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In the field of action, in the Kurukshetra war, Krishna asked Arjuna not to surrender his weapons but to take them up and fight because he was protecting dharma. Krishna says, “Surrender unto me.”
So, surrender is not to worldly forces. In fact, if you do this, you will not be able to turn to spirituality at all.
There is a battle going on in us, aimed at defeating the temporal forces that take us away from the spirit. Surrender, not, to the forces that are tempting you or acting as obstacles to your spiritual path.
Surrender comes from the understanding, that however much we may intellectualise with our limited intelligence, we cannot touch Divinity, unless the mind says, “Now I can do nothing more, let me surrender.”
Surrender is to do with the mind which after trying to capture God in all directions, finally gives up and understands, “This is not in my hands. Let me pray for grace.” Without grace one cannot surrender. In fact, I would go to the extent of saying that it is only with grace that one even turns to spirituality.
There are millions of people on this earth who do and achieve so many things, but how many really want to go into a serious search for the Divine? This is only because they have not evolved to the extent where they can turn to this. That requires grace. In fact, to surrender to the spiritual, one has to be a true warrior in the temporal and fight a battle because it is a constant battle. And if you surrender, you get help to fight the battle.
So, within us, this constant battle that goes on between righteousness and unrighteousness, between material pleasures and internal enjoyment of the spiritual; can be resolved only when you completely disregard this body and understand, “I am not this body but I am something other than this.”
To abandon this field of activity and turn inward, is not admitting defeat. It is when you figure out that all this circus is finally not going to solve the problem, so let me keep quiet and in that quietness may be the Divine will reveal itself.
After all, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by definition say, ‘Yogas chitta vritti nirodah’. When all the vrittis or disturbances of this field called the mind are removed, then when the mind becomes quiet, that is the take off point for the soul towards its spiritual journey.
(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)