Page 5 - All India Magazine May-2023

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