Question: I'm not a follower of your path, but sometimes I think of the path of devotion and surrender, and when I do, my head seems to fight it very strongly. It says, "No, you cannot surrender," because I don't feel as if I know exactly what it is that I am surrendering to, and it makes me feel that I am being blind in a way.

Sri Chinmoy: You need not follow our path, but only I wish to make it clear to you that surrender, if it is properly understood, is the easiest thing. But if it is not properly understood, then it is the most difficult thing on earth. In this world, when we live in the physical consciousness, we never want to surrender to another person. But how many times a day do we surrender to the ignorance inside ourselves in spite of knowing that we are doing something wrong? We feel, "All right, we are helpless," and we surrender. The higher mind tells us that we are doing something wrong, but the higher mind surrenders because of its oneness with the lower mind.

Many things are like this. Suppose a friend of yours is doing something wrong, and he is asking you for a favour. What do you do? You do it, because he is your friend, after all.

But now let us take only the positive side. If we feel that the entire body belongs to us, then we will claim our head as our own and our feet also we will claim as our own. Now it may happen that I feel that my head has something which my feet do not have. Let us say that my head has illumination. It is difficult for the head to have illumination before the heart, but let us say that the head is higher than the feet. So the head has got some wealth. I claim my head as my own and I claim my feet also as my own. Is it beneath the dignity of my feet to grab the very thing that my head is more than eager to give to my feet? No, head and feet are one. This moment I need the help of my head, then the next moment I need the help of my feet. Just because I have established my oneness, conscious oneness, with my feet and with my head, I am getting their wealth. So this is real wisdom.

I may have something valuable in my safe, which is in my bedroom, let us say. I do not keep it in my kitchen. If I keep my money in my safe, in my bedroom, then naturally I will go there when I need money. I know it is my money, so for me to go upstairs and collect the money is not beneath my dignity. At that time I am not surrendering, only I have the wisdom to go to the right place where I have kept my money, my treasure.

Similarly, when we surrender to God, we surrender to our highest part, for God is our most illumined part. We can't separate God from our existence. If we feel that God and we are one, then God is our most illumined part, let us say, and we are right now unillumined. We are clever, we are wise. We know that the person who has been illumined, who is all-illumination, is also part and parcel of our entire existence, so we go there and receive from Him. If we take surrender in that way, then there is no problem.

But if we take surrender as the surrender of a slave to his master, then we will never be able to feel our oneness. The slave surrenders to his master out of fear. He is afraid that his service will be dispensed with if he does not do his job well. He feels that no matter what he has done, even if he has done everything for the master soulfully, devotedly, even unconditionally, still there is no guarantee that the master will give him what he wants or that the master will really please him. If it is an ordinary human being and if he has a few slaves, then he will get whatever he wants from his slaves; but when it is a matter of his own self-giving, he may be millions of miles away from their needs. But when we offer our existence to God, we have the feeling of oneness between Father and son or Mother and son. The little child always feels that what his father has is his own. His father has a car. The child is only three years old, but he says, "I have a car." He does not have to say, "My father has a car." He will simply say, "It is my car, our car."

So if we change our understanding of our relationship with God, then there is no problem. If He has Peace, then we have every right to claim His Peace as our own. He is our Father, so we can inherit it. Because God is our Father, because God is our Mother, we can have that kind of feeling. If we feel that we are God's slaves and He is our Lord Supreme, that we are at His Feet and we will have to do everything for Him, then we have no inner feeling, no assurance, no guarantee that He will please us. But if we have the feeling of oneness between Father and son, between Mother and child, then where is the problem? There is no problem because we know that what the mother or the father has, the child has every right to claim as his very own. So the child at that time does not surrender. He only claims, legitimately claims, his mother's wealth or his father's wealth as his very own.

We don't surrender anything; only we become aware of the fact that we belong to someone who has everything. We just go and claim it and possess it at any moment. For the feet to feel their oneness with the head is not at all difficult because the feet know that the head also very often needs help from the feet. Similarly, when we aspire, we come to feel that God needs us equally. As we need Him to realise the Highest, the Absolute Truth, so He also needs us for His Manifestation. For our realisation we need Him badly; for His Manifestation, perfect Manifestation, He needs us. Without us He does not manifest or cannot manifest. So, if it is not beneath God's dignity to take a little help from ignorant people for His Manifestation on earth, then how can it be beneath our dignity to ask God to give us a little Peace, Light and Bliss?

We have to establish our conscious oneness with God. Then there is no surrender. It is only mutual give and take. What the feet have to offer, the head takes gladly and vice versa. In the spiritual life we give God our aspiration and He gives us His Realisation. We give Him what we have and He gives us what He has and is. So in this way we don't surrender, only we offer our mutual achievements and we claim each other as our very own.