TRUE SURRENDER
INDEPENDENCE – DEPENDENCE – INTERDEPENDENCE
When you feel independent at your present stage of evolution, realise that that occurs from your mental patterns. You think that you are separated, but are you independent and of what are you independent? If you are independent, you would be self-subsisting, and you would not need any external or internal force for you to exist, and if you cannot exist, you make an exit.
In relationships, you usually start with your thinking processes, making you think you are independent. But when an involvement takes place with another person, your wife, husband, your guru or whoever, that interchange creates a dependency upon the person.
The mind becomes dependent because of sensory input: seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and feeling. Those are the sensory inputs that create a dependency. Because without the sensory input, your mind would cease to function. The sensory inputs go to what we call the mind-stuff, or manas, which is like a television screen. These sensory inputs are like the transmitter, transmitting onto the television screen.
But that is not the end. That input goes to an area which in Sanskrit we call buddhi. That is where the word Buddhism arose: buddhi, Buddhism. This area has analytical faculties. These analytical faculties weigh up the pros and cons of the sensory input, and as thinking beings with intellect, with buddhi, you have the power to discriminate. The power of discrimination and the sensory information is collected to form that ego-self. That ego-self makes you think you are independent, and it also plays a significant factor in your dependency. Dependency becomes a crutch. Dependency also is a form of escapism.
Take the case of psychotics, neurotics, who are so totally dependent upon various forms of drugs that they cannot do without them. That is dependency, dependency is a weakness, and primal independence is also a weakness.
Interdependency is where two people cannot do without each other. Dependency means that one person cannot do without the other. Interdependency implies that two people cannot do without each other. So, the one is dependent upon the other, and the other is dependent on that one. That is interdependency.
FROM A LOWER FORM OF INDEPENDENCE TO A HIGHER FORM OF INDEPENDENCE
To live everyday relative life, a significant amount of interdependency is required to preserve equanimity, equilibrium and so-called happy life of love. The man says, “I love you,” or the woman says, “I love you,” which is a misnomer, and it is a total misconception based upon interdependency.
I would put it differently: “I am love, and you are me.” so interdependency disappears because interdependency requires two people. While if you recognise the authentic Self that is within you and you say, “I am love, and you are me,” that is love. You are not interdependent because you do not recognise each other separate from each other; only love is there, the man is not there, and the woman is not there. You reach the final point when only love is there, and the last point is independence.
So, you start from a lower form of independence to a higher state of freedom. As I explained, the lower form of autonomy is through sensory input, etc. We could call the lower mind that does not cognise the beauty, the reality, the Brahman, the Buddha, that is within us. It does not realise that because the first independence, being so involved in their ego self, refuses to recognise the higher force within.
When we come to the area of intellectualising things, discriminating things, you have a thought in mind, “Shall I go to Chicago, or Timbuktu,” and the mind will evaluate what would be beneficial for me. Who is the me that you are talking about? It is that little mind, that little conscious mind. That is the me that you are interested in while living this life. I am also interested in me, but which me? The higher me that encompasses the entire universe. That is the me. So, Timbuktu, Chicago, New York, New Orleans, or Philadelphia means nothing. It is all one. I have got it all in the palm of my hand, not only the whole of your America but the entire universe. It is there. So where am I going to? Nowhere. I am going nowhere. That is the real me. Because of its universality, it cannot go anywhere because it just is.
TRUE SURRENDER
You have many systems here in America, many cults and creeds, where you are asked to surrender. A person can never totally surrender in the lower forms of independence or dependency. He will surrender mentally with the thought that “I am surrendered to my guru.” That is wrong. You do not surrender to your guru. If you try to surrender to your guru, you are not surrendering because you are trying. But as you develop and find the real I within, the big I within, and you do the entire cycle, independency, dependency, interdependency and then the proper independence where the entirety of the I is realised. Your guru is non-separate from you, and there is automatic, spontaneous surrender. You are not surrendering to the guru’s personality because all gurus are crazy people. True gurus are crazy people, or else I would not be going around the world with a begging bowl lecturing, talking, teaching.
