Eckhart Tolle and Sri Aurobindo

Personal Effort and Surrender

Enlightenment, says Eckhart, is not something that you can make happen; it is something that is almost the opposite—something you allow to happen. Therefore he regards the term "practice" as not quite right because practice implies effort to bring about something. The practice that Eckhart teaches may be summed up in these words:

Stay always present. Remain alert. Pay attention only to the present moment. Observe all that happens inside you as a detached witness of your thoughts and feelings. Become aware also of the consciousness that observes. Cultivate thoughtless awareness which does not label or analyze whatever you perceive inside you or outside. Accept all that you observe inside you. Allow all that happens in your external life. Give up resistance. Say "yes" to what is. Allow the power of Now to transform you.

Of the two attitudes in spiritual practice spoken of by Rama-Krishna alluded to earlier (pp. 42, 43)—the baby-monkey attitude of reliance on personal effort, and the baby-cat attitude of surrender and reliance on the Divine Power—the latter is a more fitting description of the practice as taught by Eckhart. Not personal effort but Presence does it all, says Eckhart. The only personal effort is to choose

Page 103

and allow Presence. But even choosing Presence, says Eckhart, is only seemingly personal; what really happens is that Presence chooses to arise, though the one in whom Presence arises has the impression of doing a "spiritual practice" for Presence to arise. It is a helpful perspective to think that Presence arises because one chooses Presence, though from a deeper perspective, Presence arises because it chooses to arise. Expressing the truth of both perspectives, Sri Aurobindo states: "He who chooses the Infinite has been chosen by the Infinite."⁵⁷

Some aspects of practice taught by Eckhart, such as attention to the present moment, may give the impression that it is akin to the practice as taught in Buddhism, which is preeminently a path of self-effort. Thus Eckhart narrates the story of a disciple who asks the Master, "Can you please write down something for me so that I can remember what Zen is all about?" The Master writes "Attention" on a piece of paper and gives it to the disciple. The disciple says, "Is that all? Can you please add a bit to elaborate it a little more?" The Master says, "All right." The disciple gives him back the paper. The Master writes, "Attention. Attention." The disciple says, "Is that all? Surely, there is more to Zen than that. Couldn't you say a little more?" The Master writes, "Attention. Attention. Attention." The disciple gets a little angry and says, "What is attention anyway? What does attention mean?" And the Master says, "Attention means attention."

Attention, as ordinarily understood, is something done by the mind, using mental effort. But what Eckhart speaks about is not a "head" attention. It is attention with the "whole energy-field of Presence"; it is "alert stillness"; it is "thoughtless awareness." One cannot understand attention with the mind, says Eckhart, because it pertains to a state of consciousness that is beyond mind. Attention spoken of by him does not depend on personal effort as it does in Buddhism, but on the arising of Presence.

Attention as viewed by Eckhart is deeper in another way than attention as ordinarily understood. He says that doing one thing at a time, which is how one Zen Master defined the essence of Zen, means "to be total in what you do, to give it your complete attention. This

Page 104

is surrendered action. .. ."⁵⁸ Action done with total attention, or surrendered action, says Eckhart, is the same as what the Gita teaches— performing action not as a means for something else but as an end in itself. (The Gita's celebrated doctrine of "desireless action" teaches the performance of action without the desire for the fruit of action.)

In Sri Aurobindo's yoga, attention is part of the state of remaining conscious and vigilant. As the Mother states:

One must be quite "awake"; one must be constantly in a very attentive state of observation. ...

To be in this state of attentive observation, you must have, so to say, antennae everywhere which are in constant contact with your true centre of consciousness. You register everything, you organise everything and, in this way, you cannot be taken unawares.... ⁵⁹

Eckhart recognizes that teachers differ in their perspectives regarding the respective roles of personal effort and a higher power in spiritual practice. Whereas Eckhart attributes all practice to the action of a higher power—the power of Presence—in Sri Aurobindo's view, personal effort is indispensable until the whole consciousness— physical, vital, mental—is ready and completely surrendered and receptive to the action of the Divine Force. As he explains in letters to disciples:

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.⁶⁰

Page 105

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 tamasic⁶¹ inertia

.

