unpleasant; we bear them without either eager acceptance or troubled rejection, refer them to the Master of our being, concern ourselves less and less with their personal result to us and hold only one thing of importance, to approach God, or to be in touch and tune with the universal and infinite Existence, or to be united with the Divine, his channel, instrument, servant, lover, rejoicing in him and in our relation with him and having no other object or cause of joy or sorrow. Here too there may be for some time a division between the lower mind of habitual emotions and the higher psychical mind of love and self-giving, but eventually the former yields, changes, transforms itself, is swallowed up in the love, joy, delight of the Divine and has no other interests or attractions. Then all within is the equal peace and bliss of that union, the one silent bliss that passes understanding, the peace that abides untouched by the solicitation of lower things in the depths of our spiritual existence.” (CWSA 24: 713–714)

38. d. “If on the other hand it is the will and intelligence itself that is at fault, [to arrive at equality] then the trouble is more difficult to command, because then his chief aid and instrument becomes an accomplice of the revolt against the divine Will and the old sins of the lower members take advantage of this sanction to raise their diminished heads. Therefore there must be a constant insistence on one main idea, the self-surrender to the Master of our being, God within us and in the world, the supreme Self, the universal Spirit.” (CWSA 24: 723)

38. e. “An inner renunciation of personal desire leads to equality, accomplishes our total surrender to the Divine, supports a delivery from dividing ego which brings us oneness.” (CWSA 23: 95)

39. One method to conquer the fear of death is to make absolute surrender to the God

39. “The third method [to conquering the fear of death] is for those who have faith in a God, their God, and who have given themselves to him. They belong to him integrally; all the events of their lives are an expression of the divine will and they accept them not merely with calm submission but with gratitude, for they are convinced that whatever happens to them is always for their own good. They have a mystic trust in their God and in their personal relationship with him. They have made an absolute surrender of their will to his and feel his unvarying love and protection, wholly independent of the accidents of life and death. They have the constant experience of lying at the feet of their Beloved in an absolute self-surrender or of being cradled in his arms and enjoying a perfect security. There is no longer any room in their consciousness for fear, anxiety or torment; all that has been replaced by a calm and delightful bliss.” (CWM 12: 84)

40. a. The emergence of the Purusha can dictate higher play to replace the lower movement

40. b. The lower struggles to remain as it is and push away the higher movement

40. c. The offering to the Divine shortens the whole thing and is more effective

“The emergence of the Purusha is the beginning of liberation. But it can also become slowly the Master—slowly because the whole habit of the ego and the play of the lower forces (which also you describe correctly here) is against that. Still it can dictate what higher play is to replace the lower movement and then there is the process of that replacement, the higher coming, the lower struggling to remain and push away the higher movement. You say rightly that the offering to the Divine shortens the whole thing and is more effective, but usually it cannot be done completely at once owing to the past habit and the two methods continue together until the complete surrender is possible.”  (CWSA 30: 244)

41. Give ourselves totally so that He may divinise our nature

41. a. “To do something for the Lord is to give Him something of what one has, or of what one does, or of what one is. That is to say, to offer to Him one part of our goods or all of our possessions, to consecrate to Him one part of our work or all our activities, or to give ourselves to Him totally and without reserve so that He may take possession of our nature in order to transform and divinise it." (CWM 13: 29)

41. b. “The way proposed for the integral Yoga [a spiritual liberation from the ego] is a lifting up and surrender of the whole being to him, by which not only do we become one with him in our spiritual existence, but dwell too in him and he in us, so that the whole nature is full of his presence and changed into the divine nature; we become one spirit and consciousness and life and substance with the Divine and at the same time we live and move in and have a various joy of that oneness.” (CWSA 24: 678)

41. d. “To divinise the perfected nature we have to call in the divine Power or Shakti to replace our limited human energy so that this may be shaped into the image of and filled with the force of a greater infinite energy, daivī

prakṛti, bhagavatī śakti. This perfection will grow in the measure in which we can surrender ourselves, first, to the guidance and then to the direct action of that Power and of the Master of our being and our works to whom it belongs, and for this purpose faith is the essential, faith is the great motor-power of our being in our aspirations to perfection,—here, a faith in God and the Shakti which shall begin in the heart and understanding, but shall take possession of all our nature, all its consciousness, all its dynamic motive-force.” (CWSA 24: 693)

42.  a. As one gives so one receives

42. b. God is All, he who would gain all, if he gives all

42. a. “For the natural principle of this surrender is precise:—

As one gives so one receives. God is All & he who would gain all, must give all. The final sacrifice admits of no reservation and even a slight defect of renunciation, however seemingly lofty the scruple, vitiates the purity and effectiveness of the sacrifice.

But since the renunciation asked of us is not the objective renunciation,—although that too is not excluded so far as it is necessary for the real surrender,—since it is not an outward process of flight from the objects of pleasure, it can only be, in essence, an inner sacrifice to the Master of the world, to Ish, the Lord.”

(CWSA 17: 453)

42. b. “Let him also fix this in the mind not to insist that in a given time he must progress, develop, get realisations and experiences—whatever time it takes, he must be prepared to wait and persevere and make his whole life an aspiration and an opening for the one thing only, the Divine. To give oneself is the secret of sadhana, not to demand and acquire a thing. The more one gives oneself, the more the power to receive will grow. But for that all impatience and revolt must go; all suggestions of not getting, not being helped, not being loved, of going away, of abandoning life or the spiritual endeavour must be rejected.”

(CWSA 32: 481–482)

43. Those who have surrendered their actions to God, goes beyond the highest Shastra

43. “At its best it [Shastra] is a great means towards the preparation of liberation. It is śabda-brahma. But we must not be satisfied with mere preparation, we must, as soon as our eyes are opened, hasten on to actual freedom. The liberated soul and the sadhak of liberation who has surrendered even his actions to God, gets beyond the highest Shastra, śabdabrahmātivartate.” (CWSA 13: 80)

44. Difficulties are spared to those who are surrendered when supramental descends

44.  “Is it true that the nearer the supramental descent, the greater the difficulties of those in whom it is to come down?

A: It is true, unless they are so surrendered to the Mother, so psychic, plastic, free from ego that the difficulties are spared to them.” (CWSA 35: 353)

(CWSA 32: 295)

45. The true spiritual calm can only come by surrender to the higher being above the mind

45. “It appears from it that he has made the right start to a certain extent and has been able to establish the beginning of mental calm and some kind of psychic opening but neither of these has yet been able to go very far. The reason probably is that he has done everything by a strong mental control and forcible stilling of the mind and emotional and vital movements, but has not yet established the true spiritual calm which can only come by experience of or surrender to the higher being above the mind. It is this that he has to get in order to make a foundation for a more substantial progress.” (CWSA 36: 364)

46.  One becomes fit for yoga by surrender

46. “As for fitness and unfitness, nobody is entirely fit for this Yoga; one has to become fit by aspiration, by abhyāsa, by sincerity and surrender.” (CWSA 31: 108)

47. The contact with the Truth can grow through psychic purity and surrender

47. “With the Truth all the necessary powers will come, not as one’s own, but as the Divine’s. The contact with the Truth cannot grow through rajasic mental and vital self-assertion, but only through psychic purity and surrender.” (CWSA 28: 574)

48. If we can surrender to the inner being it will enable us to commune with the living and progressive forces of the universe

48. “As soon as we have abolished within us, even for a moment, all egoistic desires, all personal and selfish aims, we can surrender to this inner spontaneity, this deep inspiration which will enable us to commune with the living and progressive forces of the universe.”

(CWM 2: 53)

49. a. When one is enveloped with totally sincere surrender, it serves as a marvellous filter where nothing undesirable or ill-will can pass through

49. b. Then ill-will returns from where it came

49. “But, you see, in the world as it is, we are all interdependent. You cannot take in the air without taking in the vibrations, the countless vibrations produced by all kinds of movements and all kinds of people, and you must—if you want to remain intact—you must constantly act like a filter, as I was saying. That is to say, nothing that is undesirable should be allowed to enter, as when one goes to infected areas, one wears a mask over the face so that the air may be purified before one breathes it in. Well, something similar has to be done. One must have around oneself so intense an atmosphere in a total surrender to the Divine, so intensified around oneself that everything that passes through is automatically filtered. Anyhow, it is very useful in life, for there are—we spoke about this too—there are bad thoughts, bad wills, people who wish you ill, who make formations. There are all kinds of absolutely undesirable things in the atmosphere. And so, if one must always be on the watch, looking around on all sides, one would think only of one thing, how to protect oneself. First of all, it is tiresome, and then, you see, it makes you waste much time. If you are well enveloped in this way, with this light, the light of a perfectly glad, totally sincere surrender, when you are enveloped with that, it serves you as a marvellous filter. Nothing that is altogether undesirable, nothing that has ill-will can pass through. So, automatically, these things return where they came from. If there is a conscious ill-will against you, it comes, but cannot pass; the door is closed, for it is open only to divine things, it is not open to anything else. So it returns very quietly to the source from where it came.” (CWM 6: 214–215)

50. a. Call one’s highest destiny by aspiration and trustful surrender to the divine will

50. b. This higher destiny intervenes favourably in the normal destiny of the being and changes the course of events

“So one can say without any fear of making a mistake: be always at the summit of your consciousness and the best will always happen to you. But that is a maximum which is not easy to reach. If this ideal condition turns out to be unrealisable, the individual can at least, when he is confronted by a danger or a critical situation, call upon his highest destiny by aspiration, prayer and trustful surrender to the divine will. Then, in proportion to the sincerity of his call, this higher destiny intervenes favourably in the normal destiny of the being and changes the course of events insofar as they concern him personally. It is events of this kind that appear to the outer consciousness as miracles, as divine interventions.” (CWM 12: 78–79)

51. To the extent to which you surrender, the best happens to you, the best from the spiritual point of view, the best for your progress, your development, your spiritual growth, your true life

“To the extent to which you surrender, the best happens to you. This may not be in conformity with what you would like, your preference or desire, because these things are blind: it is the best from the spiritual point of view, the best for your progress, your development, your spiritual growth, your true life.” (CWM 6: 349)

52. By one-pointed surrender you will constantly feel the presence of the Divine’s help and guidance

“Be ever one-pointed in your surrender and sincere in your aspiration and you will constantly feel the presence of the Divine’s help and guidance.” (CWM 14: 86)

53. In surrender you say if I ought to have it I shall have it, one is what one ought to be and does what one ought to do and knows what one ought to know

“Now, the two together [perfection and vision] can give you perhaps a greater capacity. But for this too you must tell yourself, ‘If I ought to have it—if I take the true attitude of surrender to the Divine and of complete consecration—if I ought to have it I shall have it. As, if I ought to have the gift of speech, I shall have it.’ And in fact, if one is truly surrendered, in the true way and totally, at every minute one is what one ought to be and does what one ought to do and knows what one ought to know. This... but naturally, for this one should have overcome the petty limitations of the ego, and this does not happen overnight. But it can happen.” (CWM 6: 355)

54. If one surrenders, then as soon as the nature is ready, progress will come of itself

“X is probably making two mistakes—first, expecting outward expressions of love from the Mother; second, looking for progress instead of concentrating on openness and surrender without demand of a return. These are two mistakes which sadhaks are constantly making. If one opens, if one surrenders, then as soon as the nature is ready, progress will come of itself; but the personal concentration for progress brings difficulties and resistance and disappointment because the mind is not looking at things from the right angle.” (CWSA 32: 481)

55. When one surrenders to the deep inner inspiration, it will make you act in accordance with the Divine Will

“Or else people who live in the mind and want to understand and evaluate their experience, to judge it: then it is the mind that seizes upon this inspiration or this force which rises to the surface, for its own benefit, for its own satisfaction—and it becomes mixed, and that spoils everything. And this happens constantly; constantly surface movements creep into the inspiration from the depths and deform it, veil it, defile it, ruin it completely, deforming it to such an extent that it is no longer recognisable.

...

There comes a time when one deliberately calls the deep inner inspiration and surrenders to it, when it can enter almost completely pure and make you act in accordance with the Divine Will.

The mixture is not unavoidable; it is only what usually happens. And the proportion is very different according to the individual.” (CWM 8: 193)

56. The result of surrender is illimitable in potency because it is God’s capacity

53. “If this attitude of perfect self–surrender can be even imperfectly established, all necessity of Yogic kriya inevitably ceases. For then God himself in us becomes the sadhaka and the siddha and his divine power works in us, not by our artificial processes, but by a working of Nature which is perfectly informed, all–searching and infallibly efficient. Even the most powerful Rajayogic saṁyama [self–control], the most developed prāṇāyāma, the most strenuous meditation, the most ecstatic Bhakti, the most self–denying action, mighty as they are and efficacious, are comparatively weak in their results when set beside this supreme working. For those are all limited to a certain extent by our capacity, but this is illimitable in potency because it is God’s capacity. It is only limited by his will which knows what is best for the world and for each of us in the world and apart from it.” (CWSA 13: 74)

XXIX—How Can One Know Whether the Surrender Is Total or Not?

1. In surrender one wants the Divine to decide everything but if something happens contradicting with your feeling and if it pricks you then the surrender is not total

1. “Q: How can one know whether the surrender is total or not?

A :This does not seem to me difficult. One may try out a little exercise. One may say, ‘Let me see, I surrender to the Divine, I want Him to decide everything in my life.’ This is your starting point. A little exercise: the Divine is going to decide that such and such a thing happens, precisely something in contradiction with your feeling. Then one tells oneself, ‘Well, and if the Divine tells me, ‘You are going to give that up’—you will see quite easily, immediately, what the reaction is; if it causes a little prick like this, inside, you may tell yourself, ‘The surrender is not perfect”—it pricks, it pricks....’ (CWM 4: 345–346)

2. a. You will not react and protest when something unpleasant or unexpected happens if surrender is total

2. b. In total surrender you will say ‘Let Your will be done; if You have decided it that way, it will be that way’

2. c. If you have made a complete surrender, then you are as quiet, as peaceful, as calm in one case as in the other

2. “For example, you have decided to offer your life to the Divine, you take that decision. But all of a sudden, something altogether unpleasant, unexpected happens to you and your first movement is to react and protest. Yet you have made the offering, you have said once for all: ‘My life belongs to the Divine’, and then suddenly an extremely unpleasant incident happens (that can happen) and there is something in you that reacts, that does not want it. But here, if you want to be truly logical with your offering, you must bring forward this unpleasant incident, make an offering of it to the Divine, telling him very sincerely: ‘Let Your will be done; if You have decided it that way, it will be that way.’ And this must be a willing and spontaneous adhesion. So it is very difficult.

Even for the smallest thing, something that is not in keeping with what you expected, what you have worked for, instead of an opposite reaction coming in—spontaneously, irresistibly, you draw back: ‘No, not that’—if you have made a complete surrender, a total surrender, well, it does not happen like that: you are as quiet, as peaceful, as calm in one case as in the other.” (CWM 5: 52–53)

3. If you have given much time, energy and your will for the divine work which is the offering, but it does not succeed and if you are truly surrendered, you say: ‘It is good, it is all right; I did what I could, as well as I could, now it is not my decision, it is the decision of the Divine, I accept entirely what He decides’

3. “And perhaps you had the notion that it would be better if it happened in a certain way, but if it happens differently, you find that this also is all right. You might have, for example, worked very hard to do a certain thing, so that something might happen, you might have given much time, much of your energy, much of your will, and all that not for your own sake, but, say, for the divine work (that is the offering); now suppose that after having taken all this trouble, done all this work, made all these efforts, it all goes just the other way round, it does not succeed. If you are truly surrendered, you say: ‘It is good, it is all good, it is all right; I did what I could, as well as I could, now it is not my decision, it is the decision of the Divine, I accept entirely what He decides.’ On the other hand, if you do not have this deep and spontaneous surrender, you tell yourself: ‘How is it? I took so much trouble to do a thing which is not for a selfish purpose, which is for the Divine Work, and this is the result, it is not successful!’ Ninety–nine times out of a hundred, it is like that.

True surrender is a very difficult thing.” (CWM 5: 53)

4. In surrender one continues to do what one ought to, what is to be done; whether one succeeds or does not succeed, that has no importance

4. Q: “For self–surrender, should one continue to do what one ought to do?

A: Continue to do what one ought to, what is clearly shown as the thing that ought to be done, what is to be done—whether one succeeds or does not succeed, whether the result is what one thinks or expects or isn’t—that has no importance; one continues.”

