The Practice of the Integral Yoga

VII

On Self-surrender to the Divine

Self-resignation to the Divine, entire and sincere, at all moments and under all circumstances, is the key-element in the process of Sadhana on the path of the Integral Yoga. 'My God and my all!' should be the all-comprehensive Mantra arising from the depths of the heart of every serious sadhaka. The act of self-resignation cannot but fill the whole life of a sadhaka with the tranquil and spontaneous rasa of delight.

And why should it not be so? The day a sadhaka genuinely surrenders himself to the Divine in a spirit of entire self-resignation, the Divine too from his side actively intervenes in the life of this sadhaka and helps to remove all his difficulties and weaknesses, both outer and inner, and gladdens his consciousness with the ambiance of his constant divine presence.

But the essential requisites for that to happen are that (1) the sadhaka has to utterly feel the vanity of his self-potency, thus engendering in him a mood of genuine and all-round humility; (2) he has to believe with all his heart that there is Someone called the Divine who really exists, loves him, and has the omnipotence to do anything and everything according to his divine Wisdom; and finally, (3) the sadhaka has to turn to the Divine and Divine alone as his sole and ultimate refuge.

In the constant turmoils and vicissitudes of one's earthly existence a man looks around and seeks in vain for someone who can afford a sure insurance against all his possible perils and disasters. But seek he as much as he likes, he will find none to fulfil his expectations; for, in reality, there is none, there can be none except the Divine who alone can fulfil all the needs of man if the latter takes refuge in him with the simple and candid abandon of a child without any reservation.

While contrasting the unhappy existence of an ordinary man with all his worries and anxieties, with the happy sunlit state of someone who has resigned himself to the Divine's care for everything in his life, the Mother has said many important things in her

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commentary on Dhammapada. Here is a rather long passage from her exposition:

"...there is a certain state of consciousness — which one can acquire by aspiration and a persistent inner effort — in which joy in unmixed and light shadowless, where all possibility of fear disappears. It is the state in which one does not live for oneself but where whatever one does, whatever one feels, all movements are an offering made to the Supreme, in an absolute trust, freeing oneself of all responsibility for oneself, handing over to Him all this burden which is no longer a burden.

"It is an inexpressible joy not to have any responsibility for oneself, no longer to think of oneself. It is so dull and monotonous and insipid to be thinking of oneself, to be worrying about what to do and what not to do, what will be good for you and what will be bad for you, what to shun and what to pursue — oh, how wearisome it is! But when one lives like this, quite open, like a flower blossoming in the sun before the Supreme Consciousness, the Supreme Wisdom, the Supreme Light, the Supreme Love, which knows all, which can do all, which takes charge of you and you have no more worries — that is the ideal condition." (MCW, Vol. 3, pp. 256-57)

Yes, such is indeed the ideal condition. But this condition cannot be so easily attained. There is much resistance and obstruction in the sadhaka's habitual consciousness and nature which militates against the attainment. The Divine can surely take full charge of an individual's life in all its aspects, relieving him entirely of all burden and personal responsibility but only on one condition. That condition is that the Sadhaka on his part should completely and unreservedly resign himself to the sole guidance of the Divine. But the relevant question is: Is there any sign by which one can know that one has really done so? Luckily for the novices like us, Sri Aurobindo has given a detailed description of the inner mood of a really self-resigned surrendered sadhaka. Here is a passage from his writings:

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"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.... 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." (Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga, Cent. Ed., p. 587)

Such is then the attitude the Sadhaka has to grow into and maintain it always and in all situations of our daily life. And the wonderful results that will follow out of this pure and unreserved attitude of self-resignation and surrender are simply indescribable. Here is what the Mother has written in her Prayers and Meditations in this connection:

"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.... Thou canst make of me all that I need to be, and in the measure in which my attitude allows Thee to act on me and in me, Thy omnipotence has no limits. To know that at each instant what must be surely is, as perfectly as is possible, for all those who know how to see Thee in everything and everywhere! No more fear, no more uneasiness, no more anguish; nothing but a perfect Serenity, an absolute Confidence, a supreme unwavering Peace." (p. 9)