As all of you know, I was in big businesses all the time, and I can get into another multimillionaire business tomorrow if I wish to, in commerce—crazy coots. Take Ramakrishna, for example, the tremendous Vedantic sage that lived at the turn of the century. He saw a dog eating from a bowl, and he went to sit down with the dog and ate with the dog from the dog’s bowl. If any modern Western psychologist or psychiatrist passed there, he would say, “Oh, this guy is nuts.” Nuts. But they could not understand Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna identified himself so much with the Spirit in the dog and his Spirit, and he found that total oneness. He found the complete oneness with the bowl and the food and the dog and himself, for nothing else is existent but that Universal Self.
THE MIND PLAYS TRICKS
The mind can play tricks. It is the trickery of the mind that makes you feel that I am Mr. So-and-So, and I am Mr. X, Y, Zed, or A, B, C. We have to develop from the stage of saying, I am Mr So-and-So, to the stage of saying, “I am that I am: Yahweh.” That completes the evolution cycle, which is why we are here. People play so many tricks, not only on others but also on themselves. In the end, the mind that plays tricks gets caught up.
Many times, I would like to say, “Oh, Lord, take this mind away from me. Let me have no mind.” No mind is wrapped up in all these various thought patterns. Thought patterns are like the ripples in a pond, and like bubbles, those ripples are going on and on and on. That creates turbulence in your mind, making you think that you are independent, and that very turbulence causes all the conflicts, and there is no stillness in the pond.
Through our spiritual practices, our meditations, we create that stillness. Not by getting rid of the ripples; you cannot get rid of the ripples. The wind will blow all the time, and the pond will create ripples. They will be there. But you develop a sense of not being involved in the ripples but the calmness of the pond. You become the observer. The human mind has a mechanism that can stand apart and observe the ripples. That we call the Superconscious level of the mind, clear as the pond, and you see the bottom, so vast, unfathomable. And you swim well, without being troubled, without the dependencies.
THE GURU IS LEADING YOU TO THE SUPERCONSCIOUS MIND
These things happen in the guru-chela relationship. The practice given to you is only twenty-five percent of the job. Twenty-five percent is your effort, and fifty percent is the Gurushakti imparted to you. So how can you say you are independent of the guru? He is there within you. Reject him if you want to by this little mind. But the inner mind, the Superconscious Mind, can never be rejected because the Superconscious Mind of the guru is the same as the Superconscious Mind in you. The only difference is that the genuine guru has realised that area, leading you to that area. Nothing new is created. It is there: eternal, immortal, infinite. Vaster than that which is vast, it is there. It is just to go and dive in that beautiful pond, that is all. And you will not drown, I assure you that. You will not drown. You cannot.
As far as surrendering to a guru goes, the relationship you have in many guru-cultified organisations is totally wrong. After doing the cycle leading you up to higher levels of thought, you will find that surrender just comes. It comes spontaneously. I am surrendered to you. Without you being surrendered to me, I am surrendered to you. If I was not, why should I be here? Surrender contains within itself the forces of love, which is indefinable. You cannot explain it, but you can experience it. For every pain you have within yourself, every headache you have, every toe ache you have, every heartache you have, every conflict you have, I suffer it with you. That is love. It will take you years to shake it off, perhaps. I suffer it, I can shake it off in a few seconds, and your problem is alleviated. Most of you have had the experience of writing to me about a problem, and as soon as I receive the letter, I get another letter in the post from you saying that your issue has been resolved. Or even before the letter reaches me, another note comes from you saying, “My problem is resolved.”
THE GURU-CHELA RELATIONSHIP IS A LOVE AFFAIR
What Force is working there? When you sit down to write, you are systematising your thought. As you write, there is a certain amount of concentration there that immediately touches that subconscious level of myself because there is only one mind. There are plenty of bubbles in the lake, but there is only one lake; there is only one mind. It is there, and you can draw on those forces. It depends upon you. You go to a well. If you take a small bucket, you will draw a small bucket of water, and if you take a big bucket, you will be drawing a bigger bucket with more water. It depends entirely upon you. That is the connection between a guru and chela, and it should always be based on love. Unselfish. Love for the sake of love.