(CWM 5: 53–54)

5. a. You may do disinterested work without any idea of personal profit, work for the joy of working, but if you are not at the same time ready to leave this work, to change the work or change the way of working, if you cling to your own way of working, your surrender is not complete

5. b. In surrender you do work because you feel within, very clearly, in a more and more imperious way, that it is this which must be done and in this particular way, and that you do it only because of that

5. c. In surrender you do not do work because of any habit, attachment or preference, nor even any conception

5. d. As long as you cling to something, and say that it will not change because you can’t think of it changing, then your surrender is not complete

5. “Whatever the activity, it is not quite the way of doing it but the state of consciousness in which it is done that is important. You may work, do disinterested work without any idea of personal profit, work for the joy of working, but if you are not at the same time ready to leave this work, to change the work or change the way of working, if you cling to your own way of working, your surrender is not complete. You must come to a point when everything is done because you feel within, very clearly, in a more and more imperious way, that it is this which must be done and in this particular way, and that you do it only because of that. You do not do it because of any habit, attachment or preference, nor even any conception, even a preference for the idea that it is the best thing to do—else your surrender is not total. As long as you cling to something, as long as there is something in you which says, ‘This may change, that may change, but that, that will not change’, as long as you say about anything at all, ‘That will not change’ (not that it refuses to change, but because you can’t think of its changing), your surrender is not complete.

It goes without saying that if in your action, your work, you have in the least this feeling, ‘I am doing it because I have been told to do it’, and there is not a total adherence of the being, and you do not do the work because you feel it must be done and you love doing it; if something holds back, stands apart, separate, ‘I was told it had to be done like that so I did it like that’, it means there is a great gulf between you and surrender. True surrender is to feel that one wants, one has, this complete inner adherence: you cannot do but that, that which you have been given to do, and what you have not been given to do you cannot do. But at another moment the work may change; at any moment it may be something else, if it is decided that it be something else. It is there that plasticity comes in. That makes a very great difference. It is well understood that those who work are told, ‘Yes, work, that is your way of surrendering’, but it is a beginning. This way has to be progressive. It is only a beginning, do you understand?” (CWM 4: 372–373)

6. “The transformation Sri Aurobindo speaks about here is a reversal of consciousness: instead of being egoistical and turned towards personal satisfactions, the consciousness is turned towards the Divine in surrender. And he has explained clearly that the surrender could be partial at first—there are parts which surrender and parts which don’t. So it is only when the entire being, integrally, in all its movements, has made its surrender, that it is irrevocable. It is an irrevocable transformation of attitude.” (CWM 4: 356)

7. “It is never too early to make the complete surrender. Some things may need to wait, but not that.”

(CWSA 29: 74)

8. “All the parts of the human being are entitled to express and satisfy themselves in their own way at their own risk and peril, if he so chooses, as long as he leads the ordinary life. But to enter into a path of Yoga whose whole object is to substitute for these human things the law and power of a greater Truth and the whole heart of whose method is surrender to the Divine Shakti, and yet to go on claiming this so-called freedom which is no more than a subjection to certain ignorant cosmic Forces, is to indulge in a blind contradiction and to claim the right to lead a double life.” (CWSA 31: 155)

9. a. You can become aware when surrender is not total, you feel uneasy, very miserable, dejected, a bit unhappy

9. b. When you are in a perfect state of surrender you feel marvellous, feel joyful, feel confident and a certitude that great Work will be accomplished

9. “But you must see to it that they [aspiration and surrender] are total; and besides, as I was saying just now, you become very clearly aware of it, for the moment they are not total, you are no longer happy. You feel uneasy, very miserable, dejected, a bit unhappy: ‘Things are not quite pleasant today. ... yesterday they were marvellous, today they are not pleasing!’—Why? Because yesterday you were in a perfect state of surrender, more or less perfect—and today you aren’t any more. So, what was so beautiful yesterday is no longer beautiful today. That joy you had within you, that confidence, the assurance that all will be well and the great Work will be accomplished, that certitude — all this, you see, has become veiled, has been replaced by a kind of doubt and, yes, by a discontent: “Things are not beautiful, the world is nasty, people are not pleasant.” It goes sometimes to this length: “The food is not good, yesterday it was excellent.” It is the same but today it is not good! This is the barometer! You may immediately tell yourself that an insincerity has crept in somewhere. It is very easy to know, you don’t need to be very learned, for, as Sri Aurobindo has said in Elements of Yoga: One knows whether one is happy or unhappy, one knows whether one is content or discontented, one doesn’t need to ask oneself, put complicated questions for this, one knows it!—Well, it is very simple.” (CWM 6: 215)

XXX—To Be the Instrument of the Divine Is a Higher Stage of Self-surrender

1. “Obedience is the sign of the servant, but that is the lowest stage of this relation, dāsya. Afterwards we do not obey, but move to his will as the string replies to the finger of the musician. To be the instrument is this higher stage of self-surrender and submission. But this is the living and loving instrument and it ends in the whole nature of our being becoming the slave of God, rejoicing in his possession and its own blissful subjection to the divine grasp and mastery. With a passionate delight it does all he wills it to do without questioning and bears all he would have it bear, because what it bears is the burden of the beloved being.” (CWSA 24: 603)

2. “The Divine Love, unlike the human, is deep and vast and silent; one must become quiet and wide to be aware of it and reply to it. He must make it his whole object to be surrendered so that he may become a vessel and instrument—leaving it to the Divine Wisdom and Love to fill him with what is needed.” (CWSA 32: 481)

3. “Whatever mental, vital, physical development or use of faculties can be made part of the spiritual life and an instrumentation for the Divine can be kept on condition of surrender of them for transformation and restatement on the spiritual basis. But they must not be kept for their own sake or for the sake of the ego or considered as one’s own possession or used for one’s own purpose but only for the sake of the Divine.” (CWSA 29: 16)

4. “Look again at what the moderns have made of the dance; compare it with what the dance once was. The dance was once one of the highest expressions of the inner life; it was associated with religion and it was an important limb in sacred ceremony, in the celebration of festivals, in the adoration of the Divine. In some countries it reached a very high degree of beauty and an extraordinary perfection. In Japan they kept up the tradition of the dance as a part of the religious life and, because the strict sense of beauty and art is a natural possession of the Japanese, they did not allow it to degenerate into something of lesser significance and smaller purpose. It was the same in India. ...

Today Russian dances are famous, but they are expressions of the vital world and there is even something terribly vital in them. Like all that comes to us from that world, they may be very attractive or very repulsive, but always they stand for themselves and not for the expression of the higher life. The very mysticism of the Russians is of a vital order. As technicians of the dance they are marvellous; but technique is only an instrument. If your instrument is good, so much the better, but so long as it is not surrendered to the Divine, however fine it may be, it is empty of the highest and cannot serve a divine purpose. The difficulty is that most of those who become artists believe that they stand on their own legs and have no need to turn to the Divine. It is a great pity; for in the divine manifestation skill is as useful an element as anything else. Skill is one part of the divine fabric, only it must know how to subordinate itself to greater things.” (CWM 3: 111–112)

5. “... if truly surrendered to the Divine, will be utilised as instruments for its divine work to the same degree and with an equal value. But when they are not surrendered ... are alike moved by impulses of ignorance.” (CWM 3: 119–120)

XXXI—Surrender of the Vital in Yoga

1. “I have always said that the vital is indispensable for the divine or spiritual action—without it there can be no complete expression, no realisation in life—hardly even any realisation in sadhana. When I speak of the vital mixture or of the obstructions, revolts, etc. of the vital, it is the unregenerated outer vital full of desire and ego and the lower passions of which I speak. I could say the same against the mind and the physical when they obstruct or oppose, but precisely because the vital is so powerful and indispensable, its obstruction, opposition or refusal of cooperation is most strikingly effective and its wrong mixtures are more dangerous to the sadhana. That is why I have always insisted on the dangers of the unregenerated vital and the necessity of mastery and purification there. It is not because I hold, like the Sannyasis, the vital and its life power to be a thing to be condemned and rejected in its very nature.” (CWSA 31:284)

2. a. “There is no reason why you should abandon hope of success in the Yoga. The state of depression which you now feel is temporary … The suggestions which come to your mind telling you that you are not fit and that you must go back to the ordinary life are promptings from a hostile source.

... what is needed is the conversion and surrender of the vital part. It must learn to demand only the highest truth and to forego all insistence on the satisfaction of its inferior impulses and desires. It is this adhesion of the vital being that brings the full satisfaction and joy of the whole nature in the spiritual life. When that is there, it will be impossible even to think of returning to the ordinary existence. Meanwhile the mental will and the psychic aspiration must be your support; if you insist, the vital will finally yield and be converted and surrender.” (CWSA 31: 712–713)

2. b. “Your mind and psychic being are concentrated on the spiritual aim and open to the Divine–that is why the Influence comes down into the head and as far as the heart. But the vital being and nature and the physical consciousness are under the influence of the lower nature. As long as the vital and physical being are not surrendered or do not on their own account call for the higher life, this struggle is likely to continue.

Surrender everything, reject all other desires or interests, call on the divine Shakti to open the vital nature and bring down calm, peace, light, Ananda into all centres. Aspire, await with faith and patience the result. All depends on a complete sincerity and an integral consecration and aspiration.

The world will trouble you so long as any part of you belongs to the world. It is only if you belong entirely to the Divine that you can become free.” (CWSA 29: 76)

3. a. “If there is any identification with the vital demands or outcries that necessarily diminishes the surrender for the time.” (CWSA 29: 74)

3. b. “Surrender and demands don’t go together. Evidently the vital is not afraid of thinking illogical and self–contradictory nonsense. So long as the vital keeps up its demand, these things will come.” (CWSA 29: 74)

4. a. “The ordinary vital is never willing to surrender. The true inmost vital is different—surrender to the Divine is as necessary to it as to the psychic.” (CWSA 29: 74)

4. b. “The true vital consciousness is one in which the vital makes full surrender, converts itself into an instrument of the Divine, making no demand, insisting on no desire, answering to the Mother’s force and to no other, calm, unegoistic, giving an absolute loyalty and obedience, with no personal vanity or ambition, only willing to be a pure and perfect instrument, desiring nothing for itself but that the Truth may prevail within itself and everywhere and the Divine Victory take place and the Divine Work be done.”

(CWSA 28: 186)

5. “The surrender of the vital is always difficult, because of the unwillingness of the forces of the universal vital Ignorance. But that does not mean a fundamental incapacity.” (CWSA 29: 74)

6. “The signs of the consecration of the vital in action are these among others:

The feeling (not merely the idea or the aspiration) that all the life and the work are the Mother's and a strong joy of the vital nature in this consecration and surrender. A consequent calm content and disappearance of egoistic attachment to the work and its personal results, but at the same time a great joy in the work and in the use of the capacities for the divine purpose.” (CWSA 29: 233–234)

7. a. “It was from your description of the reaction that I said there was a vital demand. In the pure psychic or spiritual self–giving there are no reactions of this kind; no despondency or despair, no saying, ‘What have I gained by seeking the Divine?, no anger, revolt, abhiman, wish to go away–such as you describe here–but an absolute confidence and a persistence in clinging to the Divine under all conditions. That is what I wanted you to have; it is the only basis in which one is free from troubles and reactions and goes steadily forward.” (CWSA 29: 74–75)

8. “Most of the sadhaks have similar thoughts [of hostility and ingratitude]—or had them at one time or another. They rise from the vital ego which either does not want the Divine or wants It for its own purpose and not for the Divine's purpose. It gets furious when it is pressed to change or when its desires are not satisfied—that is at the root of all these things. That is why we insist on surrender in this Yoga—because it is only by the surrender that these things (especially of the vital ego) can go—to accept the Divine for the Divine's sake and for no other motive and in the Divine's way and not in one's own way or on one's own conditions.”

(CWSA 29: 75)

9. “As for the offering of the actions to the Divine and the vital difficulty it raises, it is not possible to avoid the difficulty—you have to go through and conquer it. For, the moment you make this attempt, the vital arises with all its restless imperfections to oppose the change. However, there are three things you can do to alleviate and shorten the difficulty:

1. Detach yourself from this vital–physical—observe it as something not yourself; reject it, refuse your consent to its claims and impulses, but quietly as the witness Purusha whose refusal of sanction must ultimately prevail. This ought not to be difficult for you, if you have already learned to live more and more in the impersonal Self.

2. When you are not in this impersonality, still use your mental will and its power of assent or refusal,—not with a painful struggle, but in the same way, quietly, denying the claims of desire, till these claims by loss of sanction and assent lose their force of return and become more and more faint and external.

3. If you become aware of the Divine above you or in your heart, call for help, for light and power from there to change the vital itself, and at the same time insist upon this vital till it itself learns to pray for the change.

Finally, the difficulty will be reduced to its smallest proportions the moment you can by the sincerity of your aspiration to the Divine and your surrender awaken the psychic being in you (the Purusha in the secret heart) so that it will come forward and remain in front and pour its influence on all the movements of the mind, the vital and the physical consciousness. The work of transformation will still have to be done, but from that moment it will no longer be so hard and painful.” (CWSA 31: 113–114)

10. “It is impossible to become like a child giving oneself entirely until the psychic is in control and stronger than the vital.” (CWSA 29: 76)

11. “A strong vital is one that is full of life–force, has ambition, courage, great energy, a force for action or for creation, a large expansive movement whether for generosity in giving or for possession and lead and domination, a power to fulfil and materialize—many forms of vital strength there are also. It is often difficult for such a vital to surrender itself because of this sense of its own powers—but if it can do so, it becomes an admirable instrument for the Divine Work.” (CWSA 28: 196)

“It is not a demand to ask for things that one finds helpful, but it becomes a demand if there enters into it a feeling of claim, resentment when it is not conceded or other vital reactions. Be on your guard against any invasion by these reactions; the vital can only be conquered and changed and the physical opened up on a basis of faith and surrender and the psychic response overpowering all others.”

(CWSA 31: 259)

12. “Sweet Mother,

Is our vital formed solely of desires, selfish feelings, etc., or is there something good in it too?

A: Energy, strength, enthusiasm, artistic taste, boldness, forcefulness are there too, if we know how to use them in the true way.

A vital converted and consecrated to the Divine Will becomes a bold and forceful instrument that can overcome all obstacles. But it first has to be disciplined, and this it consents to only when the Divine is its master.

Blessings.” (CWM 16: 403)

13. “Yes, that is the nature of the vital. It can make the absolute and enthusiastic surrender as well as cause all trouble possible. Without the vital there is no life–force of creation or manifestation; it is a necessary instrument of the spirit for life."

(CWSA 31:106)

14. “The whole thing is that—that you are putting a personal standard—the standard of your desires and feelings—as the measure of truth and right. Most men do that—almost all practically; but to do Yoga you must free yourself from that altogether. ... so that you may become united with the Mother within and as a result in the outer being also. That cannot be done by satisfying your vital desires—to do so would only increase them and give you into the hands of the ignorance and restless confusion of the ordinary Nature. It can be done only by your inner trust and surrender and by the pressure of the Mother’s peace and Force working from within and changing your vital nature. It is when you forget this that you go wrong and suffer; when you remember it you progress and the difficulties become less and less insistent.” (CWSA 32: 452)

15. “Mother finds no conscious opposition in your mind or will to surrender and transformation. But probably the difficulty lies in the vital (not mind) of the artist (the poet, painter etc. in you), because the vital of the artist is always accustomed to its independence, to follow its own way, to make and live in its own world and pursue the impulses of its nature. If that element changes then probably surrender and transformation could be more rapid, but it is not always easy for it to change at once, it usually goes by a gradual and almost unobserved change.” (CWSA 27: 721) (CWSA 31: 109)

16. “The sadhana is a difficult one and time should not be grudged; it is only in the last stages that a very great and constant rapidity of progress can be confidently expected. As for Shakti, the descent of Shakti before the vital is pure and surrendered, has its dangers. It is better for him to pray for purification, knowledge, intensity of the heart’s aspiration and as much working of the Power as he can bear and assimilate.” (CWSA 30: 459)

17. “Whoever sincerely enters the path of works, must leave behind him the stage in which need and desire are the first law of our acts. For whatever desires still trouble his being, he must, if he accepts the high aim of Yoga, put them away from him into the hands of the Lord within us. The supreme Power will deal with them for the good of the sadhaka and for the good of all. In effect, we find that once this surrender is done,—always provided the rejection is sincere,—egoistic indulgence of desire may for some time recur under the continued impulse of past nature but only in order to exhaust its acquired momentum and to teach the embodied being in his most unteachable part, his nervous, vital, emotional nature, by the reactions of desire, by its grief and unrest bitterly contrasted with calm periods of the higher peace or marvellous movements of divine Ananda, that egoistic desire is not a law for the soul that seeks liberation or aspires to its own original god-nature. Afterwards the element of desire in those impulsions will be thrown away or persistently eliminated by a constant denying and transforming pressure. Only the pure force of action in them (pravṛtti) justified by an equal delight in all work and result that is inspired or imposed from above will be preserved in the happy harmony of a final perfection.”

(CWSA 23: 209–210)

18. “But the complete su esprrender of all parts,ecially of the whole vital, is certainly difficult. It can only come with the development of the consciousness. Meanwhile, that it has not fully come, is no reason for despair or giving up.” (CWSA 31: 110)

19. “What comes back like that is the old vital movements which you used to have and which you have been throwing out. The vital gets disturbed and filled with these thoughts whenever something happens that hurts or displeases it strongly. To get rid of it one must have always a sense of complete reliance on the Mother, of surrender; that brings a calm which refuses to be moved by any outward happening or by what people do or say, a happiness which is not disturbed by any occurrence.” (CWSA 31: 146)

20. “That is a struggle which every sadhak has to go through with more or less acuteness; but the only way to escape from the suffering and struggle is for the mind to put itself wholly on the side of the soul and bring over the whole vital to the true attitude. It is absurd to think that we know nothing of these things; we know them very well but we know also that the solution lies not in the satisfaction of the revolted vital but in its submission and surrender to the soul within and to the Divine.”