Now, if we turn to Sri Aurobindo's writings, we shall come to know the supreme benefit that may accrue to a sadhaka in the matter of building up of his life of sadhana, if only he can turn to the Divine in a spirit of confident and sincere self-surrender. In that case it is the Divine himself who takes charge of the entire course of the Sadhaka's sadhana: no other ancillary aid is needed any

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more. Here are two representative passages from Sri Aurobindo making this point explicit:

"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; it can and does happen in that way 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....

"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 come and the experience of the Divine grows within. If the questioning mind becomes less active and humility and the will to surrender grow, this ought to be perfectly possible. No other strength and tapasya are then needed, but this alone." (Letters on Yoga, Cent. Ed., pp. 586-88)

Now a second long passage from Sri Aurobindo's writings. It is an adaptation of pages 537-538 of his Essays on the Gita. The whole thing has been expressed in a particular literary style as if the Supreme Divine is directly addressing the aspiring sadhaka and expounding to him the sadhana of surrender and self-resignation.

"All this personal effort and self-discipline will not in the end be needed,... 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

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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. My ways are the ways of a perfect wisdom and power and love that knows all things and combines all its movements in view of a perfect eventual result.... Whatever difficulties and perplexities arise, be sure of this that I am leading you to a complete divine life in the universal and an immortal existence in the transcendent Spirit." (Essays on the Gita, Cent. Ed., pp. 537-38)

At this point an intriguing question may haunt the sadhaka's mind: If so great is the all-fulfilling capability of self-surrender to the Divine, why does man fail to pass on the burden of his worry-racked life to the omnipotent omnipresent Divine Consciousness? Is it not foolish on his part not to do so? Yes, it is indeed an absurd folly and it arises out of obscuring ignorance and disabling lack of faith and trust in the Divine. It is worth recalling in this connection the luminous words the Mother addressed to the students of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in the year 1958:

"And why is it not done? One does not think of it, one forgets to do it, the old habits come back. And above all, behind, hidden somewhere in the inconscient or even in the subconscient, there is this insidious doubt that whispers in your ear: 'Oh! if you are not careful, some misfortune will happen to you. If you forget to watch over yourself, you do not know what may happen' — and you are so silly, so silly, so obscure, so stupid that you listen and you begin to pay attention to yourself and everything is ruined.

"You have to begin all over again to infuse into your cells a little wisdom, a little common sense and learn once more not to worry." (MCW, Vol. 3, p. 257)

A second nagging question may often confuse the sadhaka's mind, which may prevent him from making an effective surrender to the Divine. The question is: Is self-surrender to divine action tantamount to cessation from all personal initiative to action? If

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so. will it not turn me into an inert piece of clod? How can I lead my life then in a fruitful and meaningful effective way?

This salt of confusion in the sadhaka' s mind is quite understandable and this should be cleared at the very earliest.

The sadhaka has not already become a Siddha Yogi who has attained to the union with the Divine's Consciousness; his personal will is far from being identified with the Divine's Will. Sohe cannot try to behave in a way as if he has reached the end of the spiritual path. He is still living in his separative ego-consciousness ever impelled by the motions of desires; he is full of personal likes and dislikes, preferences and antipathies, and seeking always after fruit s of act ion which interest his person al ego. So, in his present stat e of ignorant egoistic con sciousness, surrendering to the Divine should not mean the cessation of activities. It is he who has to choose the actions and try to do those actions in a perfect way but with a different attitude. All works should be performed as a consecrated offering to the Divine. Sri Aurobindo has made this point clear in a significant paragraph of his Synthesis of Yoga:

"The work itself is at first determined by the best light we cancommand in our ignorance. It is that which we conceive as the thing that should be don e. And whether it be shaped by our sense of duty , by our feeling for our fellow-creatures, by our idea of what is for the good of others or the good of the world or by the direction of one whom we accept as a human Master. wiser than ourselves and for us the representative of that Lord of all works in whom we believe but whom we do not yet know, the principle is the same." (p. 209)

