Aspiration and Surrender are Complementary

It is believed in conventional yoga, that surrender and aspiration are contradictory to each other. For e.g. often a question is asked to an aspirant that if he is truly surrendered, what is he really aspiring for? Or rather how can he even aspire or seek when there is surrender. Due to this predominant thought in conventional yoga, aspiration and surrender get divorced and are considered a deterrent force to each other.

For e.g. in conventional Vedanta, santosha (satisfaction) is considered to be a negative attribute for spiritual progress. In Bhakti Yoga, surrender is given utmost importance and any seeking or aspiration is considered a violation of the surrender principle. This hiatus between surrender and aspiration often confuses a sadhak and he/she is unable to set their strong hold on either of these two principles.

In the integral Yoga it is important for aspiration, rejection and surrender to co-exist and compliment each other beautifully and effortlessly without any struggle of any sorts. In this article, I have made an attempt to elucidate how these three principles can operate simultaneously and coherently and thus aiding the sadhak towards spiritual evolution and progress.

One needs to understand carefully the difference between the aspiration of the mind and the aspiration of the soul. It is true that if one is adhering to the principle of surrender, the mind cannot aspire because the mind has offered itself up into the fire of divine knowledge and truth and entered into silence. When the mind has truly effaced itself into the Divine, the Divine provides direct guidance to the soul to move into the direction destined or chosen for itself. And in this process of the soul moving into the desired direction, there will be a subtle knowledge of aspiration emanating from the soul and observed by the silent mind.

The mind does not react to this aspiration and simply allows it to function as guided under the vigilance of the Divine. A silent mind is a surrendered mind as it does not choose but becomes merely an instrument of the soul. And the soul aspires to a wider comprehension and perception of the truth divine. This is when the aspiration of the soul and the surrender of the mind become complementary and function in harmony with each other.

One needs to be careful not to cloud the soul with predestined conditioning, ideas or thoughts that would hinder its forthcoming. A simple conclusion reached by the mind about its own beatitude can provide a false perception of peace and the real peace can never be experienced as all the experiences get filtered by the mind principle alone. The mind has tremendous power to assume, operate and concoct a state of mental peace which is grossly mistaken to be coming from within. This mental peace is merely a product of mental and intellectual understanding of what peace is and how it functions. For experiencing true peace, you need a silent and a surrendered mind and not a mind that functions of conclusions. Only when the mind is silent, receptive and open to the divine force, surrender happens in the mind and the potential for the aspiration of the soul becomes possible.

True meditation does not have a meditator

Reminds me of a quote from Ashtavakra Gita....

He whose mind does not set out to meditate or act, still meditates and acts but without an object. 18.31

I do not see any purpose of meditation if there is a meditator involved. As that goes against the principle of meditation. In true meditation, there is no meditator. There is no one trying to meditate. 

As the quote states here, he whose mind does not set out to meditate but still meditates. This is such a beautiful statement and if you truly understand what it means, you will appreciate its beauty. 

I am not setting out to meditate but I still meditate. Beautiful! 

This is true meditation. Then meditation happens without a meditator. 

So sit for meditation but let not the meditator appear in this process. 

No such thing as Self Knowledge or Self Realization

Now before all the seekers start jumping on me, let me explain what I am trying to say here :)

There is no such thing as self knowledge or the knowledge of the self. The Brahman of the Upanishads or the Self/Absolute of the philosophers can never be known by anyone other than itself.

Because if the Absolute can be known, it becomes an object of knowledge. And how can an object be the truth? So that is ruled out.

But still there are self realized people. And I am not denying the existence of self realized people. But they do not know the self. They can never know the self. So why are they self realized? What does it exactly mean?

I will not give an answer to this question. Rather I want you to contemplate on this question. What is Self Knowledge or Realization when the Self can never be known or realized by anything other than the Self itself.

I will give one hint to a serious seeker that may open the doors to a new realization. Self is beyond time, beyond space. And the mind that is a function of time and space can never know that which is beyond. Only in the absence of the mind, the self will shine forth and reveal itself. I don't know to whom is reveals itself but it does. This is where it becomes impossible to express. No words can describe that experience or non-experience.