(CWSA 31: 149)

21. “The difficulty in the lower vital being is that it is still wedded to its old self and in revolt against the Light; it has not only not surrendered either to a greater Truth or to myself and the Mother, but it has up to now no such will and hardly any idea even of what true surrender is. When the lower vital assumes this attitude, it takes its stand upon a constant affirmation of the old personality and the past forms of the lower nature. Every time they are discouraged, it supports and brings them back and asserts its right to freedom—the freedom to affirm and follow its own crude and egoistic ideas, desires, fancies, impulses or convenience whenever it chooses. It claims, secretly or in so many words, the right to follow its nature,—its average unregenerate human nature, the right to be itself,—its natural, original, unchanged self with all the falsehood, ignorance and incoherence proper to this part of the being.” (CWSA 31: 151)

22. “The same phrases even are repeated,—‘no life in this existence’, ‘suffocation’, ‘limitation’, ‘air-tight compartments’; and all this simply means that the lower vital nature—or some part of it—is in revolt and wants something else than the divine Truth and the tapasya that leads to the supramental change. It refuses to give up ego and desire and claim and demand or to accept a true self-giving and surrender, while yet it feels the pressure on it to transform itself into an instrument of the divine life. It is this pressure that it calls suffocation. The refusal to let it expand its desires and make a big place for itself it calls limitation of the being.” (CWSA 31: 160)

23. “... the vital preferring its own desires to a true surrender ...” (CWSA 31: 638)

24. “Nobody can change himself—even the strongest sadhaks here recognise that. Their effort is to let the Peace, Force, Light, Ananda of the Mother come in, to let that grow—for that will change them, they know. So long as it is not there, has not yet touched, is not growing, they struggle with the mind and vital, because they cannot help doing so and it is necessary for preparing the consciousness a little to admit the Peace and Force. But once these have touched, the only thing to do is to lay all the stress on that, trust to it, surrender and give oneself to it—for the straight road is found and the true power and consciousness have been experienced.”

(CWSA 31: 723)

25. “What your vital being seems to have kept all along is the ‘bargain’ or the ‘mess’ attitude in these matters. One gives some kind of commodity which he calls devotion or surrender and in return the Mother is under obligation to supply satisfaction for all demands and desires spiritual, mental, vital and physical, and, if she falls short in her task, she has broken her contract. The Asram is a sort of communal hotel or mess, the Mother is the hotel-keeper or mess-manager. One gives what one can or chooses to give, or it may be nothing at all except the aforesaid commodity; in return the palate, the stomach and all the physical demands have to be satisfied to the full; if not, one has every right to keep one’s money and to abuse the defaulting hotel-keeper or mess-manager. This attitude has nothing whatever to do with sadhana or Yoga and I absolutely repudiate the right of anyone to impose it as a basis for my work or for the life of the Asram.” (CWSA 32: 374)

26. “A complete surrender of the mind and the vital both in work and in sadhana is the turn that is needed.”

(CWSA 32: 410)

27. “If you want a true mastery and transformation of the vital movements, it can be done only on condition you allow your psychic being, the soul in you, to awake fully, to establish its rule and open to the permanent touch of the divine Shakti and impose its way of devout aspiration and complete surrender on the mind and heart and vital nature. There is no other way and it is no use hankering after a more comfortable path.” (CWSA 35: 725)

28. “There is one thing everybody should remember that everything should be done from the point of view of Yoga, of sadhana, of growing into a divine life in the Mother’s consciousness. To insist upon one’s own mind and its ideas, to allow oneself to be governed by one’s own vital feelings and reactions should not be the rule of life here. One has to stand back from these, to be detached, to get in their place the true knowledge from above, the true feelings from the psychic within. This cannot be done if the mind and vital do not surrender, if they do not renounce their attachment to their own ignorance which they call truth, right, justice. All the trouble rises from that; if that were overcome, the true basis of life, of work, of harmony of all in the union with the Divine would more and more replace the trouble and difficulty of the present.” (CWSA 35: 750)

29. “The vital turned completely to the Divine is like a warrior. It has even the appearance of a warrior. The vital is the place of power and it is this power which impels it to fight, which can fight and conquer, and of all things this is the most difficult, for it is precisely these very qualities of fighting which create in the vital the sense of revolt, independence, the will to carry out its own will. But if the vital understands and is converted, if it is truly surrendered to the divine Will, then these fighting capacities are turned against the anti-divine forces and against all the darkness which prevents their transformation. And they are all-powerful and can conquer the adversaries. The anti-divine forces are in the vital world; from there, naturally, they have spread out into the physical, but their true seat is in the vital world, and it is the converted vital force which has the true power to vanquish them. But of all things this conversion is the most difficult.” (CWM 6: 203)

30. “... the higher vital is usually much less difficult to surrender, for it is under the influence of the mind and at times even of the psychic; so it understands more easily. It is much easier to convert this than the lower vital which is essentially the vital of desires and impulses. So, you see, what he means is that the lower vital can submit, it agrees to obey, to do what it is asked, but it is not at all satisfied. It is not happy; sometimes it even suffers; it pushes its revolt down into itself through obedience, but it does not collaborate. And unless the vital collaborates with joy and true love, nothing can be done; the transformation cannot come.” (CWM 6: 204)

31. “The vital as it is at present is said to be the cause of all the troubles and all the difficulties, the seat of the desires, passions, impulses, revolts, etc., etc. But if the vital is entirely surrendered to the psychic, it becomes a wonderful instrument, full of enthusiasm, power, force of realisation, impetus, courage.” (CWM 7: 44)

32. “The vital being, the true vital being which Sri Aurobindo describes, is the vital being which is in contact with the Divine, which is entirely surrendered to the Divine and is His instrument; whereas in the ordinary earth consciousness the vital being and also the physical being do not at all belong to the Divine, they think they belong to themselves, and the only thing that counts is their own little person; and that is why everything is like this. All the disorder in the universe is due to that.”

(CWM 7: 214)

33. “Sri Aurobindo says that the vital part, the vital being is the greatest obstacle because it is unregenerate, and that there would be a possibility of transforming it if it surrendered entirely to Love and Knowledge; but as its predominant quality is force, energy, power, it does not like to submit to other parts of the being, and this justifies its refusal to submit itself, for those virtues in their essence are as high as the others. That is why it has neither the same power nor the same capacities, for it is not developed, it has not surrendered, and this is what causes the dilemma: it does not submit because it has this power, and this power cannot be utilised because it is not surrendered. So, how to get out of that? The vital, if it were surrendered, would be a very powerful help, extremely useful, it would make the whole process go much more rapidly. But because it feels its own power, it refuses to submit to the others; and because it does not submit, its power cannot be utilised.” (CWM 8: 297)

34. “If the vital were a mediocre being without definite qualities, there would be no difficulty in its surrendering, but it would be altogether useless. But, on the contrary, the vital is a sort of stronghold of energy and power—of all powers. Yet generally this power is diverted; it is no longer at the service of the Divine, it is at the service of the vital itself for its own satisfaction. So, as long as it is like that, it cannot be used.” (CWM 8: 298)

35. “If we take the best instance, of someone who has unified his being completely around the divine Presence within him, who is now only one will, one consciousness, this person will have grouped around his central psychic being a fully developed and organised mind, an absolutely surrendered and collaborating vital and an obedient, docile and supple physical being. This physical being, as it is fully developed, will have a subtle body—what Sri Aurobindo calls the ‘true physical’—which will infinitely surpass the limits of its body and have enough suppleness, plasticity, balance to be able to adhere to the inner parts of the being and follow the movement of the soul in its...” (CWM 8: 336)

36. “Vital progress: organisation around the Divine Will and a progressive surrender to this Will.” (CWM 14: 354)

37. “How can one conquer the obscure vital? Rather, how is it possible to change the obscure vital into a luminous vital?

By the surrender of the vital, its opening to the light, and by the growth of consciousness.” (CWM 14: 357)

38. “Vital immortality: in its own field it exists but conditioned by surrender to the Divine.” (CWM 15: 116)

39. (The sadhak recounted several instances in which he got upset and depressed because a fellow-worker did not follow his advice.)

The disease: a narrow and egoistic ambition in the mind expressing itself as a strong vanity in the vital, thus distorting your ideas of things and your reactions.

The remedy: surrender all that to ‘Sweet Mother’ completely and definitively.

With my loving solicitude and my blessings.” (CWM 16: 54)

XXXII—Complete Surrender Protects from Hostile Forces

1. “It is difficult to observe the difference between the action of the hostile Force and the pressure of the lower Nature because it is the latter that the Force takes hold of for its purpose. But there is in the Force a suggestive character, a conscious arrangement of the attack so as to upset or destroy the sadhana which there is not in the ordinary movement of the lower Nature—for that only comes to satisfy itself and then ceases. In your case the tactical use of a suggestion, the sudden rush clouding the knowledge, the rhythmic character of the periodic return, the attempt to bring despondency and hopelessness and push to departure—all these are clear signs of the hostile attack. People like X and Y who are moving forward in a leisurely way, are not usually subjected to the hostile pressure. One with an intense and sensitive vital nature is more open; also those who have some vital proclivity in a very developed or exaggerated form e.g. pride, ambition, jealousy, sexuality etc. A complete surrender from the beginning does protect—suggestions may come, but they have no power to develop into a crisis.” (CWSA 31: 765–766)

2. “If the faith and surrender are complete in all parts of the being then there can be no attack. If there is a strong central faith and surrender at all times, then there can be attacks but the attacks will have no chance of success.” (CWSA 31: 794)

3. “It is those who are of a highly sattwic nature, especially if strongly surrendered to the Mother, who escape the invasion or attacks of the hostile Forces on the mind and vital. That does not mean that they escape the difficulties of the lower human nature or of the sadhana, but these are not complicated by the effective support given to them by the hostiles.” (CWSA 31: 794)

4. “The adverse forces feel that there is something in you that is discountenanced and restive because of the continuance of the inertia and they hope that by pressing more and more they will create a revolt. What is important for you in these circumstances is to make your faith, surrender and samata absolute. That is as great and essential a progress as to have high experiences, etc.” (CWSA 31: 398–399)

5. “Those who cannot reject their lower nature fully are made to suffer at the hands of the hostile forces and get wounded by them. What is the best means for them to go forward?

Faith in the Mother and complete surrender.” (CWSA 32: 620)

6. “This is how it happens that you see them [vampires of the vital world] sometimes used as instruments to bring into connection with each other those who are to realise the spiritual life upon earth. They do not purposely serve this use, but are compelled to it. It is a kind of compensation that they pay. For they feel the pressure of the descending Light, they sense that the time has come or is soon coming when they must choose between conversion or dissolution, choose either to surrender to the Divine Will and take their part in the Great Plan or to sink into unconsciousness and cease to be. The contact with a seeker of Truth gives such a being his chance to change. All depends upon how he utilises his chance. Taken rightly, it may open his way to liberation from falsehood and obscurity and misery, which is the stuff out of which these vital creatures are made, and bring him to Regeneration and to Life.” (CWM 3: 44–45)

7. “I have noticed one thing, that in at least ninety–nine cases out of a hundred this [attack by adverse forces] is an excuse which people give to themselves. I have seen that practically almost all who write to me: ‘I am violently attacked by adverse forces’, give this as an excuse. It is because there are many things in their nature which do not want to surrender, so they put all the blame on the adverse forces.” (CWM 15: 345)

XXXIII—Surrendered Mind

1. “Mind: its true worth depends on its surrender to the Divine.” (CWM 14: 339)

2. “Purified mind: mind ready to surrender to the Divine.” (CWM 14: 339)

3. “Mental surrender: this happens when the mind has understood that it is only an instrument.” (CWM 14: 339)

4. “What is the ‘divine mind’?

What Sri Aurobindo calls the divine mind is the prototype of the mental function which is totally and perfectly surrendered to the Divine and works only under divine inspiration.

When a human being exists only by and for the Divine, his mind necessarily becomes a divine mind.” (CWM 10: 360)

5. “Health protected by twenty thousand precautions is the gospel of the doctor; but it is not God’s evangel for the body, nor Nature’s.” (Thoughts and Aphorisms)

The sovereignty of mind has made humanity the slave of doctors and their remedies. And the result is that illnesses are increasing in number and seriousness.

The only true salvation for men is to escape from mental domination by opening to the Divine Influence which they will obtain through a total surrender.” (CWM 10: 324)

6. Surrendered thought is satisfied with being moved by the higher Consciousness

“... illumined thought, surrendered thought, thought which is no longer anything but an instrument, which tries no longer to initiate things, which is satisfied with being moved by the higher Consciousness ...” (CWM 11: 43)

XXXIV—Surrender of cells of the body

1. “But physical Matter, in its cellular form, has, one cannot say fear or anxiety, but a kind of apprehension of new vibrations, and this apprehension naturally takes away from the cells their receptivity and assumes the appearance of uneasiness—it is not suffering, but an uneasiness. When, however, this apprehension is counterbalanced and cured by aspiration and the will for total surrender and by the act of total surrender, then this sort of apprehension, having disappeared, becomes a supreme well-being.” (CWM 11: 44)

2. “It is this disorganisation that prevents the cohesion necessary for the cells to constitute an individual body; then one knows, ah! (gesture of dissolution), it is going to be finished. Then the cells aspire, and there is something like a central consciousness of the body which aspires intensely, with a surrender as complete as it can make: ‘Thy Will, Lord, Thy Will, Thy Will.’ Then there is a kind of—not anything bursting aloud, not any dazzling flash, but a kind of... yes, it gives the feeling of a condensation of this current of disorganisation, and then something stops; at first a peace, then a light, then the Harmony— and the disorder disappears. And when the disorder has disappeared, at once there is this feeling in the cells that they live the eternity, for the eternity.” (CWM 11: 88)

3. “You did not answer, Mother, my question about the vision I had of you lying flat on the ground....

(Mother laughs) I suppose it is the symbol of perfect surrender. I lay on my back, isn’t it so?

On your back, upon the ground.

It is the attitude of perfect receptivity in total abandon. It must be the figurative expression of the attitude of the body.

Because truly, I do not know if there are ‘bits’, organs that have still what may be called the spirit of independence, but truly the body has made its surrender; that is to say, it no longer has its own will—it has no desire, no will of its own, and it is as though all the while ‘listening’, all the while, to catch the Indication.”

(CWM 11: 139–140)

4. “This is very interesting: the Consciousness, the Consciousness there (gesture upward) is influenced by nothing: it is the witness, it sees, but does not receive; the body still receives vibrations: when certain people come and sit before me, all of a sudden there are pains, things do not go well, but the body knows now (naturally it knows that it is suffering), but it does not blame others, it blames itself; it takes that as indicating the points that are still not solely under the divine influence. And from this point of view the thing is very interesting.... It knows the distance there is between the consciousness of the being which uses it and itself, and it does not suffer for that but is full of a perfect humility, a perfect modesty. And it is not surprised, it is not anxious, because it is: ‘Let Thy will be done; it is not my affair, I am not capable of judging and I do not try—let Thy will be done.’ So, the body is like that (gesture, passive and abandoned). And when it disappears, when it is wholly, wholly surrendered, does no more exist by itself, then the Force passing through it becomes... sometimes formidable. Sometimes one can see, the witness consciousness can see that there should truly be no limit to the possibilities. But it is not yet that, it is far from that.... It comes as an example of what can be. But... before it becomes spontaneous and natural...” (CWM 11: 240–241)

5. “How to master physical suffering?

It is just the experiences I am having now.

The body is in a state in which it sees that everything depends simply on how it is linked with the Divine—upon the state of its receptive surrender. I have had the experience even during these last days. The same thing which is the cause of a—more than a discomfort—a suffering, an almost unbearable ailment, with just a change in the receptivity of the body towards the Divine, disappears all of a sudden—and can even move to a blissful state. I have had the experience several times. For me it is only a question of sincerity become intense—in the consciousness that everything is the action of the Divine and that his action moves towards the quickest possible realisation, in the given conditions.

I might say: the cells of the body must learn to seek their support only in the Divine, until the moment when they are able to feel that they are the expression of the Divine.” (CWM 11: 273)

6. “That is the important thing, to stop the resistance [when one is doing the yoga of the cells] so that the universe can become what it should be: the expression of a harmonious, luminous, wonderful power, of an unparalleled beauty. Afterwards, when the resistance has stopped, if out of curiosity we want to know why it happened... it won’t matter any more. But now, one cannot find the remedy by seeking the reason why, but by taking the true attitude. That is the only thing that matters.

To stop the resistance by a total surrender, a total self-giving in every cell, if one can do that.

They begin to feel the intense delight of existing only by the Lord, for the Lord, in the Lord.