Yes, "the principle is the same" and it is this underlying principle supporting all action of the sadhaka, which will turn an ordinary mundane worker into a self-surrendered aspirant. But what is this principle? Let us listen to Sri Aurobindo:

"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 la

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bour. For so long as we work with attachment to the result, the sacrifice is offered not to the Divine, but to our ego. We may think otherwise, but we are deceiving ourselves; we are making our idea of the Divine, our sense of duty, our feeling for our fellow-creatures, our idea of what is good for the world or others, even our obedience to the Master a mask for our egoistic satisfactions and preferences and a specious shield against the demand made on us to root all desire out of our nature." (The Synthesis of Yoga, pp. 209-10)

So this is what the sadhaka has always to do in the choice of his actions and in the spirit in which these actions have to be done. But whatever the actions he may do , whatever procedures he may adopt, and whichever ancillary aids he may take recourse to in the accomplishment of these actions, the sadhaka has to maintain in the depth of his consciousness the following attitude:

'The Divine is my sole refuge; I trust in Him and rely for everything on His aid and His alone. Let Him do whatever He wants to do with me and my life; I am utterly resigned to His Will. I will see to it that no obstacles on the way nor any dark mood of desperation ever make me waver from my absolute reliance on the Divine. He is my All and He will be my All for ever and for ever under all possible circumstances.'

Such an attitude and its effective application will distinguish from all others a sadhaka who has genuinely taken refuge in the Divine .

Yes, 'genuinely' is the key-element in the whole affair. For there are many misleading varieties of mock-surrender leading to self-deceptive complacency on the part of the sadhaka. For example, it is a fact that many easy-going sadhakas unwilling to fulfil the necessary conditions for the building up of a spiritual way of life lull themselves into the unrealistic belief that once they have repeatedly affirmed that they would take refuge in the Divine or in their Guru, all their labour should be over and that it is the Divine Himself who should do everything else for them. For so they ask with feigned innocence: "Is this not the declared principle of sadhana based on the method of self-surrender?"

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How facile becomes then the sadhana! Alas, the fact is otherwise; there is a blatant fallacy vitiating this type of escapist reasoning. One quotes indeed in this connection the supreme promise of assurance offered by Lord Krishna to his disciple Arjuna: "1 shall deliver thee from all sins," but conveniently forgetting the necessary pre-condition imposed by the Divine: "Take refuge in me renouncing everything else."

Most of us would like to derive the full benefit of the Divine's intervention on our side without, at the same time, caring to 'pay' any spiritual price for that. But this can never do. For there is a mutual 'give-and-take' between the Divine and the Sadhaka. Did not Sri Aurobindo give us the stern warning? —

"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....

"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." (SABCL, Vol. 25, The Mother, pp. 1, 3)

We cannot but recall in this connection two short series of significant exchanges of notes between Sri Aurobindo and his disciples.

The first case concerns a sadhaka who was very very close to the Master. This disciple once wrote to Sri Aurobindo: "It may be a 'comfortable doctrine' but that's my philosophy of sadhana. What is the good of the Avatar if we do everything by ourselves? We have come to you and taken shelter at your feet so that you may, as the Gita says, deliver us from all sins."

Sri Aurobindo did not endorse the view of his self-complacent disciple. He cryptically commented with his characteristic touch of humour: "But what if the Avatar gets frightened at the prospect of all this hard labour and rushes back scared behind the veil?" (Nirodbaran: Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo, Volume One, p. 197)

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The second case concerns Dilip Kumar Roy. Roy was indeed a most beloved disciple of Sri Aurobindo. The Master considered him to be his friend and son and once declared that not a day passed when he did not think of Dilip Kumar. Sri Aurobindo wrote hundreds of pages of letters to his worried and anguished and questions-racked disciple and tried to help him in every way in the various ordeals of the Path. Yet the apparently puzzling fact is that the disciple always complained that Sri Aurobindo, his loving and compassionate Guru, was not giving him any experiences or realisations worth the name. He even went to the absurd extent of calling Sri Aurobindo 'an impotent Guru!'