Enlightenment can only be achieved by yourself with true and proper guidance, like in everything. I am sure our video expert had to go through some training. He must have had some advice from another video expert to do what he is doing. Likewise, if you become an accountant, a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer, whatever, you had a guide. Someone taught you, and sometimes the pupil becomes greater than the teacher. It happens. So, in the spiritual field, you also need a guide. Before, I used to tell you that my job as the external guru was to awaken the internal guru within you. Now I can tell you that when the inner guru is awakened within you, you will find that the external guru and the interior guru is but one. There is only one Atman or one Brahman. You can try, but you will never be able to reject me.
EVERY EXPERIENCE HAS A VALUE
We gurus are funny people. We teach in so many different ways. I have had occasions to rap some people’s knuckles. For the moment, they felt, “Oh, Guruji, what are you doing?” They might not recognise it immediately, but afterwards, it dawned on them the purpose. There have been people brought together from different ends of the world by no accident. Some of them, very few of them, though, just could not make it out. But that was necessary for them in their evolution because one became a catalyst to the other to bring out the deeper inner qualities.
Every experience you have in life has value. Even if it is a bad experience, it still has the value of learning something. You walk down the passage, and there is a piece of glass lying there, and you cut your foot with it. It is painful, but you have learned a lesson: that when you walk down the same path again, your eyes will be down there to see there are no other pieces of glass. You have learned even through the pain. Pain teaches you more than pleasure because the pain has a longer duration than pleasure.
EVERYTHING IS DIVINE
Psychologists have proved that pleasure is more fleeting than pain. Pain is remembered for a long time. You go to Auntie Mary for tea and lovely biscuits and cookies and what-have-you. In a week, you are going to forget that. But let Auntie Mary insult you at some other time, or say some nasty words to you, and it is going to stick in your mind for weeks and weeks and weeks. You would even have the thought that “I will get her someday.” The revengeful ideas come about, which are harmful. But, if you had looked at what Auntie Mary might have said to you from a different angle, it might have been of some significant benefit to you. You can only do that if you have love in your heart, where you recognise that the Divinity within me is the same Divinity within the other person. So, who is harming who? Who is insulting who? That is what is meant in the Bible, if smacked on one cheek, offer the other. That is what is intended. Who is smacking who?
Everything is Divine, scintillating, gold, gold, gold. Unimaginable gold. And that is the kind of input that should go through the small mind, through the five senses. Everything I touch is Divine; everything I smell is Divine; everything I feel is Divine; everything I see is Divine. If people can habituate themselves, with a little conscious effort of always seeing good, like those three monkeys you know about, little statuettes: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. This can be consciously done, and that is what we call self-help. So, the sensory input into the manas, into the mind-stuff, gets changed. When that becomes repatterned from negativity to positivity, then you will find yourself soaring fast through all the various layers of the subconscious mind, all those vritis, all those samskaras. You can transcend to the Superconscious level, and then you do not say, “I love you,” you say, “I am love, and you are me. We are non-apart. “
WITHIN OURSELVES, WE CAN FIND EQUILIBRIUM
The whole idea of separation brings all kinds of troubles in the world that brings concerns within your minds and hearts, conflicts, and wars in the world: cold wars, hot wars. And they say there is a balancing factor, which is what they tell you, and it is not valid. If you take a scale and put a pound weight here and a pound weight there, the scale will reach a standstill, and this world does not know standstill. There will always be an imbalance. Therefore, the Bhagavad Gita says, “When a greater and greater imbalance occurs, I will retake birth, from age to age, to bring about some balance.” Mentally we can find equilibrium, not on a grand worldwide scale, but within ourselves, we can.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1984 – 32