When this is established everywhere, all will be well.” (CWM 10: 233)

7. If physical too surrenders to the psychic it also would do the right thing in the right way, and then it would have a stability, a quietude, an exactness in its movements

“And then there remains the poor physical... The poor physical being has been accused of all the misdeeds. In the days of old it was always said that it was impossible, one could do nothing with something so inert, so obscure, so little receptive. But if it too was surrendered to the psychic it also would do the right thing in the right way, and then it would have a stability, a quietude, an exactness in its movements which the other parts of the being don’t have, a precision in the execution which one can’t have without a body.” (CWM 7: 44)

8. “Ananda in the physical body: purified of all desire and all repulsion, in a perfect equality and surrender, the physical body is ready to enjoy the divine Ananda.”

(CWM 14: 361)

9. “Physical ailments are always the sign of a resistance in the physical being; but with surrender to the Divine’s Will and a complete trust in the working of the Grace, they are bound to disappear soon.” (CWM 15: 137)

XXXV—Surrender to the Guru

1. “No [surrender to the Divine and surrender to the Guru are not two different things]. In surrendering to the Guru, it is to the Divine in him that one surrenders—if it were only to a human entity it would be ineffective. But it is the consciousness of the Divine Presence that makes the Guru a real Guru, so that even if the disciple surrenders to him thinking of the human being to whom he surrenders, that Presence would still make it effective.” (CWSA 29: 193–194)

2. “Broadly, the sadhana consists of a progressive surrender of oneself—inward and based upon it the outward also—to the Guru, to the Divine; meditation, concentration, work, service—all these are means for a self-gathering in all one’s movements with the sole aim of delivering oneself into the hands of a Higher Power for being worked on and led towards the Goal.”

(CWSA 32: 332)

3. “Because through it [surrender to the Guru] you surrender not only to the impersonal but to the personal, not only to the Divine in yourself but to the Divine outside you; you get a chance for the surpassing of ego not only by retreat into the Self where ego does not exist, but in the personal nature where it is the ruler. It is the sign of the will to complete surrender to the total Divine, samagraṁ māṁ [having known Me integrally] .... mānuṣīṁ tanum  āśritam. [lodged in the human body] Of course it must be a genuine spiritual surrender for all this to be true.” (CWSA 29: 193)

4. a. “But the touch of grace, divine grace coming directly or through the Guru is a special phenomenon ...

This decisive touch comes most easily to the ‘baby cat’ people, those who have at some point between the psychic and the emotional vital a quick and decisive movement of surrender to the Guru or the Divine. I have seen that when that is there and there is the conscious central dependence compelling the mind also and the rest of the vital, then the fundamental difficulty disappears. If others remain they are not felt as difficulties, but simply as things that have just to be done and need cause no worry.” (CWSA 29: 195–196)

4. b. “It is not the human defects of the Guru that can stand in the way when there is the psychic opening, confidence and surrender. The Guru is the channel or the representative or the manifestation of the Divine, according to the measure of his personality or his attainment; but whatever he is, it is to the Divine that one opens in opening to him, and if something is determined by the power of the channel, more is determined by the inherent and intrinsic attitude of the receiving consciousness, an element that comes out in the surface mind as simple trust or direct unconditional self–giving, and once that is there, the essential things can be gained even from one who seems to others than the disciple an inferior spiritual source and the rest will grow up in the sadhak of itself by the Grace of the Divine, even if the human being in the Guru cannot give it.” (CWSA 29: 201) (CWSA 35: 242)

XXXVI—The Secret of Secrets of the Gita

1. “For after giving out all the laws, the dharmas, and the deepest essence of its Yoga, after saying that beyond all the first secrets revealed to the mind of man by the transforming light of spiritual knowledge, guhyāt, this is a still deeper more secret truth, guhyataram, the Gita suddenly declares that there is yet a supreme word that it has to speak, paramaṁ vacaḥ, and a most secret truth of all, sarva–guhyatamam. This secret of secrets the Teacher will tell to Arjuna as his highest good because he is the chosen and beloved soul,iṣṭa ... The last, the closing supreme word of the Gita expressing the highest mystery is spoken in two brief, direct and simple slokas and these are left without farther comment or enlargement to sink into the mind and reveal their own fullness of meaning in the soul’s experience.”

(CWSA 19: 555–556)

2. “Thus runs this secret of secrets, the highest most direct message of the Ishwara. ‘Become my–minded, my lover and adorer, a sacrificer to me, bow thyself to me, to me thou shalt come, this is my pledge and promise to thee, for dear art thou to me. Abandon all dharmas and take refuge in me alone. I will deliver thee from all sin and evil, do not grieve’.” (CWSA 19: 556)

3. “Abandon all dharmas, give thyself to the Divine alone, to the supreme Godhead above and around and within thee: that is all that thou needest, that is the truest and greatest way, that is the real deliverance.” (CWSA 19: 556)

4. a. “And now speaking as the Spirit and Godhead in man and in all things he says to him, ‘All this personal effort and self–discipline will not in the end be needed, all following and limitation of rule and dharma can at last be thrown away as hampering encumbrances if thou canst make a complete surrender to Me, depend alone on the Spirit and Godhead within thee and all things and trust to his sole guidance. Turn all thy mind to me and fill it with the thought of me and my presence. Turn all thy heart to me, make thy every action, whatever it be, a sacrifice and offering to me. That done, leave me to do my will with thy life and soul and action; do not be grieved or perplexed by my dealings with thy mind and heart and life and works or troubled because they do not seem to follow the laws and dharmas man imposes on himself to guide his limited will and intelligence.”

(CWSA 19: 556–557)

4. b. “But even when doubt assails, stand by and wait for it to pass, availing yourself if possible of the satsaṅga of those who are already advanced on the path, but when that is absent, still holding fast to the principle of the yoga, self-surrender. When distressed within or assailed from without, remember the words of the Gita,

...

‘By giving thyself up in heart and mind to Me, thou shalt cross over all difficulties and perils by My grace,’ and again,

...

‘Abandon all dharmas (all law, rule, means and codes of every kind whether formed by previous habit and belief or imposed from outside) and take refuge in Me alone; I will deliver thee from all sin and evil,—do not grieve.’ ‘I will deliver’,—you have not to be troubled or struggle yourself as if the responsibility were yours or the result depended on your efforts, a mightier than you is busy with the matter. Neither disease nor calamity nor the rising of sin and impurity in you should cause any alarm. Hold fast only to him. ‘I will deliver thee from all sin and evil.’ But the release does not come by a sudden miracle, it comes by a process of purification and these things are a part of the process. They are like the dust that rises in clouds when a room long uncleaned is at last swept out. Though the dust seem to choke you, yet persevere, mā śucaḥ.” (CWSA 13: 74–75)

4. c. “This transformation [growth into a greater superhuman and supramental consciousness] is only possible after certain steps of a divine ascent have been mastered and to climb these steps is the object of the Yoga of Works as it is conceived by the Gita. The extirpation of desire, a wide and calm equality of the mind, the life soul and the spirit, annihilation of the ego, an inner quietude and expulsion or transcendence of ordinary Nature, the Nature of the three gunas and a total surrender to the Supreme are the successive steps of this preliminary change. Only after all this has been done, can we live securely in an infinite consciousness not bound like our mental human nature.” (CWSA 12: 352)

5. a. “Therefore, says the Teacher, ‘devoting all thyself to me, giving up in thy conscious mind all thy actions into Me, resorting to Yoga of the will and intelligence be always one in heart and consciousness with Me. ... The Lord is stationed in the heart of all existences, O Arjuna, and turns them all round and round mounted on a machine by his Maya. In him take refuge in every way of thy being and by his grace thou shalt come to the supreme peace and the eternal status.’

These are lines that carry in them the innermost heart of this Yoga and lead to its crowning experience and we must understand them in their innermost spirit and the whole vastness of that high summit of experience. The words express the most complete, intimate and living relation possible between God and man; they are instinct with the concentrated force of religious feeling that springs from the human being’s absolute adoration, his upward surrender of his whole existence, his unreserved and perfect self-giving to the transcendent and universal Divinity from whom he comes and in whom he lives. ... It is no abstract Absolute of the philosopher, no indifferent impersonal Presence or ineffable Silence intolerant of all relations to whom this complete surrender of all our works can be made and this closeness and intimacy of oneness with him in all the parts of our conscious existence imposed as the condition and law of our perfection or of whom this divine intervention and protection and deliverance are the promise.” (CWSA 19: 540–541)

5. b. “We get therefore in this first verse of the Upanishad the foundations of the great principle of activity with renunciation with which the teaching of the Gita begins & the still greater principle of atmasamarpana or entire surrender to God, the uttamam rahasyam with which it culminates.” (CWSA 17: 426)

6. “That which surrenders here is the Jiva, the essential soul, the original central and spiritual being of man, the individual Purusha. ... And he who receives our surrender is no limited Deity but the Purushottama, the one eternal Godhead, the one supreme Soul of all that is and of all Nature, the original transcendent Spirit of existence.” (CWSA 19: 542)

7. “And now there comes the supreme word and most secret thing of all, guhyatamam, that the Spirit and Godhead is an Infinite free from all dharmas and though he conducts the world according to fixed laws and leads man through his dharmas of ignorance and knowledge, sin and virtue, right and wrong, liking and disliking and indifference, pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow and the rejection of these opposites, through his physical and vital, intellectual, emotional, ethical and spiritual forms and rules and standards, yet the Spirit and Godhead transcends all these things, and if we too can cast away all dependence on dharmas, surrender ourselves to this free and eternal Spirit and, taking care only to keep ourselves absolutely and exclusively open to him, trust to the light and power and delight of the Divine in us and, unafraid and ungrieving, accept only his guidance, then that is the truest, the greatest release and that brings the absolute and inevitable perfection of our self and nature." (CWSA 19: 558–559)

8. “Our ideas and experiences and efforts are mental images only of greatest things which would be done more perfectly, directly, freely, largely, more in harmony with the universal and eternal will by that Power itself in us if we could only put ourselves passively as instruments in the hands of a supreme and absolute strength and wisdom. That Power is not separate from us; it is our own self one with the self of all others and at the same time a transcendent Being and an immanent Person. Our existence, our action taken up into this greatest Existence would be no longer, as it seems to us now, individually our own in a mental separation. It would be the vast movement of an Infinity and an intimate ineffable Presence; it would be the constant spontaneity of formation and expression in us of this deep universal self and this transcendent Spirit. The Gita indicates that in order that that may wholly be, the surrender must be without reservations; our Yoga, our life, our state of inner being must be determined freely by this living Infinite, not predetermined by our mind’s insistence on this or that dharma or any dharma. The divine Master of the Yoga, yogeśvaraḥ kṛṣṇaḥ, will then himself take up our Yoga and raise us to our utmost possible perfection, not the perfection of any external or mental standard or limiting rule, but vast and comprehensive, to the mind incalculable. It will be a perfection developed by an all seeing Wisdom according to the whole truth, first indeed of our human swabhava, but afterwards of a greater thing into which it will open, a spirit and power illimitable, immortal, free and all–transmuting, the light and splendour of a divine and infinite nature." (CWSA 19: 559–560)

9. a. “All must be given as material of that transmutation. An omniscient consciousness will take up our knowledge and our ignorance, our truth and our error, cast away their forms of insufficiency, sarva-dharmān parityajya, and transform all into its infinite light. An almighty Power will take up our virtue and sin, our right and wrong, our strength and our weakness, cast away their tangled figures, sarva-dharmān parityajya, and transform all into its transcendent purity and universal good and infallible force. An ineffable Ananda will take up our petty joy and sorrow, our struggling pleasure and pain, cast away their discordances and imperfect rhythms, ssarva-dharmān parityajya, and transform all into its transcendent and universal unimaginable delight. All that all the Yogas can do will be done and more; but it will be done in a greater seeing way, with a greater wisdom and truth than any human teacher, saint or sage can give us. The inner spiritual state to which this supreme Yoga will take us, will be above all that is here and yet comprehensive of all things in this and other worlds, but with a spiritual transformation of all, without limitation, without bondage, sarva-dharmān parityajya.” (CWSA 19: 560)

9. b. “Afterwards the Gita proceeds by the differentiation of the Purusha and Prakriti to work out its ideas of the action of the gunas, of the ascension beyond the gunas and of the culmination of desireless works with knowledge where that coalesces with Bhakti,—knowledge, works and love made one,—and it rises thence to its great finale, the supreme secret of self-surrender to the Master of Existence.”

(CWSA 19: 263)

9. c. “It must ground the supremacy of bhakti over all other motives and powers of spiritual consciousness and action; it must be a knowledge of the supreme Lord of all creatures to whom alone the soul can offer itself in the perfect self-surrender which is the highest height of all love and devotion.” (CWSA 19: 265)

10. a. “The Gita then proceeds to unveil the supreme and integral secret, the one thought and truth in which the seeker of perfection and liberation must learn to live and the one law of perfection of his spiritual members and of all their movements. This supreme secret is the mystery of the transcendent Godhead who is all and everywhere, yet so much greater and other than the universe and all its forms that nothing here contains him, nothing expresses him really, and no language which is borrowed from the appearances of things in space and time and their relations can suggest the truth of his unimaginable being. The consequent law of our perfection is an adoration by our whole nature and its self-surrender to its divine source and possessor. Our one ultimate way is the turning of our entire existence in the world, and not merely of this or that in it, into a single movement towards the Eternal.”

(CWSA 19: 311)

10. b. “And this adoration is no isolated seeking of the heart, but an offering of the whole existence. Therefore it must take also the form of a sacrifice; there is a giving of all our works to the Ishwara, there is a surrender of all our active inward and outward nature to the Godhead of our adoration in its every subjective and in its every objective movement.” (CWSA 19: 325)

10. c. “To the soul that thus knows, adores, offers up all its workings in a great self-surrender of its being to the Eternal, God is all and all is the Godhead. It knows God as the Father of this world who nourishes and cherishes and watches over his children. It knows God as the divine Mother who holds us in her bosom, lavishes upon us the sweetness of her love and fills the universe with her forms of beauty.” (CWSA 19: 329)

10. d. “Nothing but the highest knowledge and adoration, no other way than an entire self-giving and surrender to this Highest who is all, will bring us to the Highest.” (CWSA 19: 330)

10. e. “This highest message is first for those who have the strength to follow after it, the master men, the great spirits, the God-knowers, God-doers, God-lovers who can live in God and for God and do their work joyfully for him in the world, a divine work uplifted above the restless darkness of the human mind and the false limitations of the ego. At the same time, and here we get the gleam of a larger promise which we may even extend to the hope of a collective turn towards perfection,—for if there is hope for man, why should there not be hope for mankind?—the Gita declares that all can if they will, even to the lowest and sinfullest among men, enter into the path of this Yoga. And if there is a true self-surrender and an absolute unegoistic faith in the indwelling Divinity, success is certain in this path.” (CWSA 19: 570–571)

11. a. “Attached to a crucial example, spoken to the protagonist of Kurukshetra, the words bear a much wider significance and are a universal rule for all who are ready to ascend above the ordinary mentality and to live and act in the highest spiritual consciousness. To break out of ego and personal mind and see everything in the wideness of the self and spirit, to know God and adore him in his integral truth and in all his aspects, to surrender all oneself to the transcendent Soul of nature and existence, to possess and be possessed by the divine consciousness, to be one with the One in universality of love and delight and will and knowledge, one in him with all beings, to do works as an adoration and a sacrifice on the divine foundation of a world in which all is God and in the divine status of a liberated spirit, is the sense of the Gita’s Yoga.”

(CWSA 19: 540)

11. b. “Here, as in the Gita, the highest way would seem to be a complete openness and self-surrender to the Eternal. ... And here too a vast perfection and liberated action are the dynamic result of the soul’s surrender.” (CWSA 19: 547)

11. c. “A completest surrender must be there. Take refuge with Me in all the many ways and along all the living lines of your nature; for that alone will bring about this great change and perfection.” (CWSA 19: 591)

11. d. “Reject all motive of egoism, all initiation by self-will, all rule of desire, until you can make the complete surrender of all the ways of your being to the Supreme.”

‘And when you are once able to do that sincerely, that will be the moment to renounce the initiation of your acts without exception into the hands of the supreme Godhead within you. Then you will be released from all laws of conduct, liberated from all dharmas. The Divine Power and Presence within you will free you from sin and evil and lift you far above human standards of virtue.” (CWSA 19: 593)

12. a. “ ‘This then is the supreme movement, this complete surrender of your whole self and nature, this abandonment of all dharmas to the Divine who is your highest Self, this absolute aspiration of all your members to the supreme spiritual nature. If you can once achieve it, whether at the outset or much later on the way, then whatever you are or were in your outward nature, your way is sure and your perfection inevitable. A supreme Presence within you will take up your Yoga and carry it swiftly along the lines of your swabhava to its consummate completion. And afterwards whatever your way of life and mode of action, you will be consciously living, acting and moving in him and the Divine Power will act through you in your every inner and outer motion. This is the supreme way because it is the highest secret and mystery and yet an inner movement progressively realisable by all. This is the deepest and most intimate truth of your real, your spiritual existence.’ ” (CWSA 19: 594)

12. b. “This absolute self–giving, this one–minded surrender is the devotion which the Gita makes the crown of its synthesis. All action and effort are by this devotion turned into an offering to the supreme and universal Godhead. ‘Whatever thou doest, whatever thou enjoyest, whatever thou sacrificest, whatever thou givest, whatever energy of tapasya, of the soul’s will or effort thou puttest forth, make it an offering unto Me.’ Here the least, the slightest circumstance of life, the most insignificant gift out of oneself or what one has, the smallest action assumes a divine significance and it becomes an acceptable offering to the Godhead who makes it a means for his possession of the soul and life of the God–lover.” (CWSA 19: 333)

13. a. “And yet its [Gita’s] secret of dynamic, and not only static, identity with the inner Presence, its highest mystery of absolute surrender to the Divine Guide, Lord and Inhabitant of our nature, is the central secret. This surrender is the indispensable means of the supramental change and, again, it is through the supramental change that the dynamic identity becomes possible.”