It goes without saying that this sort of aspersion did not prick Sri Aurobindo's amour-propre. He simply put the matter straight and placed everything in its proper perspective, when Nirodbaran, a close friend and brother-disciple of Dilip Kumar wrote to the Master:

"Is it really impossible for you to give him [Dilip] some experience of peace, silence or meditation? Then the Divine is not all-omnipotent..."

Here is what Sri Aurobindo wrote in reply: "My dear sir, what has the omnipotence of the Divine to do with it? In this world there are conditions for everything — if a man refuses to fulfil the conditions for Yoga, what is the use of appealing to the Divine's omnipotence?" (Ibid., pp. 601-02)

The upshot of all the foregoing discussion is that a mere lip-assertion or a mental repetition of formulas like 'Sri Aurobindom śnaranam gacchāmi' or 'Om Sri Aurobindo-Mira śaranam mama' do not and cannot constitute the sadhana of śaranāgati ('surrendering of oneself to the Divine and taking refuge in Him alone'), and hence it is vain to expect that such a sham self-resignation will make the Divine directly intervene and take full charge of the sadhaka's life and sadhana. Right psychological pre-conditions for effective śaranāgati have first to be fulfilled; then only the promised all-sufficiency of the Divine's help can be tested in practice.

Such being the case we must first enquire what these essential pre-conditions are which can make our surrender authentic and fruitful. Let us refer to a statement of Sri Aurobindo which clari-

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fies the issue in the short span of a few significant words:

"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." (SABCL, Vol. 25, The Mother, p. 9)

We find here mentioned three essential factors: sincerity, surrender and faith. It goes without saying that a basic sincerity is the very sine qua non of all true sadhana; without it the sadhaka cannot take even a single small step on the Path. He will stagnate on the spot for ever and for ever. So let us not waste here our time and space by stressing the obvious. Next comes surrender. And it is precisely what is the subject-matter of the present essay. The third essential element is 'faith' and it is indeed the lynchpin of the whole process of sadhana based on śaranāgati or self-surrender. Whether the spiritual progress of the sadhaka will be made or marred depends entirely on the corner-stone of faith being firmly and rightly laid or not.

But the question is: Faith in whom and what are its constitutive limbs? The answer is: Of course, faith in the Divine and in the operative power of His Shakti. Now in order that this faith be an entire and truly effective one it has to cover and be firm in five different elements. These elements are:

(1) Faith in the existence and omnipresence of the Divine; (2) faith in the love that the Divine bears towards the sadhaka; (3) faith in the all-wise Will of the Divine; (4) faith in the omnipotence of the Divine; and finally, (5) faith in the Divine's full and unpartitioned sovereignty over us. In other words, this fivefold faith implies that the truly self-surrendered sadhaka should at all moments believe with all his mind and heart and active consciousness that there is Someone called the Divine who is always present in him and near him, who loves him and seeks his good always and under all circumstances, and who has the capacity of utterly realising all that he wills. Finally, the sadhaka has to feel that he belongs to the Divine and to the Divine alone: he should not allow

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anything or anyone else to be a rival to the Divine in his heart.

When a sadhaka succeeds in establishing and maintaining unimpaired this five-limbed faith in his consciousness, he may be sure that his śaranāgati-sādhanā has taken the right orientation and he will thenceforward progress on the Path with assured steps. But this faith has to be entire and unreserved and must simultaneously cover all the five elements. If the faith is found lacking or deficient even in one element, the śaranāgati-sādhanā is not yet perfect for the sadhaka and he is apt to encounter many difficulties on the way and many a type of suffering is apt to trouble him again and again. In that case, the sadhaka should stop and step back, be vigilant and watchful, search his consciousness, find out the flaws and foibles, and restore the well-being of his faith.

