In the Mother's Light

Self-Surrender

THE Upanishadic dictum of enjoyment by renunciation-- tyaktena bhuñjīthā—is the basic motor principle of all evolutionary existence. Every step forward in evolution, from the primal outburst of life from the blind darkness of Matter to the luminous infinity and immortality of the superconscient Spirit, is taken, consciously or unconsciously, by renunciation or surrender. Take, for instance, the first emergence of life. How does it happen ? Something in the dumb bosom of Matter wearies of the unrelieved inertia and obscurity in which it lies buried, and pants for light and a free flow of life. The dull sleep in darkness is renounced, so that there may be a leap into some kind of light, movement, change, growth and progress. As a result of this aspiration and surrender, life breaks out of "the mire and the stone", lusty and impetuous, and weaves the marvels of living Nature. But the light in which it acts is a dim, dusky light, and the source of its action is not in itself, but in some veiled Intelligence, occult to its nascent consciousness. There is flux, but a fettered and conditioned flux, mutation, but a limited and mechanical, though marvellous, mutation; and there is no witness or enjoyer of the wonder-working élan vital. Again, in the mysterious depths something wearies of this ceaseless, subconscious flux and yearns to know and to be, in the full light of self-consciousness. A drugged obsession with the perpetual flicker-dance of the senses is renounced in favour of a clearer and more steadfast light, a knowledge of one's self and a knowledge of the world. This surrender initiates the development of the Mind. In this way, by continual surrender, the normal and the habitual are exceeded and the consciousness of the embodied being transcends itself.

Up to the emergence of the Mind, the renunciation or surrender is either unconscious or subconscious, taking place behind the veil; but with the emergence of the Mind, it gets a chance of being conscious and voluntary. But at this stage of transition between the automatic surrender and spontaneous

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self-adaptation of subhuman existence and the conscious, deliberate and joyous self-giving of the fully evolved human being, the ego comes to the front, centralising and consolidating the evolving consciousness and grabbing at everything to enrich and fortify itself. A more or less long spell of egoistic development ensues. All individual initiative pivots upon an entrenched egocentricism till the individuality is well organised, as far as that is possible in the conditions of the Ignorance, and the being is ripe for a further advance and expansion. It is then that a new tendency manifests itself in the individual: an incipient but insistent tendency towards self-giving and self-surrender. The old, prevailing tendency to self-aggrandisement and self-satisfaction persists, but along with that, in a firm and steady opposition to it, grows the new one, big with immense possibilities for the future. Even if the old tendency dominates the nature and dictates and directs most of its movements for a long time, the new one cannot be altogether stifled—it keeps up a protest, however feeble in the beginning, and a struggle and discontent. In the end, the ego awakes to its own distressing limitations and, feeling itself a prisoner in its own narrow formations, stresses the second tendency and begins to take a genuine delight in self-surrender. In self-expansion by self- giving it seeks its highest satisfaction and fulfilment. This self- expansion is really the self-extinction of the ego. With the gradual disappearance of the ego, the central being of man, the immortal soul or psyche, whose shadow-figure was the ego, comes forward to lead the nature, replacing desire by love.

With the emergence of love, love of the Universal, the Infinite and the Eternal, love of God or the Supreme Person, begins what Sri Aurobindo calls the third status of the ascent of life. The consciousness of the individual breaks beyond its normal bounds, surrenders all it had clung to in its constricting ignorance, and hungers for self-fulfilment in an illimitable self- expansion. Progress in this third status and the attainment of the fourth are characterised by an increasing, self-offering of the being and a glad renunciation of all its sense of separativity.

Self-surrender to the Infinite Reality or the Eternal Being, is,

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then, the most powerful lever of self-transcendence. It is a renunciation of our smug complacency with the finite and the fleeting, a breaking of all bonds, a sure means of the widening and heightening of our consciousness and a recovery of our own free and immortal existence. Self-surrender cuts asunder the knots of the ego and the toils of desire and, neutralising the seductions of the senses, liberates us into the ineffable Love and Light of the Supreme. It removes the impediments of nature, sweeps away the accretions of ignorance and creates an opening towards the higher values, and an orientation towards the great goal of life. Self-surrender brings strength to the weak, light to to the blind, and faith and certitude to those who despair. It is said of Rulman Merswin that, one evening, when he was walking in his garden, he suddenly saw a Cross before him and was so intensely moved to his depths by the sight that "lifting his eyes to heaven, he solemnly swore that he would utterly surrender his own will, person and goods to the service of God." As soon as the surrender was made, there was, as it were a sudden release of mighty spiritual springs within him and an electric awakening of faculties which bridged the gulf between the sensory and the supra-sensory world. "The reply (td the surrender) from on high came quickly. A brilliant light shone about him; he heard in his ears a divine voice of adorable sweetness."

