What is True Surrender on the Spiritual Path? Talk by Dr. Alok Pandey

Progress on the spiritual path can often feel overwhelming. What is asked of us is so high, and our own capacities in comparison can feel so low. But the saving grace is that we are not alone on this journey, and we do not have to do everything ourselves.

On 24 September, over 150 seekers joined us online for The Way of Surrender, led by Dr. Alok Pandey, a psychiatrist and resident of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry.

Through the words of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and stories from the Ashram, Dr. Alok Pandey helped us understand how Surrender – “the decision taken to hand over the responsibility of your life to the Divine” – can be the most empowering and liberating practice in the sadhana, but also the most misunderstood and misapplied.

What Surrender Is

Surrender means all the help is there. We will be carried by the Divine. We need not, like the baby monkey with her mother, even hold on with our will, but can, like the kitten, allow ourselves to be held by the Divine through life.

But it is not easy to be a kitten. The kitten lets her mother hold her, push her, kick her, teach her, in whatever way the mother wants. She doesn’t run away demanding to be dealt with nicely. To be the kitten is to have complete faith and trust in the Divine, and to accept every challenge and difficulty as the Divine’s Will.

It does not mean no effort is asked of us. What it means is that as we grow in our Surrender, we do not experience the sense of effort.

What Surrender Is Not

Dr. Alok Pandey also explained what Surrender is not. He told the story of a man who was responsible for taking care of a godown filled with wood. One night, thieves came and stole all the wood, while the man simply watched, doing nothing. When asked, he casually said  “It all belongs to God.” Dr. Alok Pandey called this attitude stupidity. 

If everything belongs to the Divine, then whatever we are given asks for utmost care. It means we must act as stewards, using what is given to us for the Divine work, rather than our own ego or narrow goals.

The Sign of True Surrender

People who have surrendered, Dr. Pandey said, share one sign. They are always happy, they have no more worries. What greater joy can there be than to be surrendered to the Divine, to know that The Mother is taking care of everything?