But a ticklish question may confound the sadhaka at this point: What is faith after all? and how should I know that my professed faith is indeed a true faith and not the misleading mask of some other psychological movement? Let us discuss this point in brief and try to clear away the cobwebs of confusion.

True faith is not just a conviction created by intellectual argumentation and rational reasoning based on some sense-evidenced data and factors; nor is it something brought about by a strong and forceful exercise of the will-power; nor is it again a fair-weather 'trust' displayed by our impure heart when it is favoured by a turn of events momentarily pampering its interests and desires. There are many other forms of imitation-faiths which are bound to make ineffectual the so-claimed śaranāgati-sādhanā.

Then what is the nature of genuine faith which the sadhaka is asked to cultivate? It is a deep and quiet illumined feeling of conviction arising from the depths of the consciousness when the outer mind and heart are stilled and made pure of all admixture of egoistic desires and expectations. True faith is never misled by the adverse appearances of the moment. It can pierce through the darkening haze of the present and concentrate its steady vision on the truth of the future.

Most of us actually harbour superstitious beliefs, when we falsely claim that we are men possessed of faith. Belief easily crumbles whenever unexpected sorrows and sufferings, difficulties and

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ordeals, confront us on the Path. But true faith shines steadily as an unquenchable flame: it is self-existent and altogether independent of the vicissitudes of time and space and situations and circumstances. This faith cannot be acquired by personal effort and hard labour. It is a precious gift of Grace granted by the Divine himself to any sincere and self-surrendered sadhaka whose love for the Divine is constant and unvarying and entirely motiveless.

Let us close this section with an admonition from Sri Aurobindo addressed to the sadhakas who would like to grow in true faith:

"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." (SABCL,Vol. 25, The Mother, p. 9)

A question may at times puzzle the heart and mind of the sadhakas; it is as regards the exact implication of the statement that the compassionate Divine can do anything and everything for a sadhaka who has totally surrendered himself to Him alone. Does it mean that never, not even once, will any difficulty or misfortune visit a self-surrendered sadhaka? Will his path of progress be always and throughout bedecked with soft and soothing petals of rose? Will he not meet with any thorns or sharp-edged stones ever in his life in his journey towards the Goal?

No, belying all our vain expectations the truth is otherwise. There is a great mystery facing us here. The divine Providence is as deep as the sea. Let us try to elucidate the point.

At a moment of great distress and psychological crisis Dilip Kumar Roy wrote a long letter to Sri Aurobindo which inter alia raised the very question we are now concerned with. In an equally long reply the Master explained to the disciple the exact position in a most lucid and soul-consoling way. We are basing our elucidation on his luminous observations.

All of us, embodied human beings, have come down upon earth and been active there in the terrestrial field. But in the actual state

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of affairs of the world and life, most of our existence is under the siege of Inconscience and Ignorance. Our journey is no doubt towards the Light but the path passes through the tunnel of Darkness. As a result the world presents to us a double aspect. And for a long stretch of it man's life is criss-crossed with a series of ups and downs and is visited by alternations of happiness and sorrow, good fortune and ill fortune, illness and good health. Now in Sri Aurobindo's own words:

"The meaning of this world must evidently lie in this opposition; it must be an evolution which is leading or struggling towards higher things out of a first darker appearance. Whatever guidance there is must be given under these conditions of opposition and struggle... It is leading the individual, certainly,... towards the higher state, but through the double terms of knowledge and ignorance, light and darkness, death and life, pain and pleasure, happiness and suffering; none of the terms can be excluded until the higher status is reached and established. It is not and cannot be, ordinarily, a guidance which at once rejects the darker terms, still less a guidance which brings us solely and always nothing but happiness, success and good fortune." (Letters on Yoga, Cent. Ed., p. 1627)

So it cannot be that a sadhaka who has surrendered himself to the Divine and to His guidance will be entirly exempt from all visitations of the darker aspects of present human existence; he too has to meet some crisis-hours off and on.