Similar instances are recorded in the lives of St. Teresa an St. Catherine of Sienna, which go to prove the stupendous power of conversion and transformation inherent in the act of self-surrender. It is only by self-surrender, that is to say, by surrender of the limited, ignorant and egoistic self, that the infinite and eternal Self can be realised. "Attainment," says Dionysius the Areopagite, "comes only by means of this sincere, spontaneous and entire surrender of yourself and all things."

But how to surrender ? What is its actual process ? Is there such a thing as partial surrender, and also temporary surrender —a surrender which is revoked after a certain spell of experience ? What is the difference between active surrender and passive surrender ? What is detailed surrender ? What is integral

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surrender ? For a conclusive elucidation of all these very important issues—what can be more important than self- surrender, at least in the beginning of one's spiritual career ? —we cannot do better than turn to the illuminating words of the Mother; for, in these words alone do we find a most complete and comprehensive exposition of the different aspects and results of self-surrender and an inspiring illustration of its integral perfection.

Regarding the process—or rather the spirit or attitude— of surrender, the Mother says :

" 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. If once, even for a moment only, the inner being has said, 'I am here and I am yours,’ then it is as though a bridge has been built and little by little the crust becomes thinner and thinner until the two parts are wholly joined and the inner and the outer become one.” ¹

Speaking of the paths of tapasya (discipline) and surrender, the Mother observes:

"The path of Tapasya 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. It is here, however, that the western People find their difficulty. They have been taught to fear and avoid all that threatens their personal independence. They have imbibed with their mother's milk the sense of individuality. And surrender means giving up all that.... If you take up this path of surrender fully and sincerely, there is no more any danger or

¹ Words of the Mother, 4th Edition, p. 14.

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serious difficulty. The question is to be sincere.” ¹

Surrender, as the Mother teaches us, is safety itself; it is, as it were, taking refuge in the loving arms of the Almighty. But in order to be completely immune to all attacks, one has to surrender all one's being, which is hardly possible at the initial stages of the sadhana; for man is a multi-personality and a jumble of divergent aims and appetites, and to forge all his disparate parts and chaotic instincts into a unity and a harmony, he has, first, to be conscious of them all and of their tufted working, and then, by a progressive purification of this disorderly mass, achieve an order and concordance which will facilitate his mastery and his subsequent surrender of it to its Creator and Lord. An illustration of the triple movement of self- mastery, self-integration and self-surrender is found in the Mother's Prayer of November 9, 1914 :

"O Lord, we aspire to perfect consciousness. The whole being is gathered like a closely tied wreath made of flowers, different but all perfectly harmonised together. The will was the hand that gathered the flowers and the string that tied the wreath, and now too it is the will that lifts the wreath towards Thee as a scented offering. It is held up towards Thee unweariedly, unfalteringly.”

But it is a long way to this state of integrated and consecrated harmony, and it has to be trodden with a resolute will and an endless patience through a scrupulously detailed surrender. The Mother explains how a general offering can be carried out in detail:

"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

¹Words of the Mother, pp. 9 and 10

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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.” ¹

But surrender may be partial and not integral, which means that only one part of our being may be willing to give itself and the other parts may either reserve themselves or oppose the movement of self-offering. But even this partial surrender is not unavailing, it may, if carried out with sincerity, create an opening in the nature for the higher light and initiate a salutary, expansive change in it. But for the divine Grace to descend and do its work fully and freely in the human being, it is essential that the surrender should be unreserved and integral.

There are many pitfalls on the path of surrender. We may start with a sincere surrender, but when the divine Power descends into us and achieves something extraordinary—as it not unoften does—we take all the credit to ourselves and forget the Source from which the Power came. The surrender, though genuine in the beginning, proves transient: the highly gratifying result of the working of the divine power is at once misappropriated by the ego, neutralising the previous self-consecration. A vigilant constancy and a total sincerity in self-surrender alone can save the spiritual seekers from these pitfalls.

A point of capital importance in regard to surrender is that, in a dynamic yoga, it should be active and not merely passive. The Mother distinguishes between the two in the following words :

"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...Take the example of becoming conscious of your nights. If you take the attitude of passive surrender, you would say, 'When it is the divine Will that I should become conscious,

¹ Words of the Mother, p. 39.

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then I shall become conscious.’ On the other hand, if you offer your mil to the Divine, you begin to will; you say, 'I will become conscious of my nights.’ You have the will that it should be done; you do not sit down idle and wait. The surrender comes in when you take the attitude that says, 'I will give my will to the Divine. I intensely want to become conscious of my nights. 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 aw answer or have no answer, whether you feel supported or contradicted, not by the mind or the vital or the body, but by then something which is always there deep in the inner being, in your heart.”¹

In short, the Mother says that our will must always endeavour' to attune itself to and put itself at the disposal of the divine Will and help its realisation. The combined working of the two wills is the best condition and the most speedily effective means of spiritual progress and divine manifestation.

