Many things just seem to happen. It’s something like what occurs with a magnet. The magnet is sitting there, static, but the magnetic field spreads out. When iron particles come within a certain distance of the magnet, they move around. Can you say that the magnet is moving these particles? No. The magnetic field is dictating the movement. The very presence of the magnet is enough to make the particles move. In the same way, the spirit or the awareness in you, is just sitting there as static energy. But anything that moves does so because of that power, or cosmic energy.
Therefore, there’s nothing to surrender to because we have already surrendered ourselves. We are completely under the mercy of the higher force. If you feel you want to surrender, then surrender your ignorance in thinking that you are doing everything on you own. Once you feel this way, you become completely humble. There is a Sanskrit proverb that means: “Without the divine will, even an atom cannot move.”
The other side of the coin, or the counterpart of the static energy, is what you call the Shakti or the divine mother energy. These two energies are not different. On the one side, you see the changeless quality and on the other side you see the changing dynamic quality. It is the changing (Shakti) that moves everything, and it is that very same energy that created everything in this world. I am purposely limiting it by saying “everything in this world,” because you don’t need to be worried about the entire universe. Everything that is here in this world is the expression of Shakti. Without that mother’s force, nothing could move, including your breath.
When the breath—our very life—goes out, what does it mean? It is our life that is going out, is it not so? And if you are interested in living, do you consciously drive it back? Do you take a moment and ask, “Hey, how can you go out? I have to live. Come back in.” If we had to do that, then we wouldn’t have time to do anything else. We wouldn’t even be able to eat because 15 times a minute, we would have to be telling the air to come back in. So, who takes care of bringing it back in? It is the mother, who wants you to live. She gives constantly. Every time the breath goes out, the mother says, You better go back in again. Does the breath question, Why must I go back in? No. It just does what the mother tells it to do.
I read an article about a scientist who was asked, “How many galaxies are there in this universe or in the cosmos?” He responded with this example: Imagine a dog that is covered with 7-inch long hairs all over its entire body after it had a haircut. Then, each hair was cut into the tiniest pieces so that it numbered several million parts—very small specks. The scientist said that if you were even able to count them, you would have probably only counted one millionth of the entire number of galaxies that make up the universe and the cosmos. So, when the galaxy itself is that small, how small is our planet? And on the planet, how small is our country? And in this country how small is our town? And in this town how small are we?
Compare yourself with this cosmos, and you are not even a speck! And with that you speculate. And the very same thing has been said by a great saint in India, Saint Ramalinga. He was a worshiper of light, a very great man, who wrote an unusual book. In about 40 or 50 pages there was not even one paragraph. The print on each page was very, very small. It’s a fairly large book that tries to name all the different galaxies. At the end he writes, “I just gave you a very minor part of the whole and if I continue there’s no room in this book or in many more volumes.” That is how big this cosmos is. Just compare yourself with that, and then you will see how small you are. If we know this truth, if we realize it truly, we cannot consider ourselves to be anything great, and that’s enough to wipe our egos completely clean. You then begin to see everything as bigger than you, and that will keep your mind clean. Then you will realize that you are really great, you are divine.
There is a beautiful story about somebody who was traveling on a train. In his compartment, he saw a big bundle of sugarcane. He was a lover of sugarcane, but still he couldn’t just go and take some because he thought it must belong to somebody else in the compartment. At the next station, the ticket examiner entered the compartment and asked who the bundle of sugarcane belonged to because he didn’t see anybody having the luggage receipt for it. It turns out that because the bundle was quite heavy, the fellow who really brought it in thought that he could somehow sneak it out, without paying the luggage fee. So, he didn’t respond to the ticket examiner. Everybody was sitting quietly, particularly the owner. He couldn’t say that it was his because he hadn’t paid for it. Meanwhile, the fellow who came into the compartment and was eyeing the bundle really wanted the sugarcane. At this point, he figured that since no one was claiming it, and it was already paid for, that he could say it belonged to him. So, he told the examiner:
“Yes, yes it’s mine.”
“Hmm, where is the luggage ticket?”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“Well, now you know, so come on and pay me.”
“How much is that?”
“Normally you should have paid 15 rupees, but now, because you didn’t pay anything at the start, I’m going to charge you a penalty fine and for that you owe another 15, making it 30 rupees.”
“Oh, I don’t know, it’s not really mine.”
“No nonsense! You are trying to escape from this. Come on or I’m going to take you to the police.”
“Really, because nobody claimed it, I said it’s mine.”
He was in a terrible state now, simply because he had said, “It’s mine.” So, don’t claim anything as yours; have no claim over anything. Make use of things, keep them clean, and leave it for others to use. When you live like that, you will feel that you have already surrendered—your ego becomes completely clean, and you become blessed.
As the Bible states, “Blessed are the pure in heart, they will see God.”