Is there then no difference between the nature of life lived by an ordinary mortal and that of the life led by someone who has taken to the sadhana of śaranāgati or self-surrender? Surely that cannot be. There is a heaven and hell difference between these two types of lives so far as the inner psychological frames are concerned. There may be times when there will be no 'happiness' in the life of a surrendered sadhaka but he will never lack the myrrh of 'blessedness'. As a Western mystic has so beautifully put it: "The music is not in conditions, not in the things, not in externals but the music of life is in the soul of the aspirant."

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So we should carefully note the following points as applicable to the case of any sadhaka who has sincerely and unreservedly surrendered himself to the Divine and loved Him as his sole Refuge always and in every situation.

(1)An effective surrender does not necessarily insure the sadhaka against all future storms and stresses; what it assures is the absolute security of the sadhaka's spiritual health even in the midst of these storms and stresses.

(2)The Divine does not offer any promise that he will make the path always sun-lit and paved with rose-petals; what he firmly promises is that he would surely lead the sadhaka to his cherished spiritual goal through every possible misfortune of life.

(3)The surrendered sadhaka believes with all his heart that no suffering or misfortune ever visiting his life is altogether vain and otiose; he knows that every one of them comes with the all-wise and all-loving sanction of the Divine for fulfilling a necessary spiritual purpose whose significance will be revealed in time.

(4)A surrendered sadhaka, even when he finds completely shrouded the necessity of his present trouble, knows and feels all the same that the Divine is not absent and far away from him but is sitting in the heart of his acutest difficulty and guiding from there the course of circumstances to lead the sadhaka ultimately and inevitably to the door of union with the Divine.

(5)The sadhaka knows that every difficulty crossing his life, if faced with courage, patience and right attitude and in a spirit of self-resignation and loving surrender, cannot but bring in its train great spiritual benefit.

(6)A sadhaka resigned to the Will of the Divine not only believes that behind everything that happens in his life there is invariably the sanction of the Divine, he is convinced at the same time that this sanction is not the arbitrary fiat of a superhuman super-potent despot but the loving dispensation of Someone who wants to bring about a supreme good in his life and that the particular events are the necessary links in the unfoldment of a divine purpose. What does it matter then even if the nature of this purpose or the secret significance of the event is not immediately revealed to his ego-obscured ignorant consciousness? To know that

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there is an underlying purpose leading to some future spiritual good is sufficient for the self-resigned sadhaka. He will calmly accept all possible motions of divine Providence with this sole mantra sustaining him: "Let Thy Will be done always and everywhere."

So far so good. But if the sadhaka would like to know more fully the nature of the divine guidance working in his life, even at the very moment when an adverse circumstance is actually confronting him with its veil of impenetrability unlifted, he must adopt a further attitude which can be summed up as "Be still and know." After all, as Sri Aurobindo has pointed out,

"The guidance can become evident only if we go behind appearances and begin to understand the forces at work and the way of their working and their secret significance. After all, real knowledge... comes by going behind the surface phenomena to their hidden process and causes." (Letters on Yoga, pp. 1626-27)

So the surrendered sadhaka should try to quieten his mind and heart as much as possible and purify them of all egoistic preferences and antipathies, drive away all worries and apprehensions, and then adopt an inner attitude of "trustful and expectant stillness". The indication will then surely come, sooner or later, depending on the state of perfection of the sadhaka's attitude, and he will receive intimations of the precise nature of the divine Will operative in his life at that very moment. We are tempted to cite in this connection a very valuable passage from the writing of a well-known Western mystic:

"When we are in doubt and difficulty, when many voices urge this course or the other, when prudence utters one advice and faith another, then let us be still, hushing each intruder, calming ourselves in the sacred hush of the Divine's Presence; in an attitude of devout attention, let us be eager only to know what God shall determine. If we will only get alone, where the lights and shadows of earth cannot interfere and if we can dare to wait there silent and expectant, ere long a very distinct impression will be made and

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the Will of the Divine made clear." (Quoted in C. E. Cowman's Streams in the Desert)