The personal effort has to be transformed progressively into a movement of the Divine Force.⁶²

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 Rama-Krishna, is difficult to have.⁶³

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.⁶⁴

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.⁶⁵

Page 106

To recall again the four aids spoken of in the Mahabharata, Shastra—the teaching—comes first; next to Shastra is Utsaha, zeal or force of personal effort. Regarding zeal in spiritual practice, Sri Aurobindo writes:

The development of the experience in its rapidity, its amplitude, the intensity and power of its results, depends primarily, in the beginning of the path and long after, on the aspiration and personal effort of the sadhaka. The process of Yoga is a turning of the human soul from the egoistic state of consciousness absorbed in the outward appearances and attractions of things to a higher state in which the Transcendent and Universal can pour itself into the individual mould and transform it. The first determining element of the siddhi is, therefore, the intensity of the turning, the force which directs the soul inward. The power of aspiration of the heart, the force of the will, the concentration of the mind, the perseverance and determination of the applied energy are the measure of that intensity. The ideal sadhaka should be able to say in the Biblical phrase, "My zeal for the Lord has eaten me up." It is this zeal for the Lord, utsāha, the zeal of the whole nature for its divine results, vyākulatā, the heart's eagerness for the attainment of the Divine—that devours the ego and breaks up the limitations of its petty and narrow mould for the full and wide reception of that which it seeks.... ⁶⁶

The personal effort in Sri Aurobindo's yoga is a triple labor of aspiration, rejection, and surrender. Aspiration is a call of the mind, the heart, and the physical being for Peace, Light, Force, and spiritual realization. Rejection is a refusal of the ignorant movements of one's mental, vital, and physical nature that stand in the way of spiritual realization, being contrary to or incompatible with the truth of one's being. It lies in

... rejection of the mind's ideas, opinions, preferences, habits, constructions, so that the true knowledge may find free

Page 107

room in a silent mind—rejection of the vital nature's desires, demands, cravings, sensations, passions, selfishness, pride, arrogance, lust, greed, jealousy, envy, hostility to the Truth, so that the true power and joy may pour from above into a calm, large, strong and consecrated vital being—rejection of the physical nature's stupidity, doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, pettiness, laziness, unwillingness to change, Tamas, so that the true stability of Light, Power, Ananda may establish itself in a body growing always more divine. .. .⁶⁷

Surrender is giving oneself to the Divine, living for the Divine, and not for the ego; it means offering all one is and has to the Divine, consecrating all one's actions to the Divine. The practice, highly prominent in Zen, of doing one thing at a time with total attention, is not explicitly spoken of as much in Eckhart's teaching and still less in Sri Aurobindo's, but it is an implicit part of practice in both teachings. Eckhart's teaching about living in the present moment necessarily implies performing each act with exclusive attention (without thinking of the next thing or the future or getting lost in random thoughts.) Similarly, the practice of Sri Aurobindo's yoga, which teaches the consecration of all one's actions to the Divine, calls for the performance of every act with one-pointed concentration of the outer consciousness on the act and of the inner consciousness on the Divine. Concentrating on the present is particularly stressed in doing work for the Divine. As the Mother has remarked:

Your work can never be good if you go on thinking of the next thing. For work, it is the present that is most important. The past should not drag you behind, the future should not pull you forward. You must be fully concentrated on the present, on what you are doing. You must be so concentrated on what you are doing that it is as if the salvation of the whole world depended only upon your work.⁶⁸

Page 108

In Sri Aurobindo's yoga, the essential meaning of surrender is self-giving, the Hindu concept of samarpana, (inadequately rendered in English by "surrender"), which Sri Aurobindo describes as "the central secret" of the Gita. It means the consecration of everything in oneself to the Divine, not insisting on one's ideas and desires, but allowing the divine Truth to replace them by its knowledge and will. The Gita expresses this teaching about absolute self-giving in Krishna's words: "Whatever thou doest, whatever thou enjoys, whatever thou sacrifices!,⁶⁹ whatever thou givest, whatever energy of Tapasya,⁷⁰ of the soul's will or effort thou puttest forth, make it an offering unto me."