(CWSA 23: 95)

13. b. “The Gita does not speak expressly of the Divine Mother; it speaks always of surrender to the Purushottama—it mentions her only as the Para Prakriti who becomes the Jiva, i.e., who manifests the Divine in the multiplicity and through whom all these worlds are created by the Supreme and he himself descends as the Avatar.” (CWSA 29: 443)

XXXVII—Until Mankind Gives All to God, Never Shall There Be a Perfected Society

1. “The individual cannot be perfect until he has surrendered all he now calls himself to the divine Being. So also, until mankind gives all it has to God, never shall there be a perfected society.” (Thoughts and Aphorisms)

Sri Aurobindo writes here in a clear and definite way what I tried to express before: no perfection can be attained so long as the government of the Supreme Lord is not recognised and admitted everywhere and in all things.” (CWM 10: 305)

2. Vedanta realised is the only practicable basis for a communistic society. It is the kingdom of the saints dreamed of by Christianity, Islam and Puranic Hinduism. (Thoughts and Aphorisms)

As Sri Aurobindo tells us so well, individualism is a kind of self justified jealousy, the reign of each one for himself.

But the only true remedy is the exclusive and universal reign of the Supreme Lord, present and conscious in all beings, with a transitional government by those who are truly conscious of Him and entirely surrendered to His will.” (CWM 10: 304)

3. “Communal life must necessarily have a discipline so that the weaker are not bullied by the stronger; and this discipline must be respected by all those who want to live in that community.

But for the community to be happy, this discipline should be set by the most broad-minded person or persons, if possible the person or persons who are conscious of the Divine Presence and are surrendered to it.” (CWM 12: 381) (CWM 13: 165)

XXXVIII—The Supramental Yoga and Surrender

1. “The first word of the supramental Yoga is surrender; its last word also is surrender. It is by a will to give oneself to the eternal Divine, for lifting into the divine consciousness, for perfection, for transformation, that the Yoga begins; it is in the entire giving that it culminates; for it is only when the self-giving is complete that there comes the finality of the Yoga, the entire taking up into the supramental Divine, the perfection of the being, the transformation of the nature.” (CWSA 12: 367)

2. “It is at the high line where the surrender can become absolute that a divine gnostic consciousness commences and the first authentic and unconditioned workings of the supramental Nature.” (CWSA 12: 367)

3. “Therefore, when the Mother has put her force upon you or when you yourself have pulled the force upon you, this in you has always prevented it from doing its work in its own way. It has begun itself building according to the ideas of the mind or some demand, trying to make its own creation in its ‘own way’, by its own strength, its own Sadhana, its own Tapasya. There has never been any real surrender, any giving up of yourself freely and simply into the hands of the Divine Mother. And yet that is the only way to succeed in the Supramental Yoga. To be a Yogi, a Sannyasi, a Tapaswi is not the object here.” (CWSA 36: 367)

4. “The supramental creation, since it is to be a creation upon earth, must be not only an inner change but a physical and external manifestation also. And it is precisely for this part of the work, the most difficult of all, that surrender is most needful; for this reason, that it is the actual descent of the supramental Divine into Matter and the working of the Divine Presence and Power there that can alone make the physical and external change possible. Even the most powerful self-assertion of human will and endeavour is impotent to bring it about; as for egoistic insistence and vital revolt, they are, so long as they last, insuperable obstacles to the descent. Only a calm, pure and surrendered physical consciousness, full of the psychic aspiration, can be its field; this alone can make an effective opening of the material being to the Light and Power and the supramental change a thing actual and practicable. It is for this that we are here in the body, and it is for this that you and other sadhaks are in the Asram near us. But it is not by insistence on petty demands and satisfactions in the external field or on an outer nearness pleasing to the vital nature and its pride or desire that you can get the true relation with the Divine in this province. If you want the realisation there, it is the true nearness that you must seek, the descent and presence of the Mother in your physical consciousness, her constant inner touch in the physical being and its activities, her will and knowledge behind all its work and thought and movement and the ever present Ananda of that presence expelling all vital and physical separateness, craving and desire.” (CWSA 31: 162–163)

5. “The call and the aspiration are only first conditions [in the supramental’s Yoga]; there must be along with them and brought by their effective intensity an opening of all the being to the Divine and a total surrender.”

(CWSA 12: 169)

6. “The extreme difficulty of these two aims [to enter into the divine consciousness by merging into it the separative ego and to bring down the supramental consciousness on earth] has never been concealed from the sadhakas; on the contrary, difficulties and dangers have been overemphasised, rather than minimised. If still they choose and persist in this path, it is supposed that they are ready to risk everything, sacrifice everything, surrender everything in order to achieve this end or help towards its achievement.” (CWSA 29: 21)

7. “From these deductions it would seem that the most conclusive and obvious aspect and the one which will probably be the first to manifest—probably— will be the aspect of Power, rather than the aspect of Joy or of Truth. For a new race to be founded on earth, it would necessarily have to be protected from other earthly elements in order to be able to survive; and power is protection—not an artificial power, external and false, but the true strength, the triumphant Will. It is therefore not impossible to think that the supramental action, even before being an action of harmonisation, illumination, joy and beauty, might be an action of power, to serve as a protection. Naturally, for this action of power to be truly effective, it would have to be founded on Knowledge and Truth and Love and Harmony; but these things could manifest, visibly, little by little, when the ground, so to say, has been prepared by the action of a sovereign Will and Power.

But for the least of these things to be possible, there must first be a basis of perfect balance, the balance given by a total absence of egoism, a perfect surrender to the Supreme, the true purity: identification with the Supreme. Without this basis of perfect balance, the supramental power is dangerous, and one must on no account seek it or want to pull it down, for even in an infinitesimal quantity it is so powerful and so formidable that it can unbalance the entire system.” (CWM 9: 241)

8. “It is not only the central thought and will that have to acquiesce, but all the parts of our being must assent and surrender to the law of the spiritual Truth; all has to learn to obey the government of the conscious Divine Power in the members. … And yet the law of participation and the law of surrender are imperative; at each step of the transition the assent of the Purusha is needed and there must be too the consent of each part of the nature to the action of the higher power for its change. There must be then a conscious self–direction of the mental being in us towards this change, this substitution of Supernature for the old nature, this transcendence. The rule of conscious obedience to the higher truth of the spirit, the surrender of the whole being to the light and power that come from the Supernature, is a second condition which has to be accomplished slowly and with difficulty by the being itself before the supramental transformation can become at all possible.” (CWSA 22: 962–963)

9. “This Yoga accepts the value of cosmic existence and holds it to be a reality; its object is to enter into a higher Truth Consciousness or Divine Supramental Consciousness in which action and creation are the expression not of ignorance and imperfection, but of the Truth, the Light, the Divine Ananda. But for that, surrender of the mortal mind, life and body to that Higher Consciousness is indispensable, since it is too difficult for the mortal human being to pass by its own effort beyond mind to a supramental consciousness in which the dynamism is no longer mental but of quite another power. Only those who can accept the call to such a change should enter into this Yoga.” (CWSA 29: 447–448)

XXXIX—Surrender (A Sonnet by Sri Aurobindo)

Surrender

O Thou of whom I am the instrument,

O secret Spirit and Nature housed in me,

Let all my mortal being now be blent

In Thy still glory of divinity.

I have given my mind to be dug Thy channel mind,

I have offered up my will to be Thy will:

Let nothing of myself be left behind

In our union mystic and unutterable.

My heart shall throb with the world–beats of Thy love,

My body become Thy engine for earth–use;

In my nerves and veins Thy rapture’s streams shall move;

My thoughts shall be hounds of Light for Thy power to loose.

Keep only my soul to adore eternally

And meet Thee in each form and soul of Thee.” (CWSA 2: 611)

XL—Radha’s Prayer

1. “O Thou whom at first sight I knew for the Lord of my being and my God, receive my offering.

Thine are all my thoughts, all my emotions, all the sentiments of my heart, all my sensations, all the movements of my life, each cell of my body, each drop of my blood. I am absolutely and altogether Thine, Thine without reserve. What Thou wilt of me, that I shall be. Whether Thou choosest for me life or death, happiness or sorrow, pleasure or suffering, all that comes to me from Thee will be welcome. Each one of Thy gifts will be always for me a gift divine bringing with it the supreme Felicity.” (CWSA 32: 646) (CWM 15: 210)

2. “The Mother originally wrote ‘Radha’s Prayer’ in English on 12 January 1932 and rendered it into French the following day. Sri Aurobindo then translated the French version into English.

The Mother wrote this prayer for a disciple who was preparing to perform a dance about Radha. In a letter to the disciple the Mother wrote:

To complete what I told you yesterday about Radha’s dance I have noted this down as an indication of the thought and feeling Radha must have within her when she stands at the end in front of Krishna:

‘Every thought of my mind, every emotion of my heart, every movement of my being, every feeling and every sensation, each cell of my body, each drop of my blood, all, all is yours, yours absolutely, yours without reserve. You can decide my life or my death, my happiness or my sorrow, my pleasure or my pain; whatever you do with me, whatever comes to me from you will lead me to the Divine Rapture’.” (CWSA 32: 662)

3. “Radha is the symbol of loving consecration to the Divine.” (CWM 16: 173)

XLI—From the Mother’s ‘Prayers and Meditations’ on Surrender

December 3, 1912*

“Last night I had the experience of the effectivity of confident surrender to Thy guidance; when it is needful that something should be known, one knows it, and the more passive the mind to Thy illumination, the clearer and the more adequate is its expression.” (CWM 1: 9)

November 28, 1913

“…

And in the serenity of a perfect surrender, I bow to Thee in the light of the rising day.” (CWM 1: 37)

January 4, 1914

“… In any case, I do not struggle; and like a child in its mother’s arms, like a fervent disciple at the feet of his master, I trust myself to Thee and surrender to Thy guidance, sure of Thy victory. (CWM 1: 46)

March 8, 1914

“…Not often had I felt so strongly Thy divine power and Thy invincible light, and once again total was my confidence and unmixed my joyful surrender.”

(CWM 1: 92)

March 17, 1914

“When physical conditions are a little difficult and some discomfort follows, if one knows how to surrender completely before Thy will, caring little for life or death, health or illness, the integral being enters immediately into harmony with Thy law of love and life, and all physical indisposition ceases giving place to a calm well–being, deep and peaceful.” (CWM 1: 101)

March 20, 1914

“Thou art consciousness and light, Thou art peace in the depth of all things, the divine love that transfigures, the knowledge that triumphs over darkness. To feel Thee and aspire to Thee one should have emerged from the immense sea of the subconscient, one should have begun to crystallise, to grow distinct so as to know oneself and then give oneself as that alone which is its own master can do. And what effort and struggle it takes to attain this crystallisation, to emerge from the amorphous state of the environment; and how much more effort and struggle yet to give oneself, to surrender once the individuality has been formed.

Few beings consent willingly to make this effort; so life with its brutal unforeseen events obliges men to make it unintentionally, for they cannot do otherwise. And little by little Thy work is accomplished despite all obstacles.” (CWM 1: 104)

April 7, 1914

“… Now I seem to hear Thy voice: “Never hast thou known how to die integrally. Always something in thee has wanted to know, to witness, to understand. Surrender completely, learn how to disappear, break the last barrier that separates thee from me; accomplish unreservedly thy act of surrender.” (CWM 1: 120)

July 4, 1914

“O Sovereign Force, O victorious Power, Purity, Beauty, supreme Love, grant that this being in its integrality, this body in all its totality may draw near to Thee solemnly and offer to Thee in a complete and humble surrender this means of manifestation abandoned perfectly to Thy Will, if not perfectly ready for this realisation. . . .

With the calm and strong certitude that Thou wilt one day accomplish the expected miracle and manifest in its fullness Thy sublime splendour, we turn to Thee in a profound rapture, and silently implore Thee. . . .

Immensity, Infinitude, Wonder. . . . Thou alone art and Thou shinest resplendent in all things. The hour of Thy fulfilment is near. All Nature is ingathered in a solemn concentration.

Thou answerest her ardent call. (CWM 1: 192)

July 10, 1914

O Thou who eternally, immutably art, who consentest to Thy becoming in this world that Thou mayst bring into it a new Illumination, a new Impulsion, Thou art here, manifest Thyself more and more completely, always more perfectly; the instrument has given and gives itself to Thee with a fervent adhesion, a total surrender; Thou mayst reduce it to dust or transform it into a sun, it will resist nothing that is Thy Will. In this surrender lies its true strength and its true beatitude. (CWM 1: 197)

“…

Nothing will stop our impetus; nothing will tire our effort; and, resting upon Thee all our hopes and all our activities, strong in our complete surrender to Thy Supreme Will, we shall march on to the conquest of Thy integral manifestation with the calm certitude of victory over all that would oppose it.

Hail to Thee, Master of the world, who triumphest over all darkness.” (CWM 1: 208)

August 18, 1914

“…

In a most perfect surrender and a most entire trust I wait: Thy voice showing me Thy path. (CWM 1: 226)

August 24, 1914

“...

Receive the offerings of our ardent gratitude and our integral surrender.

…

On the threshold of this new field of a vaster and more conscious realisation, we bow before Thee, O Lord, in an integral surrender and adoration. We give ourselves to Thee without reservation.” (CWM 1: 229–230)

August 25, 1914

“O Lord, let Thy Will be done, Thy work be accomplished. Fortify our devotion, increase our surrender, give us light upon the path. We erect Thee within us as our supreme Master that Thou mayst become supreme Master of all the earth.

Our speech is still ignorant: enlighten it.

Our aspiration is still imperfect: purify it.

Our action is still powerless: make it effective.

O Lord, the earth groans and suffers; chaos has made this world its abode.

The darkness is so deep that Thou alone canst dispel it. Come, manifest Thyself, that Thy work may be accomplished. (CWM 1: 231)

September 1, 1914

O Mother Divine, with what fervour, what ardent love I came to Thee in Thy deepest consciousness, in Thy high status of sublime love and perfect felicity, and I nestled so close into Thy arms and loved Thee with so intense a love that I became altogether Thyself. (CWM 1: 238)

November 10, 1914

“O Lord, Thy Presence is settled within me like an unshakable rock; and the whole being exults in belonging to Thee without the least reserve, with a wide and complete surrender.” (CWM 1: 272)

December 4, 1914

“And I wait without impatience and without fear, for Thee to construct once again from the heart of the unfathomable depths the intellectual form which seems to Thee the most suitable for manifesting Thee in this instrument moulded out of surrender and ardent faith.” (CWM 1: 279)

January 17, 1915

“Now, Lord, things have changed. The time of rest and preparation is over. Thou hast willed that from the passive and contemplative servitor I was, I become an active and realising one; Thou hast willed that joyful acceptance be transformed into joyful battle, and that in a constant and heroic effort against everything which in the world opposes the accomplishment of Thy law in its purest and highest present expression, I find again the same peaceful and unchanging poise which one keeps in a surrender to Thy law as it is now being accomplished, that is, without entering into a direct struggle with all that opposes it, making the best of every circumstance and acting by contagion, example and slow infusion.”

