Spirituality Studies 9-2 Fall 2023 9 Martin Dojčár understand that God is what we actually are, but we cannot even begin to investigate ourself without thereby beginning to surrender ourself, because as Bhagavan revealed, the nature of ego is to rise, stand and flourish by attending to things other than itself, but to subside and dissolve back into its source and substance, namely Sat-Cit, by attending to itself. Therefore, to the extent to which we are self-attentive we will thereby subside, and the subsidence of ourself as ego is self-surrender. On the path of bhakti our love is gradually refined and purified. Most devotees worship God and pray to him for whatever benefits they hope to thereby gain from him, whether in this life or the next, so they do not love God for his own sake but only for the sake of whatever they hope to gain from him. This is therefore not genuine love for God, but by his grace over time their love is slowly refined and purified, so they gradually come to love him for his own sake rather than for any benefit they could gain from him. Since true love seeks to give rather than to receive, the more our love for God grows, the more we will want to give ourself entirely to him, so this is the point at which surrender begins. In order to give ourself wholly to God, we should want nothing for ourself, and should be happy with whatever he chooses to give us. In other words, we should have no will of our own, but as ego it is our nature to have a will of our own, so when we want to surrender ourself to him, the first obstacle we come across is our own will. Therefore, surrender begins with our attempts to surrender our will to his will: “Thy will be done”, “Not my will, but only your will”, or as Bhagavan expressed it beautifully in verse 2 of Śrī Aruṇācala Padigam, “Your will is my will; that is happiness for me” [5]. However, though we can surrender our will to some extent without surrendering ourself, since the very nature of ourself as ego is to have a will of our own, we cannot surrender our will entirely without surrendering ourself. Therefore, if we sincerely try to surrender our will entirely to God, we will gradually come to understand thereby that what we need to surrender to him is not just our will but ourself entirely. But how can we give ourself entirely to God? Since the nature of ourself as ego is to rise, stand and flourish to the extent to which we attend to anything other than ourself, but to subside and dissolve back into our source to the extent to which we attend to ourself alone, self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) is the only means by which we can surrender ourself entirely to God, as Bhagavan implies in the first sentence of the thirteenth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār?: “Being ātma-niṣṭhāparaṉ [note: one who is firmly fixed as oneself], giving not even the slightest room to the rising of any thought except ātma-cintana [note: self-attentiveness], alone is giving oneself to God” [6]. Self-surrender is therefore the culmination of the path of bhakti, and self-investigation is the culmination of the path of surrender, because our love for God is incomplete until we give ourself entirely to him, and we cannot give ourself entirely to him without investigating what we actually are. Therefore the answers to this set of questions are as follows: firstly, though surrender is different to self-investigation in its early stages, in its more advanced stages it merges and becomes one with the path of self-investigation; secondly, yes, self-investigation does end in complete surrender of ourself as ego to God, who is ourself as we actually are; and thirdly, though it is possible for us to surrender our will to a certain extent just by our love for God, we cannot surrender ourself to him entirely except by means of self-investigation. How is it possible to overcome our attachments if the investigation of the self is not intense enough? Can some preliminary means of weakening vāsanās be recommended, such as certain yoga techniques and methods or japa? We can begin a journey only from wherever we are currently located, and we all begin the spiritual journey from the state in which we are burdened with strong viṣaya-vāsanās (Sa. “inclinations” to seek happiness in viṣayas, “objects” or “phenomena”), which are the seeds that sprout as likes, dislikes, desires,
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