Student: I want to ask you to help me surrender, so I can choose a direction with faith and stop second guessing myself…

Ramgiri: Surrender is the sweetest word in my language. In my world it does not mean to ‘give up.’ Rather it means to open to love – to surrender the shell of fear around the heart and stand firm in the place of love, which is our pure being.

What is it that we surrender?

We surrender our ego that causes us nothing but pain and fear, our hardheadedness, the need to be right, the illusion that says “I know”. In surrender we open our heart to someone or something that can actually help us.

In my experience it comes in stages. First we can pray for surrender – because how can ‘we’ do it, the ‘we’ that causes all the trouble? When that prayer for the ability to surrender is genuine and deeply felt, then grace will come.

How do we feel that prayer deeply and genuinely? In two ways, either by love, or by sheer despair when we finally realize that our way just does not work. That is the hard way, to wait until you hit a wall and your life seems to fall apart. And then the surrender isn’t that deep because it is forced. So love is the best way, unconditional openness.

When I was 22, the idea to surrender to another human being was the furthest thing from my mind. And yet – somewhere, somehow I was given a hint that I could trust my guru Maharaji absolutely, that his love and his wisdom were reliable beyond question, that he could set me free of myself. And certainly I knew I could trust myself only to give me more trouble.

So I laid my life at his feet. It was all I had to give him and it wasn’t worth much at that time. It seems my prayer was accepted and over time he emptied me of myself (that is still going on) and gave me such magnificent gifts I could never have imagined to ask for.

Surrender of ego – contrary to public opinion – is the by far the smartest thing you can do. The ego will do anything it can to prevent it. But you have an ego; you are not an ego. The ego is like a dark pair of glasses through which reality appears quite dim.

You are the flawless and unobstructed consciousness that already knows freedom and love. In fact, it is the very Source of freedom and love. Listen to that; let it guide you and you’ll be fine.

Love

Ramgiri