We shall now try to understand what the Mother means by integral surrender. Its key-note is struck in the very first Prayer of her book, The Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, and it rises in pitch and power as the Prayers advance. In the Prayer of Aug. 15, 1913, the Mother says to the Divine,

¹ Words of the Mother, pp. 32-33.

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" O Divine Master, for Thee is our life, our thought, our love, all our being. Take possession of Thy own; for, Thou art ourselves in our real being.”

A great experience is followed by a fuller outburst of self- surrender :

"Thou hast passed over my life, O Lord, like a great wave of love, and when I was immersed in it, I knew in a way, integral and intense, that I had offered to Thee—when ? I do not know, at no precise moment and, doubtless, always—my thoughts, my heart and my flesh in a living holocaust,”¹

Outdistancing all previous records comes a most generous gesture of self-surrender:

"It seems to me that I am being born into a new life and that all the methods and habits of the past can no longer be of any use. It seems to me that what was once a result is now only a preparation. I feel as if I had done nothing yet, as if I had not lived the spiritual life, as if I was only entering upon the way which leads to it; it seems to me that I know nothing, that I am incapable of formulating anything, that all experience is yet to commence. It is as if I was stripped of all my past, of my errors as well as my conquests, as if all that had disappeared to give place to one new- born whose existence has yet to take shape, who has no Karma, no experience it can profit by, but no error either which it must repair. My head is empty of all knowledge and all certitude, but also of all vain thought. I feel that if I can surrender without any resistance to this state, if I do not strive to know or understand, if I consent to be completely like a child, ignorant and candid, some new possibility will open before me. I know that I must now definitively give myself up and be like a page absolutely blank on which Thy thought. Thy will, O Lord, will be able to inscribe themselves freely, secure against any deformation.

"An immense gratitude rises from my heart; I seem to have at

¹ Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, January 13, 1914.

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last arrived at the threshold which I have so long sought.

"Grant, O Lord, that I may be pure enough, impersonal enough, animated enough with Thy divine Love, to be able to cross it definitively.

"O to belong to Thee, without any darkness or restriction /"

But even this does not seem to satisfy the exacting Lover. He insists on more, for, he has ordained more—an unprecedented perfection by an exhaustive and exemplary self-surrender. In the rapt silence of the Mother's heart, His voice rings out:

"Never hast thou been able to die integrally. Always something in thee has wished to know, to see, to understand. Surrender completely, learn to disappear, break the last dam which separates thee from me; accomplish without reserve thy act of surrender.”¹

This last surrender is at last accomplished : "Suddenly the veil was rent, the horizon was disclosed. Before the clear vision my whole being threw itself at Thy feet in a great outburst of gratitude. Yet in spite of this deep and integral joy, all was calm, all was peaceful with the peace of eternity.

"I seemed to have no more any limits; there is no longer the perception of the body, no sensations, no feelings, no thoughts.... A clear, pure, tranquil immensity, penetrated with love and light, filled with an unspeakable beatitude, is all that is there, and that. alone seems now to be myself, and this 'myself is so little the’ former ' I’, selfish and limited, that I cannot tell if it is I or Thou, O Lord, sublime Master of our destinies.

"It is as though all were energy, courage, force, will, infinite sweetness, incomparable compassion.

"Even more forcibly than during these last days the past is dead and as though buried under the rays of a new life. The last glance that I have just thrown backward, as I read a few pages of this book, definitively convinced me of this death, and lighten of a great weight, I present myself before Thee, O my divine Master,

¹ Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, April 7, 1914.

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with all the simplicity, all the nudity of a child...And still the only thing I perceive is that calm and pure immensity....Lord, Thou hast answered my prayer. Thou hast granted me what I have asked from Thee; the I has disappeared, there is only a docile instrument put at Thy service, a centre of concentration and manifestation of Thy infinite and eternal rays; Thou hast taken my life and made it Thine; Thou hast taken my love and identified it with Thine; Thou hast taken my thought and replaced it by Thy absolute consciousness.

"The body, marveling, bows its forehead in the dust in mute and submissive adoration. And nothing else exists but Thou alone in the splendour of Thy immutable peace.”

Indicating the various efficacy of surrender, the Mother says that surrender at once relieves the strain and tension of the struggling will and brings peace and a calm confidence to the individual being. It is a safeguard against all anxiety and fear, and a guarantee of all fulfilment.

