What stops one from complete surrender?

Question from a devotee: What stops one from complete surrender? Do one's past negative saṁskārs and vāsanās play a part in determining the level and speed of surrender? How can one overcome one's inherent negativities and make progress towards self-surrender faster?

   

Answer: Surrender is not a one-time procedure. It is not that we surrender once, and we are done with it forever. We have to keep surrendering at every moment. In this process, there are innumerable obstacles. Our mind is made of Maya and it naturally runs towards the world. We need to beat this mind with the intellect. We also have saṁskārs of past lifetimes that must be countered. And then, we have the ignorance or agyān within us, which is the source of all the problems.

However, we must not feel disillusioned. Innumerable souls in the past have overcome these obstacles to perfect their surrender to God, and have attained Him; if we endeavor sincerely, we too will be successful.  

First, we must illumine our intellect with the spiritual knowledge given to us by our Guru. Then, with this purified intellect we must work on the mind, to detach it from the world and attach it to Names, Forms, Pastimes, Virtues, Abodes and Saints of God. Along with our sincere efforts, we must pray to God and Guru for help, firmly believing that Their Grace can make us perfect our surrender.

To speed up the process of surrender, we should strengthen the sentiment, "God and Guru alone are mine." When we develop love for God and Guru, surrender becomes natural and automatic. When we reach the state of complete surrender, the feeling "He alone is mine" will always remain in our mind, and all our thoughts and actions will be in consonance with it.

If we can keep increasing our desire to serve, that is also a very potent tool for progress. Jagadguru Shree Kripaluji Maharaj states:

sau bātana kī bāta ika dharu muralīdhara dhyāna

baḍhavahu sevā vāsanā yaha sau gyānana gyāna

"Fix your mind on Shree Krishna, and keep increasing the desire for sevā. This is the most powerful weapon for conquering the mind and Maya."

How to train our mind that there is no happiness in the material world?

Question:  My question is about how to teach and train mind that there is no happiness in the material world.  My mind is revolting while accepting that there is no happiness in material things. Is it ok if we will go through these circumstances and get realization that there is no happiness?  For example, there is no happiness in consuming alcohol.  So, is it ok if we first test alcohol and then get to realize that there is no happiness? Without going through something how we will know that there is no happiness in it?

Answer by Swamiji:  There are innumerable things in the world, and each thing has endless varieties.  If you go by the modus operandi of experiencing everything first, your whole life will pass in the endeavor.  Besides, is there any formula regarding how long you will consume alcohol before coming to the conclusion that there is no happiness in it?  There are people who run after money all their lives, and yet do not decide that it does not have the happiness they are seeking.  Again, if you finally do come to the conclusion that the world is not a place of happiness, but the mind doubts whether there is happiness in God, then what will you do?  You wouldn't be able to demand to see and experience God before concluding that He is an ocean of Divine Bliss. 

   As human beings, God has bestowed us with subtle intellects that can make this decision even without experience.  Broadly, the intellect of living beings can be classified into four categories:

 

1. The lowest is the intellect of an insect.  It is attracted to the fire.  On coming near the flame, it gets burnt.  But it does not learn, and commits the same mistake again and again.

2. The intellect of a cat is subtler.  If it sits on a hot plate, it learns from its experience.  In future, it even refuses to sit on a cold plate, in apprehension that it may get burnt.   

3. The intellect of sheep is even subtler.  They have never been attacked by a wolf.  But the moment they see a wolf, they perceive impending danger and run for their lives.

4. The intellect of humans is even subtler. Merely by intellectual discrimination, without seeing or experiencing, they are expected to reach the conclusion that there is no happiness in the world.

 

Actually, everyone has had experience of the world to a lesser or greater extent.  We made the desires of the senses and put in great effort to satisfy them.  What was the experience?  For a moment the desire was quenched, but then it arose again with redoubled intensity.  This is the nature of worldly desires, whether they are the teeny-weeny cravings that you have made innumerable times in your lives or the bigger desires that loom more largely in your mind.  The principle is exactly the same.  So we should utilize our experience to date, to reach a blanket conclusion about the nature of all worldly desires.  That is what God expects us to do, and that is the instruction of the scriptures.

   

upāsate puruṣham ye hyākāmāste śhukrametadivartanti dhīrāḥ |  (Mundakopanishad)

 "One who engages in devotion to God, giving up worldly desires, crosses over the ocean of life and death."

What happens to those who have slipped into coma before death?

Question: Swamiji, we have heard that what we attain after death is based on our thoughts right before death. In such a case, what will he, who has slipped into the state of coma before death, attain?

 Answer by Swamiji: In the Bhagavad Geeta, Shree Krishna says, 

यं यं वापि स्मरन्भावं त्यजत्यन्ते कलेवरम् ।

तं तमेवैति कौन्तेय सदा तद्भावभावितः ॥

"Whatever one remembers at the time of leaving his body, he shall attain it after death". 

That is the spiritual principle that you have referred to in your question. But do you have an idea of the magnitude of the pain that one experiences while dying? It is said that the pain is as severe as 2000 scorpions stinging at the same time. Such pain is well beyond the tolerance limit of all ordinary mortals, and so before death arrives, everyone slips into a state of coma.

This state of coma comes when the mind and intellect cannot tolerate the pain that they are perceiving through the body. For example, if someone is being thrashed by hooligans, each time he is beaten, he screams, "Do not hit me!" However, after being beaten for the tenth time, he stops screaming. What has happened? The person who was being beaten has fainted. The pain was so intense that his mind and intellect could not tolerate it any further, and they slipped into a state of unconsciousness. This tolerance limit is not the same for everyone. Someone would faint on the fifth blow, and another would faint by the fiftieth blow. But once the tolerance limit is crossed, without exception everyone falls unconscious.

Now, the pain of death is many times more severe than most people's limit of tolerance, and so it is certain that the state of coma will come before death. Then how can anyone hope to remember God at that moment? The Saint Tuslidas writes:

जनम जनम मूनी यतन कराहीं अन्त राम कहि आवत नाही

"Sages endeavour for many lifetimes, and yet they cannot take Shree Ram's name at the moment of death." When they slip into the state of coma before death, how will they remember the name of God, or any other name for that matter? Only a person who leaves his body at will or voluntarily, can remember the name of God at the time of death. These are the God-realized Saints, who have attained God in their lifetime itself, and hence have transcended the bodily platform.

When Shree Krishna says that whatever we contemplate upon at the time of death, that is what we will attain in next lives, He is referring to the thoughts before entering the state of coma. Even at that time, the pain will be so intense that the mind will refuse to be guided by the intellect, and it will naturally wander in the direction where it has been habituated to go throughout its life. So, if people think that they will love the world for their entire life, and while dying they could remember God and attain Him, they are in for a surprise. Our thoughts at the time of death are not guided by the intellect. They are guided by the mental habits that we have cultivated throughout life.

There could also be cases of sudden death, where a person had no opportunity to think of anything before falling unconscious. There could be instances where one slips into coma for reasons other than mere physical pain. In such cases, God will not be so whimsical as to ignore the person's lifelong actions and merely reward or punish in accordance with the last conscious thought. Shree Krishna has stated elsewhere that our future in this life and the next is decided by our actions. The spiritual laws are very intricate. They are often simply stated to make them comprehensible to us. However, in God's governance there are often various laws that are taken into account to various extents. So we must not get confused if the simple principles do not fit into every situation that we can think of.