We should not forget to mention here one other very important point. Any sadhaka who has resolved to surrender himself totally to the Divine and take refuge in his all-wise loving dispensation, should banish from his heart by every means all moods of worries, anxieties and trepidations as regards the possible course of his life's future. For the slightest uneasiness of this sort will at once prove that his faith in the Divine in at least one of the five areas which we have mentioned before (pp. 96-7) is not yet made firm and true and hence his so-claimed surrender also is not an authentic surrender at all. For a genuine surrender to the Divine and continued anxiety vis-à-vis the future are two things as incompatible and absurd as a circular square or a gold vessel made of stone.

So the slightest appearance of fear or worry or anxiety should make the sadhaka alert and he should immediately set himself to the task of rectifying the flaws in his attitude, renew his resolution to make his surrender sound and perfect, and establish in his consciousness a state of tranquil trust in the Divine.

One last point and we have come to the end of our essay on surrender. It is as regards the place and role of prayer in the life of a sadhaka who has resigned himself to the Divine's care.

We should not forget that there is a long period of time separating the first imperfect initiation of the śaranāgati-sādhanā and its all-round perfect accomplishment. Hence it is quite expected that being troubled by many difficulties in life the sadhaka would not be able to maintain an attitude of silent passivity but rather feel like turning to the Divine for the Supreme's necessary aid and intervention. There is no harm in that. Only he should be careful that his prayers do not degenerate into the impure and importunate stuff that is what the prayers of ordinary worldly people are who are interested only in the fulfilment of their egoistic desires and not in the development of their spiritual life. In which way then are the prayers of a śaranāgati sādhaka distinguished from the normal

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prayers of men? The following points will offer the answer.

1.Whenever any problem or difficulty will confront a sadhaka, the very first thing he should do is to turn to the Divine and place before Him the entire situation in all its details and seek for the Divine's intervention. It is not that he will first seek the solution elsewhere through some human agencies and then only turn to the Divine as an alternative last resort.

2.The sadhaka will not seek to dictate to the Divine what the solution should be or how soon the solution should come. He will confidently leave everything to the discretion of the divine Wisdom.

3.He will not cease from praying even if it takes a long time for the solution to come. He will wait in calm patience and continue praying till a clear indication comes from the Divine that his prayer is misplaced and the thing he is asking for is not in conformity with the divine Will but is arising only out of his egoistic ignorance.

4.The sadhaka is not debarred from taking some ancillary outward aid but his first and foremost reliance, and a confident reliance at that, will always be on the divine Grace.

5.Even if the divine answer does not come according to the sadhaka's expectations, or even if his prayers get completely thwarted, he will not lose a whit his love for the Divine or his trust in the divine omnipotence but merely resign himself gladly to the divine Providence, accepting in full faith that such is what it should be at that moment for his veritable spiritual growth.

6.At times the Divine may not unfold His plan in full before the sadhaka's vision; He may indicate only one step at a time, the step that is immediately called for. The surrendered sadhaka should not hesitate to take that step even if the rest of the future course of action remains shrouded in deep darkness. If he confidently follows the step-by-step guidance of the Divine, he will be amazed to discover in no time how the supremely wise divine Diplomat has led him to his spiritual destination through all the mazes of 'drift and bale'.

7.One last point: the sadhaka has to see at all times that his prayers tendered to the Divine do not get marred by any lack of

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faith or by the rising of complaints and misgivings of any sort. He should not nurture in his mind and heart any cynical or feeble-willed doubts like: "Who knows whether the Divine has indeed heard my appeal; or, given the complex situation, he may not perhaps be able to deliver me from my difficulty; or who knows whether the Divine exists at all." Even the slightest intrusion of doubts like this or any egoistic complaints addressed to the ever-loving Divine will throw a spanner in the effective action of the divine Grace.

Let us close our essay on śaranāgati-sādhanā with a final mantra meant for the sadhakas: "Watch for God in the events of your life. See only the hand of God in it all."

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