In Eckhart's teaching, surrender means relinquishing the resistance and the fighting mode of the egoic self towards the universe; it means yielding to the flow of life instead of opposing it; it means allowing what is to be, saying "yes" to what is, accepting the present moment and what the Buddha described as the "suchness" of this moment without reservation. This concept of surrender as acceptance of what the universe brings is akin to the Hindu concept of nati, resignation or submission to the will of God. In Sri Aurobindo's yoga, and in the Gita, surrender includes both the passive resignation and the active self-offering to the will of the Divine. As Sri Aurobindo states:

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. .. .⁷¹

Page 109

Both relinquishing the will of the egoic self by acceptance of what is, and self-giving by offering one's will to the Divine, lead to the giving up of the ego. The difference between the attitudes of acceptance and self-giving is that whereas the attitude of acceptance may be based on the view of Reality as impersonal Being, self-giving calls for a faith in Reality that is described in the Gita as Purushottama, the Supreme divine Person (who is beyond the personal and the impersonal) to whom self-offering is to be made. Therefore, Krishna asks Arjuna "to see all things in the self and then in 'Me' 'the Ishwara, to renounce all action into the Self, Spirit, Brahman and thence into the supreme Person, the Purushottama."⁷² [Italics by the author.] Regarding the Purushottama of the Gita, Sri Aurobindo writes:

An immutable impersonal self-existence is his first obvious spiritual self-presentation to the experience of our liberated knowledge, the first sign of his Presence, the first touch and impression of his substance. A universal and transcendent infinite Person or Purusha is the mysterious hidden secret of his very being, unthinkable in form of mind, acintya-rūpa , but very near and present to the powers of our consciousness, emotion, will and knowledge when they are lifted out of themselves, out of their blind and petty forms into a luminous spiritual, an immeasurable supramental Ananda and power and gnosis. It is He, ineffable Absolute but also Friend and Lord and Enlightener and Lover, who is the object of this most complete devotion and approach and this most intimate inner becoming and surrender.⁷³

Surrendering to a greater Power so as to let It do the work of transformation, and relying on personal effort to transform one's being, are often described as two opposite methods of spiritual practice. However, from Sri Aurobindo's viewpoint, "The process of surrender is itself a Tapasya."⁷⁴ In other words, surrender involves and is part of personal effort.

Page 110

Personal effort, however, says Sri Aurobindo, is only one side of the power that works in leading towards realization. The other side, which in truth is the source of all power, including the power of personal effort, is the divine Force. As he states:

Always indeed it is the higher Power that acts. Our sense of personal effort and aspiration comes from the attempt of the egoistic mind to identify itself in a wrong and imperfect way with the workings of the divine Force. ... In the world we act with the sense of egoism; we claim the universal forces that work in us as our own; we claim as the effect of our personal will, wisdom, force, virtue the selective, formative, progressive action of the Transcendent in this frame of mind, life and body. Enlightenment brings to us the knowledge that the ego is only an instrument; we begin to perceive and feel that these things are our own in the sense that they belong to our supreme and integral Self, one with the Transcendent, not to the instrumental ego. Our limitations and distortions are our contribution to the working; the true power in it is the Divine's. When the human ego realises that its will is a tool, its wisdom ignorance and childishness, its power an infant's groping, its virtue a pretentious impurity, and learns to trust itself to that which transcends it, that is its salvation.⁷⁵

In the beginning, when one is more or less completely identified with the ego, one has necessarily to rely mainly on personal effort rather than on the divine Force for changing one's consciousness and opening it to the action of the divine Force.

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.⁷⁶

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 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. 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.⁷⁷

Page 111