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The true meaning of surrender
What exactly is surrender? To give
yourself entirely, unconditionally and absolutely to God is
surrender. To attain that state, you should first develop
friendship with God. What is friendship? Is it saying, “Hello!”?
No, not at all. Feeling of oneness is true friendship; the two
must feel alike and think alike. The Telugu word
Maitri (meaning friendship) has two
syllables, one is mai and the other
is tri. This
tri stands for the three planes of a human being, namely,
body, mind and soul. Thus the word maitri
connotes a feeling of oneness at all these three levels. Such a
state alone can be called a state of true friendship.
 Divinity
can be attained only when the body, the mind and the soul are
all surrendered at the Lotus Feet of the Lord. As
long there is a feeling of duality, a sense of I and you, the
notion of mine and thine, the Divine state cannot be attained.
Your true reality is the Atma (the
individual Soul) which is a wave of the
Paramatma (Universal Soul). Krishna has declared that He is
in everyone and every being. Thus, you do not have a separate
existence; the individual and the Universal are one and the same.
Just because bodies are different, you think that you have a
separate existence. If, however, you seek friendship with God, you
must give up this body-consciousness. You must follow the command
of the Divine. But these days, selfishness has taken precedence
over obedience to God’s commands. If you disobey God’s commands,
if you do not pay heed to them, can there be any true devotion?
Always abide by the wishes of God and realise that this is the
right path to Divinity.
Purandara Dasa, a
great devotee of the Lord, once declared: “O God! I forgot you in
my previous birth and that has resulted in my being born again.
This time, if I install You in my heart, there will be no rebirth;
I will become a liberated soul.” These days, everyone is harassed
by doubts of various kinds. As long as there is a feeling of
attachment to the body, doubts cannot be overcome. Proper exercise
of discrimination alone would lead to the Truth. For example,
Purandara Dasa asked himself: “There are isolated trees on
mountain tops that are otherwise barren. Who planted these trees,
who watered the saplings, who protected them, and who provided the
fertilizer? Who painted the feather of the peacock with such a
glorious combination of colours? O God, you are such a wonderful
artist!” The green parrot sports a nice red beak; who gave the
parrot the red beak? Scientists have no explanation for all these
wonders of Nature because their approach is purely worldly and
materialistic. This is not the proper way of understanding
Reality. Truth can be grasped only through the path of
spirituality. God is the fountainhead of all existence and the
will of the Divine is the cause for every happening. Nothing
happens in the Universe without the Sankalpa
(will) of Ishwara (God). You must
have this belief implanted firmly. Don’t ever imagine that you are
a low and an ordinary mortal. You are nothing of that sort; you
are truly speaking a child of God, a spark of the Divine.
Therefore it is that Purandara Dasa sang: “As long as I am aware
of Your presence in my heart, I do not feel lost. You are the real
doer and not me. You impart knowledge. You protect and You also
reprimand when necessary. There is nothing that is not Yours. I am
wholly Yours. When You, the Lord Almighty, are doing so much for
me and are taking care for me, how can I be called poor?” Like
Purandara Dasa, all of you also are a spark of the Divine. He
realised that he was; you too should.
Source:
Radio Sai E-Magazine,
March 15, 2004
http://www.radiosai.org/Journals/Vol_02/06March15/03_Spiritual_Blossoms/01_Sathya_Sai_Speaks/sai_speaks.htm
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