Ramakrishna beautifully says, When real surrender comes from your heart, God will guide you in every step of your life and you can never do wrong. When surrender does not blossom from inside you and is only at the lip level, you will fool yourself and others. Surrender will keep you thinking of Existence all the time. You will slowly lose your own identity, your ego. In the Bhagavatam, there is a verse wherein a Gopi says I am not able to think of anything other than Krishna. I have surrendered my mind to Him. If I have to think of anything else, I will have to take back my mind from Him. How can I? Ramakrishna Paramahamsa suffered from cancer during his last days. He had healed many people of many diseases.

Someone asked him, Why cant you keep your mind on your own disease for a moment and heal it? He replied, I have surrendered my mind to the infinite energy. How can I take it back to keep it on my disease! This is true surrender. The cosmic energy will take care of us. You might ask, Will this cosmic energy take care of all my problems if I surrender? In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna beautifully answers or rather promises, Without any other thought, when a man thinks only of Me, I will take care of his gifts as well as retention or enjoying of them. For those who surrender with commitment to Me, I will take care of their income as well as their prosperity.

Their problems will dissolve. Commitment and maturity of mind are needed for real surrender to happen. You need not surrender to God or any Master. You can surrender to anything. Surrender itself is a virtue and has a great power in itself. When you surrender, you are acknowledging that there is a life force greater than your ego, that's all. Actually, God is only an excuse for you to surrender. The act of surrendering is what is important. God is not the goal; surrender is the real goal. When you surrender or when you lose your ego, you are no longer a separate entity from Existence; you merge with Existence or God. You will then understand that there is no God sitting above. There is only Existence that fills everything in this universe of which you are a part.

A small story: A man decided that he was going to surrender but did not know to whom to surrender. He decided that he would go to the forest and surrender to the first person who came his way. He went and waited in the forest. The first person to appear was a burglar who was escaping from policemen who were chasing him. The man caught his feet and declared that the burglar was his guru and that he had surrendered to him. The burglar was perplexed and did not know what to do. He replied hastily, Alright, if it is so, then close your eyes and remain here until I come back. Then he ran away. The man was a very committed person and remained there without food or sleep for a very long time.

Just by seeing his commitment, the Lord appeared before him and embraced him and gave him liberation. It is not important to whom you surrender; it is the thought of total surrender that has the power to change your life into a blissful one. When you surrender, you become a possessor of the inexhaustible energy that is Existence, and you can carry on with anything that comes your way. You become strong and unshakeable, come what may. People around you will find you to be a pillar of strength. They will be able to feel the invisible hand of Existence through you. If you have not surrendered, it means that your ego is still holding you back from merging into the infinite and you automatically become finite in your resources and energy.

A Master is a device to help you surrender. Surrender does not mean that you are dependent on someone. It simply means that you are taking their help in dissolving your own ego. Question: Swamiji, can you please tell us more about meditation and how it can help in losing our ego.