Self surrender ramakrishna
Self-surrender in Bhakti and Jnana Paths
—Sri Ramakrishna’s Teachings
यो ब्रह्माणं विदधाति पूर्वं यो वै वेदांश्च प्रहिणोति तस्मै।
तं ह देवमात्मबुद्धप्रकाशम् मुमुक्षवे शरणमहम् प्रपद्ये । |
Om yo Brahmanam Vidadhati purvam
Yo Vai Vedanshcha prahinoti tasmai
Tam ha devatmaatmabuddhihprakasham
Mumukshurvai Sharanamaham Prapadye.
He who in the beginning created Brahma and delivered the Vedas to Him, in that Deva (the Shining, Divine Being) do I, the seeker of liberation, take refuge.
ॐ असतो मा सद्रमय तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय
मृत्योर्मा अमृतं गमय ।।
Om asatoma sadgamaya, Tamasoma jyotir gamaya Mrityorma amritam gamaya
Om, lead me from the unreal to the Real; lead me from darkness [of ignorance] to Light [of Divine Knowledge], lead me from death to Immortality.
Self-surrender in the Path of Bhakti
Sharanagati or prapatti, often translated as surrender or self-surrender, is an attitude of mind that enables the sadhaka to directly intuit the Supreme Reality as an overwhelming Divine Presence that is the acme of spiritual attainment in the path of Bhakti. Interestingly, self-surrender to God is considered not so much as means to the attainment of the ultimate goal of mukti or liberation, but selfsurrender in itself is the ultimate goal and is synonymous with mukti. Thus, self-surrender is at once the means as well as the goal. In this sense, it has been described as the surest, quickest and easiest of spiritual practices by Bhakti Acharyas like Ramanuja.
Every one of the Divine Incarnations (called Avataras) has taught Sharanagati or Prapatti as the highest form of sadhana, at once easiest and quickest. Sri Krishna’s exhortation to Arjuna, his dear friend and disciple, to take refuge in Him after having relinquished all other pursuits, is well known. (Gita, 18.66). Jesus the Christ said, ‘Come unto Me, ye that are weary and heavy-laden, I will give thee rest.’ Also, ‘I am the Goal and I am the Way.’ Sri Ramakrishna revealed and declared himself as the Avatar, the Divine Incarnation, openly and loudly, on the famous Kalpataru Day, the first of January 1886. Swami Saradananda, in the famous biography of Sri Ramakrishna that he christened as Sri Sri Ramakrishna Lilaprasanga (literally meaning, Of the Divine Play of Sri Ramakrishna), chooses to call this day not so much as the Kalpataru Day, but as ‘Day of bestowal of freedom from fear through revelation of Himself as an Avatar or Divine Incarnation.’ Sri Ramakrishna taught his disciples and intimate devotees (as told by Mahendra Nath Gupta, who styled himself as M, the recorder of Sri Ramakrishna’s immortal Gospel) the secret of self-surrender in the following words:
Just contemplate, think of, ‘this place’ (which is the way that Sri Ramakrishna would refer to himself, avoiding the phrases, ‘I’, ‘me’ or ‘mine’) and nothing else needs to be done. Whatever spiritual practices you need to do shall be got done through you at the right time. Whoever thinks of ‘this place’ inherits all the wealth of ‘this place’ just as a child inherits his father’s wealth.1
M, who was narrating this touching assurance of the Avatar of this age, added:
Do you know what his wealth is? It is jnana-bhakti, viveka-vairagya, shanti-sukha, premasamadhi (meaning, knowledge and devotion, discrimination and dispassion, peace and joy, love for God and ultimate union with God).2
In the path of Bhakti, surrender is the acme of spiritual realization as well as the supremely powerful path as well. The individual aspirant loses himself in the bliss of union with his Beloved God, his own ego melting away and getting reduced to zero. There being no two entities in this realization, it is in a sense the Advaita anubhuti (non-dual realization) that is considered the highest in the path of Jnana (Knowledge).
