My Struggle with Surrender

The Guru is the guiding light in the lives of all of us. A life without Guru is similar to a boat without a rudder.  The hapless sailor doesn’t know whether the boat will float, or sink, only the winds of the circumstance, labelled as destiny decides the fate of the boat. Blessed are the souls who get initiated by the Guru, the guiding light that can change your life and bestow you with the touch of magnificence. It’s the Guru and only the Guru who can add wings to your tired and listless soul to soar and experience the brilliance of the divine. In fact, 

Guru is the savior in the so called rat race of life, where even if you win, you’re still a rat. He gives a direction to the life. Most importantly, He teaches you to smell the flowers on the way and not get trapped in the journey. Destination is not important rather the journey has its beauty. It’s about living in the moment, experiencing simple and trivial pleasures of life, which we are in the habit of postponing till we reach a particular goal, which could be our personal mileposts, our children’s targets and then grand-children. It seems like the attachment has no end. Guru can deliver you from this tailspin.

However, most of the disciples even after initiation are not able to surrender to the Guru. Somehow, doubts obstruct in the path of surrender. So obsessed are we with our preconceived notions, learnings that we try to fit in the Guru in our pre-existing mould somehow even if it requires sacrificing on the learning we may acquire from the Guru. Somehow, we are fascinated with miracles and we want Guru to cast spells, mitigate our personal concerns, our domestic struggles. Engrossed in the outer domain we tend to ignore the real self, which is the territory where the master has to work, to enable us evolve as a soul and rise beyond the ordinary.

Often I’ve wondered why as disciples we are so mired in the mundane, in the frivolous and are not able to trust the Guru. For me the reasons lie in our inability to trust? In our obsession with the extraordinary, the form of divine that has been handed down to us from ages, the God in his resplendence that we’re unable to have faith in the simplicity of the Guru and in his normal existence. 

The modesty that should have connected us more with the Guru comes in the path of the trust. This is what is called the absence of absolute surrender, where you do something ritualistically, just because you’re ordained to do it. I would call it half-hearted surrender. Doing but not believing in it.

How to rise above the challenge? The solution is simple. Trust Guru. When you trust boundaries evaporate and you merge with the Guru. The real test of being a disciple is to connect with the Guru without expectations. Most of the times, we inundate Guru with our trivial concerns, which are just a 

phase in the life because good and not-so-good times constitute life.

Guru is the alchemist who can transform you. However, you have to allow him to cast his spell. Allow him to take in your fold and trust him. The word here is BLINDLY. Avoid doubts because they can erode your relationship with the Guru. Guru and disciple are bound by love and affection. Enjoy it and cherish the beautiful relationship and see how master weaves his magic.

Disclaimer

Me and My Guru, my thoughts, any resonance with you or your thoughts is not coincidental

How ego comes in the way of your union with the Guru

 The Guru says that surrender is vital for spiritual enlightenment. Many disciples contemplate and decide to surrender wholeheartedly to the master, but the blessed few manage to do that. Rest of us just do it halfheartedly, or create a charade, or are incapable of surrendering.

What exactly comes in the way of surrender? Most importantly, it is ego, the exaggerated self that views itself in the highest regard. Ego is fond of considering itself seriously, whereas no one else does that. Weakening of ego is directly proportional to strengthening of surrender. If this is the case, then why is it difficult to surrender even in hard circumstances?

From my perspective as a disciple, surrender is mistakenly believed to be equivalent with non-action, which it is not. Our years of training and belief in action doesn’t permit us to surrender because then we are no longer in control, which is a frightening thought for folks like me who love to regulate events happening in our life.

Then, how to surrender to the master? Surrender comes from the faith and belief that the Guru is the guiding light. And here lies the turmoil, because our pre-conceived notions and knowledge do not let us rely on the master totally. We are afraid to give in ourselves to the Guru or we give little, or give expecting the result in the return.

In fact, my feeling is that our mind is extremely calculative and manipulative. It keeps an account of each effort made and the outcome received. The wisdom comes in the way of surrender, because it doesn’t let you renounce all your notions. Surrendering to the Guru means that you have to empty your mind and absorb the wisdom of the guru, which strangely is a paradoxical situation, summarized in the famous ‘what if’ context, which is the root cause of all doubts.

What if, I surrendered and it didn’t happen as I’ve thought? If these are your feelings, where is the surrender? For most of us Guru is the shortcut to deliverance and that too ‘my’ way. He is just another medium to fulfil wishes when circumstances get tough. Isn’t it the way most of us pray?

Actually, most of us are not surrendering to the Guru, rather recruiting the master to fulfil our desires and make our lives simpler, which the Guru can with His Midas touch. He is the alchemist who can turn paltry iron in the precious gold. And we come in the fold of Guru with an expectation to seek solutions for our everyday living, for things and concerns non-existent in the larger scheme of things, yet extremely critical for us! Rather than relying on the Guru we are directing the master to find solutions to our life’s troubles. Here lies the inability to surrender because Guru is an additional facilitator to live the lives we’ve decided for ourselves.

Our unwillingness to surrender clips our wings to rise to the fullest potential because we do   not let the master weave His magic. So bogged down are we with the mundane that the master who could have enabled us to rise to a conscience higher than the current remains trapped in bestowing blessings for the fulfilment of the ordinary.   Perhaps, our incapability to surrender lies in our mindset. Just the way Arjuna viewed Krishna as a friend because of his myopic vision, in the same way, we get fooled by the simplicity of the Guru and start viewing him as a mortal being, which He is not and is the biggest sin committed on the part of the disciple.

The question is how to surrender. Like, the famous Nike slogan ‘Just do it,’ because there is no other way, but to surrender. For me surrender is akin to becoming a child who believes and trusts his parents under all circumstances. That’s what surrender is for me, anyone or everyone. Just trust Guru implicitly and follow him blindly. The master knows all.



Disclaimer: These thoughts are strictly mine and any any resonance with you or your thoughts is not coincidental