Enlightenment is Now!

Various schools of thoughts teach techniques to attain the state of enlightenment. And the assumption is that the seeker will follow the technique with devotion and faith and eventually his effort reaches fruition and the ultimate realization of truth dawns.

One has to be extremely careful when treading this path. If it is not understood carefully, this journey can become a never-ending journey and the seeker can never become free from seeking.

Ultimately the seeker needs to die. As long as the seeker is present, the seeking will continue. And seeking is always in the future. It is never now. You seek now to get something in the future. But Truth is in the Now and you miss that "Now" as you are busy seeking something in the future. This future will never come. As when the future actually becomes the Now, you are still seeking. And this becomes a never ending journey of endless seeking.

Enlightenment is Now. It is in this moment. So don't seek now; cause you have missed the Truth.

Does that mean we should drop seeking? That is also not correct. You cannot really drop seeking. As seeking is your nature. But you can drop all ideas about seeking. All ideas about Truth. And then the very process of seeking is the truth. You are no longer seeking truth in the future. But you are seeking and experiencing the truth now. As Enlightenment is Now, not tomorrow.

Effort Grace Enlightenment

Enlightenment cannot happen through effort alone. But effort is necessary for enlightenment. Because it is only through effort that we become the recipient of grace.

Enlightenment happens only through grace. It is said luck favors the brave. Similarly grace favors the one who makes effort.

You can never really Observe

It has been a notion that one can Observe one's feelings, thoughts, emotions and actions and eventually be free from them. But the truth is that one can never really observe.

Let us say that one is trying to be free from the emotional roller coaster one is going through. And this person decides to observe his or her emotions. The moment you observe the emotion ceases to exist in that moment. As the very same emotion transforms itself to be the observer. Once the observer disappears the emotion sets back in.

You are either the emotion or the observer but both can never coexist. And this coexistence is an illusion created due to thought. We may "think" that we are observing something but there is no real observation. Its just thinking. There can never be observation at the realm of the mind.

When you observe a thing or an emotion with the mind, you become that thing. Lets say I am watching TV. In the moment I am engrossed in the TV episode, my mind is the episode. It cannot stand outside of it and observe it. Once the episode is over, the mind can start thinking about it and in that moment the mind becomes the thought. But there is no real observation.

As long as the mind is present, the observer is the observed or the observed is the observer. Observer is non-different from the observed. And observer is nothing but the grand accumulation of all the things observed in the past. So they are wedded together as they are coming from the same essence.

Transformation not a factor of time

It has been conventionally believed that transformation is a factor of time. We think that by doing some action now, we can become something else tomorrow. In order to transform or change, we believe that time plays an important role and its a process in time that brings about a transformation. 

The ego is a function of time. And ego persists in time and creates this illusion of time. And all our effort has been carried out in time alone. The ego believes strongly that its effort in time can result in a transformation of itself where it ceases to exist. In short ego is trying to kill itself continuously in time.

We need to understand here that ego has a survival instinct. And it can never really kill itself as its against its own nature. It has no gains in killing itself. It thrives on its existence and affirmation of its being. And all spiritual quest has been carried out by the ego. It thinks that its going to achieve something grand, something spectacular. So in this whole process of seeking, the ego does everything else except giving up itself. 

Let me give you an example. Lets say, I tell you that ego needs to give up. And only then realization comes forth. The ego will understand this as a concept, an idea and try to implement on this. It will always ask a question...how am I supposed to do it. What should I do? Give me a task and I will get it done. Should I meditate or should I contemplate or should I try to be aware. And I just smile at these questions as they were my questions too. These are the questions of every seeker. 

And there is no clear answer. All I can say is there is nothing you can do to achieve it. Absolutely nothing. The question what should I do is meaningless. Sorry, you cannot do anything. And this understanding is enough. After that if something happens its grace. If nothing happens, who cares? There is nobody waiting for something to happen, isn't it?

Like to quote the late Allan W Anderson's poem.....

Silent as a petal’s power. Silken as the rain. Love unbinds the ancient knot. Time interlaced in vain - Allan W. Anderson