Sri Ramakrishna’s illustration in this context is so telling: A salt doll went to measure the depth of the ocean. The moment it entered the ocean, it just melted away and became one with the ocean. The individual ego that is the basis of name and form which forms the individuality vanishes and God alone remains as the one Reality. Call it Advaita realization if you like.
The devotees of God feel an ineffable sweetness, a transcendental bliss, in this union of the individual self (jivatman) with the Supreme Self (paramatman) and are supremely glad to lose their individuality in the Infinitude of their Beloved God. Merging of the individuality of the Jivatman with the Supreme Paramatman which the devotee-Jiva likes to conceive as the Beloved Ishwara is the Goal of Bhakti and self-surrender is the means to the attainment of such a union. Since there is no hiatus between the devotee’s self-surrender and the union with God, self-surrender is both the means (sadhana) as well as the Goal (sadhya). This makes it a ‘direct, infallible, easy and eternal path’—pratyakshavagamam dharmyam susukham kartumavyayam as Sri Krishna teaches (Gita 9.2).
Self-surrender in the Path of Jnana
We often think of self-surrender as belonging to Bhakti Marga (the path of Devotion). Interestingly, self-surrender belongs no less to Jnana Marga (the path of Knowledge) as to the Bhakti Marga. How? What does a Jnani ultimately achieve? Oneness with the Ultimate Reality in the form of Supreme Truth. The nature of the Ultimate Reality has been described in Jnana Marga as Sat-Chit-Ananda Swarupa (that is, Reality in essence, is Existence-Knowledge-Bliss, or Truth-Awareness-Joy). The Ultimate Reality can be realized through any of these aspects— Sat or Chit or Ananda. Whereas Bhakti Marga emphasizes the Ananda or Bliss aspect, Jnana Marga focuses on the Chit or Pure Awareness aspect. Jnana Margins of the type of Ramana Maharishi in the modern times and Ashtavakra in the ancient times emphasized the Sat or Truth aspects, although Chit or Pure Awareness gets interpenetrated with Sat or Truth as the two are non-different. We may say, in effect, that the pursuit of the Supreme Reality in its Sat-Chit aspects is Jnana Marga, while the pursuit of the Reality in its Ananda aspect is Bhakti Marga.
He used to say that there were just two paths: the path of self-enquiry (Jnana Marga) and the path of self-surrender (Bhakti Marga). Just as the aspirant in Bhakti Marga longs to merge his little individuality in the Immensity and Infinity of his Beloved God, and enjoy the bliss of union, the aspirant in Jnana Marga discovers, through self-enquiry and inwardness (antarmukhinata) which the Katha Upanishad calls avritta-chakshuh (senses and the mind turned inward) and agryaya buddhya, sukshmaya (sharpened, subtle Buddhi or higher intuitive faculty), that what he thought his individuality, his ahamkara (‘I’- ness), is in reality a myth and the Supreme Awareness, Infinite Consciousness (chaitanya) is alone real. It is not so much merger of the jivatwa (little individuality) with the Beloved God as in Bhakti Marga, but the realization of the non-difference of the Jivatman and the Paramatman. By the fire of Jnana (Knowledge of oneness) gets burnt, destroyed, the false notion engendered through ajnana (ignorance) that the Jivatman is different from Brahman.
The subtle difference, if at all, between the two Margas, Bhakti and Jnana in respect of self-surrender is that in Bhakti Marga, there is a sweet union of the individual self with the Supreme Self that the Bhakta enjoys and rejoices in, whereas in Jnana Marga, the separateness of the individual self and the Supreme Self is realized as a false notion, a myth, arising from ajnana or ignorance and there is no question of union or merger as there never was, there never is, there never will be, any separateness between the individual and the Supreme. Bhakti Marga therefore is sweet and joyful with the Bhakta ‘rejoicing and feeling exceedingly glad’ as Jesus the Christ said speaking about the imagery of the joy of union of the bride (Jivatman) with the Bridegroom (Paramatman).
On the other hand, Jnana Marga is austere and blazing—the Sun of Knowledge arising in the Jnani’s heart destroys the darkness of ignorance that is the false notion of separateness of the Jivatman and the Paramatman arising from ignorance
<< Home