Actualizing the Surrender to the Divine in All the Parts of the Being

Particularly when we are predominantly seated in our mental consciousness, we tend to believe that 'knowing' something with our minds represents 'knowing' it in its reality. We gain what may be called the arrogance of the mental consciousness. We soon learn, however, that mental knowledge is not equivalent to actual practical experience. Reading a book on swimming does not help much if one is flailing and drowning in the lake or ocean without actual experience in both understanding the principle of swimming and having experience with its practical application through the training of our body to respond and thereby succeed in the practice.

Similarly, yogic seekers frequently believe that knowing and accepting a particular knowledge or teaching in our minds, with the ability to recite it back and explain it, means that they actually have mastered it.

There is an apocryphal story which has been passed down but which we have not been able to locate in the source material as of yet, which describes an event from the time of the Mahabharata. The preceptor of the royal princes was tasked with educating the 100 sons of Dhritarashtra, known as the Kauravas, along with the 5 sons of Pandu, known as the Pandavas. One day he indicated that the lesson was "not to become angry". Mastery of anger was essential for the role that these princes would play in their later lives, so it was an important lesson. After teaching the lesson, he asked each prince individually whether he had learned the lesson, and was told by each one, 'yes, the lesson is 'not to become angry''. Until he came to the eldest, the future king of the clan, Yudhisthira, who responded, 'no, I have not learned it.'. The lesson was repeated the next day and then the following day with the same result, as Yudhisthira demurred from having learned the lesson. Drona, in a fit of anger, struck Yudhisthira across the cheek. Striking a prince of the royal blood was a capital offense and Drona had thereby put his life on the line if Yudhisthira chose to respond. However, Yudhisthira then answered, 'I now understand and have learned the lesson, not to become angry.' Yudhisthira understood that a mental knowledge was not actual knowledge or mastery, and it was only after he had an actual circumstance that he was able to judge how deeply the lesson had been impressed upon him.

Yudhisthira's lesson is useful for the spiritual seeker who wants to carry out the spiritual surrender to the Divine. The first step is generally a central commitment, a will, an aspiration that the mind and psychic being adopt as their 'understanding'. Eventually they find that the reactions of the mind, the vital and the physical body, the responses that are embedded due to instinct or habit, the force of the ego-personality, all continue along their pre-established grooves and thus, the completeness of the process has been derailed, delayed or entirely denied.

Sri Aurobindo observes: "A complete surrender is not possible in so short a time, -- for a complete surrender means to cut the knot of the ego in each part of the being and offer it, free and whole, to the Divine. The mind, the vital, the physical consciousness (and even each part of these in all its movements) have one after the other to surrender separately, to give up their own way and to accept the way of the Divine. But what one can do is to make from the beginning a central resolve and self-dedication and to implement it in whatever way one finds open, at each step, taking advantage of every occasion that offers itself to make the self-giving complete. A surrender in one direction makes others easier, more inevitable; but it does not of itself cut or loosen the other knots, and especially those which are very intimately bound up with the present personality and its most cherished formations may often present great difficulties, even after the central will has been fixed and the first seals put on its resolve in practice."

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 2, Faith — Aspiration — Surrender, pg. 27