Page 5 - All India Magazine May-2023
P. 5

What is Surrender


                                  The two Paths of Yoga
                                     There are two paths of Yoga, one of     (discipline), and
                                  the other of surrender. The path of    is arduous. Here you
                                  rely solely upon yourself, you proceed by your own strength. You
                                  ascend and achieve according to the measure of your force. There
                                  is always the danger of falling down. And once you fall, you lie
                                  broken in the abyss and there is hardly a remedy. The other path,
                                  the path of surrender, is safe and sure. It is here, however, that



                                  the Western people find their difficulty. They have been taught to
                                  fear and avoid all that threatens their personal independence. They
                                  have imbibed with their mothers’ milk the sense of individuality.
                                  And surrender means giving up all that. In other words, you may
                                  follow, as Ramakrishna says, either the path of the baby monkey or
                                  that of the baby cat. The baby monkey holds to its mother in order
                                  to be carried about and it must hold firm, otherwise if it loses its

                                  grip, it falls. On the other hand, the baby cat does not hold to its
                                  mother, but is held by the mother and has no fear nor responsibil-
                                  ity; it has nothing to do but to let the mother hold it and cry ma ma.
                                     If you take up this path of surrender fully and sincerely, there is

                                  no more danger or serious difficulty. The question is to be sincere.

                                  If you are not sincere, do not begin Yoga. If you were dealing in hu-
                                  man affairs, then you could resort to deception; but in dealing with

                                  the Divine there is no possibility of deception anywhere. You can
                                  go on the Path safely when you are candid and open to the core
                                  and when your only end is to realise and attain the Divine and to be
                                  moved by the Divine.
                                                                                  CWM 3: 4-5
                                  Give yourself entirely to the Divine
                                     If you give yourself entirely to the Divine, it is He who does the


                                  Yoga, it is no longer you; hence this is not very difficult; while if
                                  you do tapasya, it is you yourself who do the yoga and you carry its
                                  whole responsibility — it is there the danger lies. But there are peo-


                                 All India Magazine, May 2023
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