(CWM 1: 290)

“O Lord, Thou knowest that I am surrendered to Thee and that my being adheres with a peaceful and deep joy to all that Thou givest it.” (CWM 1: 355)

“ ‘Thou hast made me know the supreme, the sublime joy of a perfect confidence, an absolute serenity, a surrender total and without reserve or colouring, free from effort or constraint….” (CWM 1: 375)

October 10, 1918

“O My beloved Lord, how sweet it is to think that it is for Thee and Thee alone that I act! It is at Thy service that I am; it is Thou who dost decide and ordain and set in motion, guide and accomplish the action. What peace, what tranquillity, what supreme delight come with the feeling and perception of this! For it is enough to be docile, plastic, surrendered, attentive, in order to let Thee act freely; no longer then are any errors or faults, any lack or insufficiency possible, for what Thou hast willed Thou doest and Thou doest it even as Thou hast willed it. . . .” (CWM 1: 376)

XLII—Absolute and Unreserved Self Surrender of the Mother

“The first time Sri Aurobindo happened to describe [the Mother’s] qualities, he said he had never seen anywhere a self surrender so absolute and unreserved. … This implies a complete obliteration of the past, erasing it with its virtues and faults. The Mother has referred to this in one of her Prayers and Meditations. [Prayer of April 3, given below] When she came here, she gave herself up to the Lord, Sri Aurobindo, with the candid simplicity of a child, after erasing from herself all her past, all her spiritual attainments, all the riches of her consciousness. Like a new born babe, she felt she possessed nothing, she was to learn everything right from the start, as if she had known or heard about nothing. … This capacity for an entire rejection of the past has been one of the powers of her spiritual consciousness and realization. It is not an easy thing for a human being to wash himself clean of all his past acquisitions, be it intellectual knowledge or the habits of the vital, not to speak of the body’s needs, and step forth in his nude purity. And yet this is the first and most important step in the spiritual discipline. The Mother has given us a living example of this. (Reminiscences, Nolini and Amrita, 1969, p81–82) (Glimpses of the Mother’s Life, p 136)

Prayers and Meditation

April 3, 1914

“It seems to me that I am being born to a new life and all the methods, the habits of the past can no longer be of any use. It seems to me that what I thought were results is nothing more than a preparation. I feel as though I have done nothing yet, as though I have not lived the spiritual life, only entered the path that leads to it, it seems to me that I know nothing, that I am incapable of formulating anything, that all experience is yet to begin. It is as though I were stripped of my entire past, of its errors as well as its conquests, as though all that has vanished and made room for a new–born child whose whole existence is yet to be lived, who has no Karma, no experience to learn from, but no error either which has to be set right. My head is empty of all knowledge and all certitude, but also of all vain thought. I feel that if I learn how to surrender without any resistance to this state, if I do not try to know or understand, if I consent to be completely like an ignorant and candid child, some new possibility will open before me. I know that I must now definitively give myself up and be like an absolutely blank page on which Thy thought, Thy will, O Lord, can be inscribed freely without danger of any deformation.

An immense gratitude rises from my heart, it seems to me that I have at last reached the threshold I sought so much. (CWM 1: 116) (Prayers and Meditations)

Myself and My Creed

“I belong to no nation, no civilisation, no society, no race, but to the Divine.

I obey no master, no ruler, no law, no social convention, but the Divine.

To Him I have surrendered all, will, life and self; for Him I am ready to give all my blood, drop by drop, if such is His Will, with complete joy; and nothing in His service can be sacrifice, for all is perfect delight.” (CWM 2: 170) (CWM 13: 38)

XLIII—Sri Aurobindo’s Surrender

1. “… if one wanted the Divine, the Divine himself would take up the purifying of the heart and develop the sadhana and give the necessary experiences; ... if one has trust and confidence in the Divine and the will to surrender. For such a taking up involves one's putting oneself in the hands of the Divine rather than relying on one's own efforts alone and this implies one's putting one's trust and confidence in the Divine and a progressive self–giving. It is in fact the principle of sadhana that I myself followed and it is the central process of yoga as I envisage it. It is, I suppose, what Sri Ramakrishna meant by the method of the baby–cat in his image.” (CWSA 29: 70)

2. “He [Sri Aurobindo] used the third person because he wished the piece to appear as an impersonal statement from an anonymous ‘authoritative source’.”

(CWSA 36: 557)

3. “He [Sri Aurobindo] started his sadhana at Baroda in 1904 on his own account after learning from a friend the ordinary formula of Pranayama. Afterwards the only help he received was from the Maharashtrian Yogi, Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, who instructed him how to reach complete silence of the mind and immobility of the whole consciousness. This Sri Aurobindo was able to achieve in three days with the result of lasting and massive spiritual realisations opening to him the larger ways of Yoga. Lele finally told him to put himself entirely into the hands of the Divine within and move only as he was moved and then he would need no instructions either from Lele himself or anyone else. This henceforward became the whole foundation and principle of Sri Aurobindo’s sadhana. From that time onward (the beginning of 1909) and through many years of intensive experience at Pondicherry he underwent no spiritual influence from outside." (CWSA 36: 91)

4. “In my own case I owe the first decisive turn of my inner life to one who was infinitely inferior to me in intellect, education and capacity and by no means spiritually perfect or supreme; but, having seen a Power behind him and decided to turn there for help, I gave myself entirely into his hands and followed with an automatic passivity the guidance. He himself was astonished and said to others that he had never met anyone before who could surrender himself so absolutely and without reserve or question to the guidance of the helper. The result was a series of transmuting experiences of such a radical character that he was unable to follow and had to tell me to give myself up in future to the Guide within with the same completeness of surrender as I had shown to the human channel.”

(CWSA 35: 242)

5. “The final upshot was that he [Lele] was made by a Voice within him to hand me [Sri Aurobindo] over to the Divine within me enjoining an absolute surrender to its will, a principle or rather a seed–force to which I kept unswervingly and increasingly till it led me through all the mazes of an incalculable Yogic development bound by no single rule or system or dogma or Shastra to where and what I am now and towards what shall be hereafter." (CWSA 35: 240)

XLIV—In Integral Yoga We Surrender to the Divine Mother

[In the Integral Yoga, one has to surrender to the Divine Mother, our sweet Mother of Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Sri Aurobindo had accepted that he refers to our Divine Mother in the book ‘The Mother’. In this section we give all the quotations which are specific to the Divine Mother.]

1. “Q: Do you not refer to the Mother (our Mother) in your book The Mother?

A: Yes.

Q: Is she not the ‘Individual’ Divine Mother who has embodied ‘the power of these two vaster ways of her existence’— Transcendent and Universal?

A: Yes.

Q: Has she not descended here (amongst us) into the Darkness and Falsehood and Error and Death in her deep and great love for us?

A: Yes.” (CWSA 32: 31)

2. a. “Q: There are many who hold the view that she was human but now embodies the Divine Mother and her Prayers, they say, explain this view. But to my mental conception, to my psychic feeling, she is the Divine Mother who has consented to put on herself the cloak of obscurity and suffering and ignorance so that she can effectively lead us—human beings—to Knowledge and Bliss and Ananda and to Him.

A: The Divine puts on an appearance of humanity, assumes the outward human nature in order to tread the path and show it to human beings, but does not cease to be the Divine. It is a manifestation that takes place, a manifestation of a growing divine consciousness, not human turning into divine. The Mother was inwardly above the human even in childhood, so the view held by ‘many’ is erroneous.” (CWSA 32: 31–32)

2. b. “The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many–sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates. But something of her ways can be seen and felt through her embodiments and the more seizable because more defined and limited temperament and action of the goddess forms in whom she consents to be manifest to her creatures.” (CWSA 32: 14)

3. “This yoga insists on both the aspects;* the surrender to the Divine Mother is essential, for without it there is no fulfilment of the object of the yoga.” (CWSA 29: 443)

*[vedantic tradition which leans entirely on the Ishwara aspect of the Divine; … the Tantric tradition leans on the Shakti or Ishwari aspect and makes all depend on the Divine Mother]

4. a. “What is known as Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga is the joint creation of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother; they are now completely identified—the sadhana in the Asram and all arrangement is done directly by the Mother, Sri Aurobindo supports her from behind. All who come here for practising Yoga have to surrender themselves to the Mother who helps them always and builds up their spiritual life.” (CWSA 32: 82)

4. b. “To be turned to the Mother is all right and call to her—but more is needed; for that is only the first thing needed. There must also be a complete self-giving and surrender.” (CWSA 32: 393)

4. c. “To be entirely sincere means to desire the divine Truth only, to surrender yourself more and more to the Divine Mother, to reject all personal demand and desire other than this one aspiration, to offer every action in life to the Divine and do it as the work given without bringing in the ego. This is the basis of the divine life.”

(CWSA 29: 51)

4. d. “No surrender to the psychic being is demanded, the surrender is to the Divine. One approaches the Divine through faith; concrete experience comes as a result of sadhana.” (CWSA 29: 77)

5. “Surrender means to be entirely in the Mother’s hands, and not to resist in any way by egoism or otherwise her Light, Knowledge, Will, the working of her Force, etc.” (CWSA 29: 67)

6. a. “I had said that the human vital does not like to be controlled or dominated by another and I said that also was a reason why sadhaks find it difficult to surrender to the Mother. For the vital wants to affirm its own ideas, impulses, desires, preferences and to do what it likes, it does not want to feel another force than that of its own nature leading or driving it;  but surrender to the Mother means that it must give up all these personal things and allow her Force to guide and drive it in the ways of a higher Truth which are not its own ways: so it (vital) resists, does not want to be dominated by the Truth Light and the Mother’s Force, insists on its own independence and refuses to surrender.” (CWSA 32: 147–148)

6. b. “You have to make your vital single-pointed towards the Mother, peaceful, without demands and desires, aspiring only for surrender and to be one with the Mother’s consciousness and filled with her.” (CWSA 32: 146)

7. “Surrender is from within, opening and giving mind, vital, physical, all to the Mother for her to take them as her own and recreate them in their true being which is a portion of the Divine; all the rest follows as a consequence. It would not then be necessary to ask her word and order outwardly in every detail; the being would feel and act according to her will; her sanction would be sought but as the seal of that inner unity, receptiveness of her will and obedience.”

(CWSA 32: 347)

8. “If the psychic manifests, it will not ask you to surrender to it, but to surrender to the Mother.”

(CWSA 32: 147) (CWSA 29: 78)

9. “Your psychic being is capable of giving itself to the Mother and living and growing in the Truth; but your lower vital being has been full of attachments and sanskaras and an impure movement of desire and your external physical mind was not able to shake off its ignorant ideas and habits and open to the Truth.” (CWSA 32: 142)

10. “There is not much spiritual meaning in keeping open to the Mother if you withhold your surrender. Self–giving or surrender is demanded of those who practice this Yoga, because without such a progressive surrender of the being it is quite impossible to get anywhere near the goal. To keep open means to call in her Force to work in you, and if you do not surrender to it, it amounts to not allowing the Force to work in you at all or else only on condition that it will work in the way you want and not in its own way which is the way of the Divine Truth. A suggestion of this kind is usually made by some adverse Power or by some egoistic element of the mind or vital … The soul, the true being, on the contrary, turns towards the Divine and is not only willing but eager and happy to surrender.” (CWSA 32: 140–141)

11. “There has never been here a real surrender, any giving up of yourself freely and simply into the hands of the Divine Mother. And yet that is the only way to succeed in the supramental Yoga. To be a Yogi, a Sannyasi, a Tapaswi is not the object here. The object is transformation, and the transformation can only be done by a force infinitely greater than your own; it can only be done by being truly like a child in the hands of the Divine Mother.”  (CWSA 32: 143)

12. a. “Everyone who is turned to the Mother is doing my Yoga. It is a great mistake to suppose that one can ‘do’ the Purna Yoga–i.e. carry out and fulfil all the sides of the Yoga by one’s own effort. No human being can do that. What one has to do is to put oneself in the Mother’s hands and open oneself to her by service, by bhakti, by aspiration; then the Mother by her light and force works in him so that the sadhana is done.” (CWSA 32: 151–152)

12. b. “All has to be done by the working of the Mother’s force aided by your aspiration, devotion and surrender.” (CWSA 32: 196)

12. c. “The Mother ‘manifesting’ in you is an ambiguous expression—it is the Mother’s consciousness, the higher consciousness with the light, strength that has to come down in each sadhak, with the Mother’s presence always there. Along with this experience there must have been an attempt at surrender or an initial answer in the lower vital, but as a reaction the nervous disturbance came back—the old lower vital nature not being ready to give up possession reasserted its disturbances which were about to abate.” (CWSA 32: 287)

13. “The spiritual seeker does not turn aside from the pursuit of realisation to mere idealising; not to idealise, but to realise the Divine Truth is always his aim, either beyond or in life also―and in the latter case it is necessary to transform mind and life which cannot be done without surrender to the action of the Divine Force, the Mother.” (CWSA 32: 141)

14. “To seek after the Impersonal is the way of those who want to withdraw from life, but usually they try by their own effort and not by an opening of themselves to a superior Power or by the way of surrender; for the Impersonal is not something that guides or helps, but something to be attained and it leaves each man to attain it according to the way and capacity of his nature.  On the other hand, by an opening and surrender to the Mother one can realise the Impersonal and every other aspect of Truth also.” (CWSA 32: 141)

15. a. “There is only one way if you cannot exert your will—it is to call the Force; even the call only with the mind or the mental word is better than being extremely passive and submitted to the attack,—for although it may not succeed instantaneously, the mental call even ends by bringing the Force and opening up the consciousness again. For everything depends upon that.”

(CWSA 31: 721)

15. b. “It seems to me that the more we communicate our thoughts to her, the more we open ourselves to her forces and the more effective becomes our surrender to her. Am I right?

Yes, quite right.” (CWSA 32: 169)

16.  a. “Q: What is real opening?

A: It is the receptivity to the Mother’s presence and her forces.” (CWSA 32: 150)

16.  b. “You have only to aspire, to keep yourself open to the Mother, to reject all that is contrary to her will and to let her work in you–doing also all your work for her and in faith that it is through her force that you can do it. If you remain open in this way the knowledge and realisation will come to you in due course.” (CWSA 32: 154)

16.  c. “These [calling the Mother, praying to her] are acts of the mind; openness is a state of consciousness which keeps it turned to the Mother, free from other movements expecting and able to receive what may come from the Divine.” (CWSA 29: 105)

16. d. “By remaining psychically open to the Mother, all that is necessary for work or sadhana develops progressively, that is one of the chief secrets, the central secret of the sadhana.” (CWSA 32: 154)

16. e. “But it is not by upadeśa that this sadhana is given or carried on.  It is only those who are capable by aspiration and meditation on the Mother to open and receive her action and working within that can succeed in this Yoga.” (CWSA 32: 136)

16. f. Q:  If a sadhak even after a long time cannot open himself fully and constantly to the Mother owing to great obstacles in his nature, will he die in the middle and not be accepted by the Mother?

A:  There is no meaning in such a question. Those who follow the Yoga here are accepted by the Mother―for  ‘accepted’  means  ‘admitted into the Yoga, accepted as disciples’.  But the progress in the Yoga and the siddhi in the Yoga depend on the degree to which there is the opening.” (CWSA 32: 155)

16. g. “To remain open to the Mother is to remain always quiet and happy and confident―not restless, not grieving or despondent, to let her force work in you, guide you, give you knowledge, give you peace and Ananda.  If you cannot keep yourself open, then aspire constantly but quietly that you may be open.” (CWSA 32: 151)

16. h. “Whether one feels the Mother’s love or not depends on whether one is open to it or not. It does not depend on physical nearness.” (CWSA 32: 507)

16. i. “Keep yourself open to [the Mother] her and feel with your heart,–the inner heart, not the surface vital desire, but the heart of the true emotion,–there you are more likely to find her and be always near her in yourself and receive what constantly she is working to give you.” (CWSA 32: 489)

16. j. “Keep yourself open to the Mother in the right attitude of surrender and you will receive from her gradually all that you need within you.” (CWSA 32: 154)

k. “It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come.” (CWSA 29: 20)

l. “Surrender is the best way of opening; but aspiration and quietness can do it up to a certain point so long as there is not the surrender.” (CWSA 29: 106)

17. [One is not Open to the Mother when]

17. a. “To be open is simply to be so turned to the Mother that her Force can work in you without anything refusing or obstructing her action.  If the mind is shut up in its own ideas and refuses to allow her to bring in the Light and the Truth, if the vital clings to its desires and does not admit the true initiative and impulsions that the Mother's power brings, if the physical is shut up in its desires, habits and inertia and does not allow the Light and Force to enter in it and work, then one is not open.” (CWSA 32: 151)

17. b. “Let the power of the Mother work in you, but be careful to avoid any mixture or substitution, in its place, of either a magnified ego–working or a force of Ignorance presenting itself as Truth.  Aspire especially for the elimination of all obscurity and unconsciousness in the nature.” (CWSA 32: 136)

17. c. “It is not possible to be entirely open all at once in all the movements, but there must be a central opening in each part and a dominant aspiration or will in each part (not in the mind alone) to admit only the Mother's ‘workings’, the rest will then be progressively done.” (CWSA 32: 151)

18.–How to Open to the Mother.

18. a. “Q: What does “opening” mean?  Is it: "not to keep anything secret from the Mother"?

A:  That is the first step towards opening.” (CWSA 32: 150–151)

18. b. “Q:  How does one “open”?

A:  By faith and surrender in a quiet mind.”

(CWSA 32: 151)

18. c. “It is by confidence in the Mother that the opening needed will come when your consciousness is ready. … it is not by meditation alone that what is needed will come. It is by faith and openness to the Mother.”

(CWSA 29: 109)

18. d. “The principal thing in the Yoga is to trust in the Divine Grace at every step, to direct the thought continually to the Divine and to offer oneself till the being opens and the Mother's force can be felt working in the Adhara.” (CWSA 32: 166)

18. e. “It is by the constant remembrance that the being is prepared for the full opening.  By the opening of the heart the Mother's presence begins to be felt and by the opening to her Power above the Force of the higher consciousness comes down into the body and works there to change the whole nature.” (CWSA 32:167)

18. f. “Q:  Is our inner being already open to the Mother or does it open in the course of sadhana?