Surrender heals all physical ailments and restores health and harmony to our life-energies :

"As soon as physical conditions are a little difficult and there results from them some unease, if we know how to surrender completely before Thy Will, holding cheap life or death or illness, our integral being enters immediately into harmony with Thy law of love and life, and all physical indisposition ceases to give place to a well-being calm, deep and peaceful.”

Surrender removes all obstacles and difficulties, changes the environments and circumstances and makes for a thorough purification and perfection of the seeker of the Divine.

"He who, in all sincerity of his being, has given himself to Thee With all his conscious will, he who has resolved to make every effort to help in the manifestation and triumph of Thy divine law of Love in him and in the whole zone of his influence, sees everything change in his life and all circumstances begin to express Thy law

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and facilitate his consecration; for him it is always the best that happens; and if there is still in his intelligence some obscurity, some ignorant desire which sometimes prevents him from perceiving it immediately, he recognises sooner or later that a beneficent power seemed to protect him even against himself, so as to secure for him the conditions most favourable to his blossoming and transfiguration, his integral conversion and utilisation.”

Such is the result of self-surrender. Human reason cannot understand the mysterious action of the dynamic of a higher dimension of consciousness, and what it does not understand it readily dubs superstition or hallucination. Self-surrender, by bridging the gulf between the finite and the infinite, immeasurably widens the range of human possibilities and effects miraculous changes in human life. But it presupposes an implicit faith in the existence of a living, omnipresent Reality, nay, a Supreme Being or Person, of whom the essential human individuality is an abiding manifesting centre in the material world, and the mutable human personality a phenomenal front and figure of self-representation. It is His Will that is splintered into the myriad wills and desires of the swarming mass of living forms, and His purpose that is being inevitably, but through mysterious, incalculable ways, fulfilled. Each individual is That in his eternal essence, but alienated in consciousness by his manifold ignorance. Surrender is the means to the rediscovery of That—a dispelling of ignorance, a transcendence of the ego, and an attainment and fulfilment of the highest truth of our being.

One word more before we conclude. The self-surrender that the Mother has illustrated by her aspiration and realisations has two aspects—one, which is the general and universal aspect of it and needs to be fully grasped and integrally accomplished by every follower of the synthetic Yoga of the dynamic divine realisation, the other, which is special to the Mother's life and mission on earth. Over and above the general and detailed surrender of her integral being to the Divine, the Mother; identified with the entire earth, made a representative and symbolic

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surrender of her whole being, so that through it the Divine might accept the self-offering of the earth and humanity and work upon them to bring about the much-needed transformation. She speaks of this representative self-surrender in the following words :—

"Lord, eternal Master!

"Men, pushed by the conflict of forces, are making a sublime sacrifice, they are offering their lives in a sanguinary holocaust.

"Lord, eternal Master, grant that it may not be in vain; that the inexhaustible torrents of Thy divine force may spread over the earth, penetrating into the troubled atmosphere, the struggling energies, all the violent chaos of the battling elements; and that the pure Light of Thy Knowledge and the inexhaustible love of Thy Benediction may fill the hearts of men, penetrate into their souls, illumine their consciousness and make to pour forth out of this obscurity, this sombre, terrible and powerful darkness, the splendour of Thy majestic Presence !

"My being is before Thee in an integral holocaust so that it may make their unconscious holocaust effective.

"Accept this offering, reply to our call: Come!”¹

Again : "Grant that we may be Thy vivifying breath. Thy sweet peace. Thy luminous love upon the earth amongst our ignorant and sorrowful human brothers.

"O divine Master, accept the offering of my integral holocaust, so that Thy work may be done and the time may not pass in vain...

"The whole being is transformed into the ardent flame of a sacrifice of pure love.

"Become again the king of Thy kingdom, deliver the earth from the heavy weight which crushes her, the weight of her inert, ignorant and obscure ill-will.”²

The holocaust was accepted by the Divine and we have a most ecstatic expression of the Mother's gratitude as well as another most revealing picture of an absolute surrender:

¹Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, August 4, 1914,

² 'bid., August 5, 1914.

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"O my beloved Lord, what a sweetness to think that it is for Thee and Thee alone that I act! At Thy service I am; it is Thou who decidest, ordainest and puttest in motion, directest and accomplishest the action. What peace, what tranquillity, what supreme felicity are given me when I sense and perceive it! For, it is enough to be docile, plastic, surrendered and attentive, so as to let Thee act freely; then there can be no longer errors or faults or any lack or insufficiency, since it is what Thou hast willed that Thou doest and it is so done as Thou hast willed it.

"Accept the ardent flame of my gratitude and of my joyous and fully confident adherence.

"My father has smiled at me and taken me in His powerful arms. What is there that I could fear ? I have melted into Him and it is He who acts and lives in this body which He has Himself formed for His manifestation.”¹

¹ Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, October 10, I9t8.

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