A:  The inner being does not open except by sadhana, or by some psychic touch on the life.” (CWSA 32: 162)

18. g. “Openness is not always complete from the first―a part of the being opens, other parts of the consciousness remain still closed or half open only―one has to aspire till all is open.  Even with the best and most powerful sadhak the full opening takes time; nor is there anyone who has been able to abandon everything at once without any struggle. There is no reason to feel therefore that if you call you will not be heard―the Mother knows the difficulties of human nature and will help you through.  Persevere always, call always and then after each difficulty there will be a progress.” (CWSA 32: 156–157)

18. h. “Yes, it is by quieting the mind that you will become able to call the Mother and open to her.  The soothing effect was a touch from the psychic―one of the touches that prepare the opening of the psychic with its gift of inner peace, love and joy.” (CWSA 32: 163)

18. i. “No, it is not enough to be in the Asram—one has to open to the Mother and put away the mud which one was playing with in the world.” (CWSA 32: 156)

19. Signs of a real opening to the Mother

19. a. “Q:  What are the signs of a real opening to the Mother?

A:  That shows itself at once―when you feel the divine peace, equality, wideness, light, Ananda, Knowledge, strength, when aware of the Mother's nearness or presence or the working of her Force, etc., etc.  If any of these things are felt, it is the opening―the more are felt, the more complete the opening.” (CWSA 32: 150)

19.b. “Q:  How shall I know that I am opening to the Mother and not to other forces?

A:  You have to be vigilant and see that there is no movement of disturbance, desire, ego.” (CWSA 32: 150)

20. a. “I wrote so because the action of the sadhana does not depend on the Mother alone, but also on the attitude, will and openness of the sadhak. That is a well-known fact of the spiritual life which everybody is supposed to know. The Mother’s Force can do everything only when there is a real and true and complete surrender and openness to the Mother. All these things have been written again and again and it ought not to be necessary to repeat it to each one as if it were a new and unheard-of idea.” (CWSA 32: 218–219)

20. b. “It is certain that one’s own effort is necessary, though one cannot do the sadhana by one’s own effort alone. The Mother’s Force is needed, but the sadhak must open himself to it, reject what opposes the Force, put his full sincerity, aspiration, will power into the sadhana. It is only when all is open and there is the full surrender that the Divine Power takes up the sadhana so entirely that personal effort is no longer necessary. But that cannot happen at an early stage—one must go on opening oneself, consecrating oneself, making the surrender till that later stage comes. This has been explained in the book The Mother.” (CWSA 32: 220)

21. a. “To walk through life armoured against all fear, peril and disaster, only two things are needed, two that go always together—the Grace of the Divine Mother and on your side an inner state made up of faith, sincerity and surrender. Let your faith be pure, candid and perfect. An egoistic faith in the mental and vital being tainted by ambition, pride, vanity, mental arrogance, vital self–will, personal demand, desire for the petty satisfactions of the lower nature is a low and smoke–obscured flame that cannot burn upwards to heaven. Regard your life as given you only for the divine work and to help in the divine manifestation. Desire nothing but the purity, force, light, wideness, calm, Ananda of the divine consciousness and its insistence to transform and perfect your mind, life and body. Ask for nothing but the divine, spiritual and supramental Truth, its realisation on earth and in you and in all who are called and chosen and the conditions needed for its creation and its victory over all opposing forces.

Let your sincerity and surrender be genuine and entire. When you give yourself, give completely, without demand, without condition, without reservation so that all in you shall belong to the Divine Mother and nothing be left to the ego or given to any other power.

The more complete your faith, sincerity and surrender, the more will grace and protection be with you. And when the grace and protection of the Divine Mother are with you, what is there that can touch you or whom need you fear? A little of it even will carry you through all difficulties, obstacles and dangers; surrounded by its full presence you can go securely on your way because it is hers, careless of all menace, unaffected by any hostility however powerful, whether from this world or from worlds invisible. Its touch can turn difficulties into opportunities, failure into success and weakness into unfaltering strength. For the grace of the Divine Mother is the sanction of the Supreme and now or tomorrow its effect is sure, a thing decreed, inevitable and irresistible.” (CWSA 32: 8–9)

21. b. “… ‘faith, sincerity and surrender’. These are the required conditions. And afterwards, he describes what kind of faith, what kind of sincerity and what kind of surrender. These are the required conditions so that her victory may be won over the hostile forces—the conditions on your side. Her conditions—I suppose she fulfils them spontaneously—are to respond to the aspiration, to have power, clear sightedness, knowledge and will. That is obvious. So, one has to give her a field for her work and conditions under which she may work. And these conditions are: faith, sincerity and surrender—a pure, unmixed faith, a perfect, integral sincerity and an unconditional surrender. This is what he has described for you.” (CWM 15: 319)

22. “Surrender cannot be made at once–it is not easy; for there is much in the being that resists. But one must have the will to surrender. It is the same with becoming an instrument. If one has the will and calls on the Mother and opens oneself as much as possible to her, then gradually these things develop in the nature.”

(CWSA 29: 69)

23. “I wanted to stress two things, that is why I have written so much about them.

(1) There must be no tamasic (inert, passive) surrender to the Mother—for that will bring as its reaction a passive inert helplessness before the lower or hostile forces or suggestions, an unresisting or helplessly resisting acquiescence or sufferance of these inroads. A passive condition can bring much peace, quietude, joy even, but it disperses the being instead of concentrating it in wideness and the will becomes atrophied. Surrender must be luminous, active, a willed offering to the Mother and reception of her Force and support to its workings, at the same time a strong vigilant will to reject all that is not hers. Too many sadhaks cry before the attacks of their lower nature, ‘I am helpless, I cannot react, it comes and makes me do what it wants.’ This is a wrong passivity.

(2) One must not get into the habit of a state in which one is always in a struggle with suggestions and forces. People very easily fall into this and make it a habit—the vital part takes a sort of glowing satisfaction in crying out, ‘I am attacked, overborne, suffering, miserable! How tragic is my fate! Why do you not help, O Divine? There is no help, nor divine Grace? I am left to my misery and downfall etc. etc. etc.’ I do not want one more sadhak to fall into this condition—that is why I am calling Halt! before you get entangled in this kind of habit of constant struggle. It is what these forces want—to make you feel helpless, defeated, overborne. You must not allow it.” (CWSA 29: 79–80)

24. a. “As to the obstacles, you should not do anything to call them up or increase their intensity or take pleasure in them. If they come of themselves, you have to surrender your being to the Mother and call in the Light and the psychic being to remove them.” (CWSA 31: 743)

24. b. “You are always expecting the Mother to do it [remove vital dissatisfaction and revolt]—and here again the laziness and tamas come in—it is the spirit of tamasic surrender. If the Mother puts you back into a good condition, your vital pulls you down again. How is that to stop so long as you say Yes to the vital and accept its discouragement and restlessness and anguish and the rest of it as your own? Detachment is absolutely necessary.” (CWSA 29: 80)

24. c. “When I do any work for myself or do any work as my own, I get tired. But my mind realises now that this tiredness comes because I have not offered the work to my Divine Parents.

If there is the full surrender in the work and you feel it is the Mother’s and that the Mother’s force is working in you, then fatigue does not come.” (CWSA 32: 241)

25. a. “This morning I sent a letter to the Mother through X, but I have received no reply. Have I done something wrong? Waiting for a word from her I am suffering greatly.

The Mother replied to you through X that you could take the rest you wanted—at any rate she told him to tell you that; I hope he did so.

Feelings of this kind ought to be rejected always and there is nothing else to be done with them. The relation with the Divine, the relation with the Mother must be one of love, faith, trust, confidence, surrender—any other relation of the vital ordinary kind brings reactions contrary to the sadhana,— desire, egoistic abhimāna, demand, revolt and all the disturbance of rajasic human nature from which it is the object of the sadhana to escape.” (CWSA 32: 450–451)

25. b. “If you insist on going, the Mother cannot say no, as it is only with your own will that we can keep you here. Your difficulty only comes because you cannot recognise that whatever the Mother arranges for you is out of desire for your good and in love for you. This is because you have your own ideas and preferences and if she does something contrary to that you think she does not love you. The Mother’s love is always there, but it is through confidence and surrender that you can feel it. You need to recover your health and strength and we wanted you to do the necessary things for that for a sufficiently long time—food, rest, treatment with the Mother’s force behind all that to make it successful. But a full confidence in the Mother and acceptance of her decisions and her guidance is necessary; if you have and keep that, then you can recover your strength and capacity for work and progress in Yoga.” (CWSA 32: 368–369)

26. “Consecration means offering and making sacred to the Mother so that the whole vital nature may belong to her and not to the lower nature.” (CWSA 31: 113)

27. a. “There are two main things to be secured as the foundations of sadhana–the opening of the psychic being and the realisation of the Self above. For the opening of the psychic being, concentration on the Mother and self–offering to her are the direct way. The growth of Bhakti which you feel is the first sign of the psychic development. A sense of the Mother’s presence or force or the remembrance of her supporting and strengthing you is the next sign.” (CWSA 30: 321)

27. b. “The power of experience is not gone–but what is most important now is to develop the psychic condition of surrender, devotion, love and cheerful confidence in the Mother, an un–shaken faith and a constant inner closeness, and also to bring down from above the peace, wideness, purity etc. of the higher Self which is that of the Mother’s consciousness. It is these things that are the basis of the siddhi in this Yoga–other experiences are only a help, not the basis.” (CWSA 29: 77)

27. c. “When I am alone I feel a sweet flow of love for the Mother and surrender to her welling out from my heart. But when I am in her physical presence I do not feel this love. Why does this happen?

It is when you live in the psychic that there is this feeling—but the psychic commands at present only a part of the mind and vital—it does not yet control the most external parts, that is why you do not feel it when in the Mother’s physical presence.” (CWSA 32: 186–187)

28. a. “There is another greater step to be taken after the surrender of our instrumental ego to the Divine Shakti. It is not enough to know her as the one Cosmic Force that moves us and all creatures on the planes of mind, life and matter; for this is the lower Nature and, although the Divine Knowledge, Light, Power are there concealed and at work in this Ignorance and can break partly its veil and manifest something of their true character or descend from above and uplift these inferior workings, yet, even if we realise the One in a spiritualised mind, a spiritualised life movement, a spiritualised body-consciousness, an imperfection remains in the dynamic parts. There is a stumbling response to the Supreme Power, a veil over the face of the Divine, a constant mixture of the Ignorance. It is only when we open to the Divine Shakti in the truth of her Force which transcends this lower Prakriti that we can be perfect instruments of her power and knowledge.” (CWSA 23: 251)

28. b. “It is the same with the truth about the instrument. It is true that each being is an instrument of the cosmic Shakti, therefore of the Mother. But the aim of the sadhana is to become a conscious and perfect instrument instead of one that is unconscious and therefore imperfect. You can be a conscious and perfect instrument only when you are no longer acting in obedience to the ignorant push of the lower nature, but in surrender to the Mother and aware of her higher Force acting within you. So here too your intuition was perfectly true.” (CWSA 32: 243)

28. d. “The body as well as all else came from the Mother and has to be surrendered to her as an instrument. That is all that is needed.” (CWSA 32: 146)

29. “There are two ways of doing Yoga, one by knowledge and one’s own efforts, the other by reliance on the Mother. In the last way one has to offer one’s mind and heart and all to the Mother for her Force to work on it, call her in all difficulties, have faith and bhakti. At first it takes time, often a long time, for the consciousness to be prepared in this way and during that time many difficulties can come up, but if one perseveres a time comes when all is ready, the Mother’s Force opens the consciousness fully to the Divine, then all that must develop develops within, spiritual experience comes and with it the knowledge and union with the Divine." (CWSA 32: 200)

30. To get rid of this allegiance to Prakriti is the negative side of the development; but one must take a step further and have the positive side of being surrendered to the Divine Mother

“Ah, it is probably someone who wrote to him saying that he wanted his Purusha to be completely free from allegiance to Prakriti. So he answered: No, that’s not enough; if you free it, it is only half the work; your allegiance must be there, but instead of being related to Prakriti, it must exist for the Divine Mother. And then later he explains the difference. There is an entire passage there in which he says that the Divine Mother should not be identified with Prakriti. Naturally there is something of the Divine Mother there, because something of the Divine Mother is behind everything. But one must not think that Prakriti is the Divine Mother.

(Nolini) It is the negative and positive side—as Tara asked—of allegiance to Prakriti.

Allegiance to Prakriti, yes, it’s true. To get rid of this allegiance to Prakriti is the negative side of the development; one frees himself from his allegiance to Prakriti, but one must take a step further and have the positive side of being surrendered to the Divine Mother.” (CWM 7: 204)

XLV—Surrender to the Shakti Is a Form of Real Self–surrender to the Divine

1. “And equally when we first become aware of the infinite Shakti above us or around or in us, the impulse of the egoistic sense in us is to lay hold on it and use this increased might for our egoistic purpose. This is a most dangerous thing, … The one remedy is to still the egoistic claim of whatever kind, to lessen persistently the personal effort and individual straining which even the sattwic ego cannot avoid and instead of laying hold on the Shakti and using it for its purpose rather to let the Shakti lay hold on us and use us for the divine purpose. This cannot be done perfectly at once—nor can it be done safely if it is only the lower form of the universal energy of which we are aware, for then, as has already been said, there must be some other control, either of the mental Purusha or from above,—but still it is the aim which we must have before us and which can be wholly carried out when we become insistently aware of the highest spiritual presence and form of the divine Shakti. This surrender too of the whole action of the individual self to the Shakti is in fact a form of real self–surrender to the Divine.” (CWSA 24: 766–767)

XLVI—Other Quotations on Surrender

“Three are the words that sum up the first state of the Yoga of devotion, faith, worship, obedience.

Three are the words that sum up the second state of the Yoga of devotion, adoration, delight, self-giving.

Three are the words that sum up the supreme state of the Yoga of devotion, love, ecstasy, surrender.”

(CWSA 12: 348)

“Discipline is indispensable to progress. It is only when one imposes a rigorous and enlightened discipline on oneself that one can be free from the discipline of others.

The supreme discipline is integral surrender to the Divine and to allow nothing else either in one’s feelings or in one’s activities. Nothing should ever be omitted from this surrender—that is the supreme and most rigorous discipline.” (CWM 12: 381)

“There is one thing especially in which creeds and churches surrender themselves to the devil, and that is in their anathemas [something or someone that one vehemently dislikes or denouncing a doctrine]. When the priest chants Anathema Maranatha [a curse], then I see a devil worshipper praying.” (CWSA 12: 486)

“Victory in this effort depends upon the sincerity within you, the purity of your aspiration, the burning core of your faith, the absoluteness of your will and surrender[.]”(CWSA 12: 373)

“It is supposed that in the Kaliyuga this [the Vedic Rishis accepted plenty & fullness of physical, vital & mental being, power & joy as the pratistha or foundation of immortality & did not reject it as an obstacle to salvation.1] is no longer possible, or possible only by direct self-surrender to the Supreme Deity. Therefore the complexity of the Vedic system has been removed from the domain of our religious practice and in its place there has been increasingly substituted the worship of the Supreme Deity through Love.” (CWSA 14: 36)

“By this conscious surrender of mind, life and senses to the Master of our senses, life and mind who alone really governs their action, by this turning of the cosmic existence into a passive reflection of the eternal being and a faithful reproductor of the nature of the Eternal we may hope to know and through knowledge to rise into that which is superconscient to us; we shall enter into the Silence that is master of an eternal, infinite, free and all-blissful activity.” (CWSA 18: 84)

“The Sachchidananda consciousness may be transcendent of the universe and aloof from it, and to this state of distant Bliss the path is equal indifference; it is the path of the ascetic. Or the Sachchidananda consciousness may be at once transcendent and universal; and to this state of present and all-embracing Bliss the path is surrender and loss of the ego in the universal and possession of an all-pervading equal delight; it is the path of the ancient Vedic sages.” (CWSA 21: 117–118)

“And in fact the claim of our being upon the Divine is fulfilled absolutely only then when it ceases at all to be a claim and is instead a fulfilment of the Divine through the individual, when we are satisfied with that alone, when we are content with the delight of oneness in being, content to leave the supreme Self and Master of existence to do whatever is the will of his absolute wisdom and knowledge through our more and more perfected Nature. This is the sense of the self–surrender of the individual self to the Divine,  ātma-samarpaṇa. It does not exclude a will for the delight of oneness, for participation in the divine consciousness, wisdom, knowledge, light, power, perfection, for the satisfaction of the divine fulfilment in us, but the will, the aspiration is ours because it is his will in us. At first, while there is still insistence on our own personality, it only reflects that, but becomes more and more indistinguishable from it, less personal and eventually it loses all shade of separateness, because the will in us has grown identical with the divine Tapas, the action of the divine Shakti.” (CWSA 24: 766)

“The deepest heart, the inmost essence of religion, apart from its outward machinery of creed, cult, ceremony and symbol, is the search for God and the finding of God. Its aspiration is to discover the Infinite, the Absolute, the One, the Divine, who is all these things and yet no abstraction but a Being. Its work is a sincere living out of the true and intimate relations between man and God, relations of unity, relations of difference, relations of an illuminated knowledge, an ecstatic love and delight, an absolute surrender and service, a casting of every part of our existence out of its normal status into an uprush of man towards the Divine and a descent of the Divine into man. ... The surrender to God is the surrender of the whole being to a suprarational light, will, power and love and his service takes no account of the compromises with life which the practical reason of man uses as the best part of its method in the ordinary conduct of mundane existence.” (CWSA 25: 131–132)

“It is quite true that the surrender and the consequent transformation of the whole being is the aim of the Yoga—the body is not excluded, but at the same time this part of the endeavour is the most difficult and doubtful—the rest, though not facile, is comparatively less difficult to accomplish.” (CWSA 28: 305)

“As for surrender, you already have it initially in your will to serve for the sake of service without claiming reward or success and without attachment to wealth or fame. If you extend that attitude into your whole sadhana, then realisation is sure. In any case, you should throw away all obsession of the sense of failure or the impossibility of success in your sadhana.” (CWSA 28: 336)

“It is not by ‘thinking out’ the entire reality, but by a change of consciousness that one can pass from the ignorance to the Knowledge—the Knowledge by which we become what we know. To pass from the external to a direct and intimate inner consciousness; to widen consciousness out of the limits of the ego and the body; to heighten it by an inner will and aspiration and opening to the Light till it passes in its ascent beyond Mind; to bring down a descent of the supramental Divine through self-giving and surrender with a consequent transformation of mind, life and body—this is the integral way to the Truth.1 It is this that we call the Truth here and aim at in our Yoga.” (CWSA 28: 355)

“These questions and the speculations to which they have given rise have no indispensable connection with the spiritual life. There what matters is the contact with Krishna and the growth towards the Krishna consciousness, the presence, the spiritual relation, the union in the soul and, till that is reached, the aspiration, the growth in bhakti and whatever illumination one can get on the way. To one who has had these things, lived in the presence, heard the voice, known Krishna as Friend or Lover, Guide, Teacher, Master or, still more, has had his whole consciousness changed by the contact, or felt the presence within him, all such questions have only an outer and superficial interest. So also, to one who has had contact with the inner Brindavan and the lila of the Gopis, made the surrender and undergone the spell of the joy and the beauty or even only turned to the sound of the flute, the rest hardly matters. But from another point of view, if one can accept the historical reality of the incarnation, there is this great spiritual gain that one has a point d’appui for a more concrete realisation in the conviction that once at least the Divine has visibly touched the earth, made the complete manifestation possible, made it possible for the divine supernature to descend into this evolving but still very imperfect terrestrial nature.” (CWSA 28: 484)

“The goal of Yoga is always hard to reach, but this one is more difficult than any other, and it is only for those who have the call, the capacity, the willingness to face everything and every risk, even the risk of failure, and the will to progress towards an entire selflessness, desirelessness and surrender.” (CWSA 29: 27)

“As for the way out of the impasse, [deadlock] I know only of the ... humility before the Divine which liberates from egoism and the pride of the mind and of the vital, the pride that imposes its own reasonings on the ways of the spirit and the pride that refuses or is unable to surrender, sustained persistence in the call within and reliance on the Grace above.” (CWSA 29: 47)

“One has to aspire to the Divine and surrender and leave it to the Divine to do what is true and right with the Adhar once it is perfected.” (CWSA 29: 59)

“The main principle of the personal sadhana is the surrender, the aspiration to the Divine touch, presence, control in the heart—the opening of the psychic being from within and its coming in front to govern and change mind, vital, physical consciousness.” (CWSA 29: 107)

“Each person has his own freedom of choice up to a certain point—unless he makes the full surrender—and as he uses the freedom, has to take the spiritual or other consequences. The help can only be offered, not imposed. Silence, absence of frank confession, means a desire in the vital to go its own way. When there is no longer concealment, when there is the physical self–opening to the Divine, then the Divine can intervene.” (CWSA 29: 68–69)

"This calm, peace and surrender are the right atmosphere for all the rest to come, knowledge, strength, Ananda. Let it become complete." (CWSA 29: 124)

“Ananda and bhakti are part of that deeper consciousness, and it is only when one lives in it and grows in it that ananda and bhakti can be permanent. Till then, one can only get experiences of ananda and bhakti, but not the constant and permanent state. But the state of bhakti and constantly growing surrender does not come to all at an early stage of the sadhana; many, most indeed, have a long journey of purification and tapasya to go through before it opens, and experiences of this kind, at first rare and interspaced, afterwards frequent, are the landmarks of their progress.” (CWSA 29: 352)

“Selflessness, self–giving, entire faith and confidence, absence of demand and desire, surrender to the Divine Will, love concentrated on the Divine—are some of the main signs [of true love and bhakti].” (CWSA 29: 357)

“Prayer and aspiration are a part of the spiritual life and do not conflict with surrender, provided one is not disturbed in either way by the fulfilment or unfulfilment of the prayer and keeps one’s faith and quietude all the same.” (CWSA 29: 365)

“Prāyopaveśana [fasting for long time] would be quite the wrong movement, it would be a sort of Satyagraha against the Divine. In essence it is an attempt to force the Divine to do what one wants instead of trusting to him to do what is best according to his own divine will and wisdom; it is a culminating act of vital impatience and disappointed desire, while the true movement is a pure aspiration and an ardent surrender.”

(CWSA 29: 473)

“With us the freedom consists in freedom from the darkness, limitation, error, suffering, transience of the ignorant lower Nature, but also in a total surrender to the Divine. Free action is the action of the Divine in us and through us; no other action can be free.” (CWSA 29: 508)

“The coming of sex on seeing the image of Krishna and Radha is due to the past association of sex with the cult of RadhaKrishna. But in fact the image has nothing to do with sex. The true symbol for it would not be the human sex-attraction, but the soul, the psychic, hearing the call of the Divine and flowering into the complete love and surrender that brings the supreme Ananda. That is what Radha and Krishna by their divine union bring about in the human consciousness and it is so that you must regard it, throwing aside the old sex-associations.” (CWSA 29: 494)

“If you feel more quiet and the surrender feels more intense, then that is a good, ...” (CWSA 30: 232)

“Agni in the form of an aspiration full of concentrated calm and surrender is certainly the first thing to be lighted in the heart.” (CWSA 30: 372)

“I am not aware that anyone who has made a true surrender [to his Guru], loses his balance. Those who allow ego to come in naturally may, whether they follow a Guru as most Yogis have done, or try to go on their own individual strength.” (CWSA 31: 810)

“Get back into the true spirit of love and closeness, surrender and confidence and Ananda and remain there—then in due time all problems and difficulties will solve themselves as the light and power of the Truth descend into the still weak and obscure parts of the nature.” (CWSA 31: 795)

“In Conversations the Mother says that if the central being has surrendered, then the chief difficulty is gone [p. 7]. What is this central being? Is it the psychic?

The central being is the Purusha. If it is surrendered, then all the other beings can be offered to the Divine and the psychic being brought in front.” (CWSA 32: 613)

“Yesterday when the Mother was playing her music, I was much struck by the descent of forces in me. I clearly experienced these three elements: aspiration, surrender and the receiving of blessings. First, her soul as the immanent Divine aspired to the transcendent Divine; it was a call for her transcendent Self to come down and take possession of the downtrodden natures of her children. Then the surrender: in her zeal for union with her highest Divine Self, she almost loses herself. Then from the highest, her Voice comes down for the benefit of her children. She receives the blessings from above and showers them upon all her children. I do not know how far I am right.

I think it is fairly correct. At any rate the first and second parts are quite correct. I do not remember the third in this form but it was a firm assurance of the realisation.” (CWSA 32: 572)

“If absolute surrender, faith etc. from the beginning were essential for Yoga then nobody could do it. I myself could not have done it if such a condition had been demanded of me." (CWSA 35: 419)

“He regards us as Gurus. Yes, but he begins by disputing all my way of Yoga. He does not understand and does not care to understand my processes. He has ideas of his own, does not want peace or equality or surrender or anything else, wants only Krishna and bhakti. He has read things in Ramakrishna and elsewhere as to how to do it, insists on following that. Rejects all suggestions I can make as unpracticable. Erects a sadhana of violent meditation, japa, prayer—for these are the traditional things, has no idea that there are conditions without which they cannot be effective. Meditates, japs, prays himself into pits of dullness and disappears. Also tries in spite of my objections a wrestling tapasya which puts his vital into revolt. Then by a stroke of good luck I succeed unexpectedly in making a sort of psychic opening. Decides to try surrender, purification of the heart, rejection of ego, true humility etc.—tries a little of it and is really progressing. After two months finds that Krishna is not appearing—gets disgusted and drops the beastly thing. And after all that he is always telling me ‘What an impotent Guru you are! You are evidently able to do nothing for me.’ Evidently! That’s X.” (CWSA 35: 441)

Prayers for a Sadhak

“I pray to be purified from self–will and self–assertion so that I may become docile and obedient to the Mother and a fit instrument for her work, surrendered and guided by her Grace in all I do.” (CWSA 35: 843)

“My own idea is that already written by Manmohan to Chittagong, that it is better for most to practise first in its elements at least the synthetic Yoga of jnana, bhakti and karma and establish a basis of mental peace and samata before taking up the Yoga of complete and direct self-surrender. There will always be exceptions, but this is for most the safest course.” (CWSA 36: 354)

“I heard a Sufi mystic, who was besides a great musician, an Indian, saying that for the Sufis there was a state higher than that of adoration and surrender to the Divine, than that of devotion, that this was not the last stage; the last stage of the progress is when there is no longer any distinction; you have no longer this kind of adoration or surrender or consecration; it is a very simple state in which one makes no distinction between the Divine and oneself. They know this. It is even written in their books. It is a commonly known condition in which everything becomes quite simple. There is no longer any difference. There is no longer that kind of ecstatic surrender to ‘Something’ which is beyond you in every way, which you do not understand, which is merely the result of your aspiration, your devotion. There is no difference any longer. When the union is perfect, there is no longer any difference.” (CWM 5: 57)

“We use in French ‘soumission’ to translate ‘surrender’, because there is no word which translates ‘surrender’. ‘Soumission’ always gives the impression of something which accepts reluctantly, which does not give complete adherence, does not collaborate fully. And so, that is what makes the difference with the word in the sense of ‘surrender’ in which there is the meaning of a perfect adherence. Which means that though one uses this word ‘soumission’, it is not a good one....” (CWM 6: 228)

“One is negative: you reject a fault. The other is positive: you build the quality. It is like that.

For everything it is like that. For example, you have somewhere in your being that kind of habit of revolt, ignorant, arrogant, obscure revolt, of refusing what comes from above. So, the negative side is to fight against this, to prevent it from expressing itself and reject it from your nature; and on the other side you must build positively surrender, understanding, consecration, self-giving and the sense of a complete collaboration with the divine forces. This is the positive side.”

(CWM 7: 202–203)

“But if the aspiration is to realise what is beyond, we said, what Sri Aurobindo has called the supramental Reality, ... but if someone can truly know what surrender is and total trust, then it is infinitely easier, three-fourths of the worry and difficulties are over.” (CWM 7: 246)

“But I am asking: the central truth of the Gita is surrender to the Lord—why doesn’t one grasp that?... “Its highest mystery of absolute surrender to the Divine Guide, Lord and Inhabitant of our nature, is the central secret.” The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 87

But of course, this is what is written in the Gita, that you must give yourself entirely. You know, in the Gita, Krishna is the Guide and inner Master, and you must give yourself entirely to Him, make a total surrender—so? I tell you, people profess one teaching or another, but they are not always able to follow it; they come to a certain point and stop.” (CWM 8: 64)

“Sweet Mother,

We have a minute of concentration before and after group every day. What should we try to do during this concentration?

A: Before, make an offering to the Divine of what you are going to do, so that it may be done in a spirit of consecration.

Afterwards, ask the Divine to increase the will for progress in us, so that we may become instruments that are more and more capable of serving Him.

You may also, before starting, offer yourselves to the Divine in silence.

And at the end, give thanks to the Divine in silence.

I mean a movement of the heart without any words in the head.” (CWM 12: 354–355)

“It seems that you are far too complex and complicated to understand my straight direct simplicity. When I say, ‘this is the best’ I mean that it is the best and consequently that it is the thing to be done. And what I call surrender is not to make a counter-proposal in answer to my arrangement but to accept it full-heartedly.” (CWM 13:84)

“Nobody ever thought of forcing you to do yoga. If you want to do it in order to acquire the power over the circumstances, it is not a very noble or high motive, and you cannot count upon me to help you there. I can help you only if your motive is to discover the Truth (not to postulate a priori that what you think is the truth) and to surrender entirely to the Truth. So the decision is in your hands.” (CWM 13: 86)

“Passion: it is a force, but is dangerous and cannot be used unless it is perfectly surrendered to the Divine.” (CWM 14: 128)

“Vital boldness must surrender to reason.” (CWM 14: 169)

“Intellectually, the Truth is the point where all the opposites meet and join to make a unity.

Practically, the Truth is the surrender of the ego, to make possible the birth and manifestation of the Divine.” (CWM 14: 199)

“Truth is above mind; it is in silence that one can enter into communication with it.

To pray to the Divine and to surrender oneself entirely and in all sincerity to Him are the essential preliminary conditions.” (CWM 14: 199)

“Purified senses can be obtained only by a total surrender to the Truth.” (CWM 14: 358)

“Even the gods have to make their surrender to the Supreme if the Divine creation is to be realised upon earth.” (CWM 15: 13)

“Occultism does not truly blossom except when it is surrendered to the Divine.”  (CWM 15: 30)

“Let the past be past and concentrate only on the progress you want to make and the surrender to the Divine you have to achieve.” (CWM 15: 71)

“Your father died because it was his time to die. Circumstances can be an occasion but surely not a cause.

The cause is in the Divine’s will and nothing can alter it.

So, grieve not and surrender your sorrow at the feet of the Divine. He will give you peace and freedom.”

(CWM 15: 122)

1935–NEW YEAR MESSAGE–

“We surrender to Thee this evening all that is artificial and false, all that pretends and imitates. Let it disappear with the year that is at an end. May only what is perfectly true, sincere, straight and pure subsist in the year that is beginning.” (CWM 15: 165)

Prayer

“My Lord, make the consciousness clear and precise, the speech thoroughly true, the surrender complete, the calm absolute and transform the whole being into an ocean of light and love.” (CWM 15: 213)

Prayer

“Remember that the Mother is always with you.

Address Her as follows and She will pull you out of all difficulties:

‘O Mother, Thou art the light of my intelligence, the purity of my soul, the quiet strength of my vital, the endurance of my body. I rely on Thee alone and want to be entirely Thine. Make me surmount all obstacles on the way’.” (CWM 15: 215)

“Beauty does not get its full power except when it is surrendered to the Divine.” (CWM 15: 232)

“And each time, you have the impression that you have lived on the surface of things. It is an impression that is repeated and repeated. At each new conquest you have the impression: ‘Until now I had lived only on the surface of things—on the surface of things—on the surface of realisation, the surface of surrender, the surface of power—it was merely the surface of things, the surface of experience.’ Behind the surface there is a depth, and it is only when you enter into the depth that you touch the true thing. And each time it is the same experience: what appeared as a depth becomes a surface, a surface with all that it means, something inaccurate, artificial, an artificial transcription, something that gives one the impression that it is not truly living: it is a copy, an imitation—it is an image, a reflection, not the thing itself. You pass into another zone and you have the impression that you have discovered the Source and the Power, the Truth of things; and then, this source, this power and this truth become in their turn an appearance, an imitation, a transcription in relation to the new realisation.

Meanwhile, we must indeed recognise that we have not got the key yet; it is not within our hands. Or rather we know quite well where it is, and we have only one thing to do: the perfect surrender of which Sri Aurobindo speaks, the total self–giving to the Divine Will, whatever happens, even in the midst of the night.

There is the night and there is the sun, the night and the sun, again the night, many nights; but one must cling to this will to surrender, cling to it as in a tempest, and give up everything into the hands of the Supreme Lord, until the day when the Sun will come for ever, the total victory.” (CWM 15: 369–370)

“You see, in the present condition of the world, circumstances are always difficult. The whole world is in a condition of strife, conflict, between the forces of truth and light wanting to manifest and the opposition of all that does not want to change, which represents in the past what is fixed, hardened and refuses to go. Naturally, each individual feels his own difficulties and is faced by the same obstacles.

There is only one way for you. It is a total, complete and unconditional surrender.” (CWM 15: 398)

“I would like to know about the childlike path that can be taken in this yoga.

The childlike path is one of unquestioning trust, total dependence, unreserved surrender.” (CWM 17: 121)

“I give orders to those who are perfectly and totally surrendered, as these orders cannot be discussed or disobeyed.” (CWM 17: 229)

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