SURRENDER

The Greatest Devotion is One With Love

There was once a town in India that had a very large temple. Many people went to this temple to pray and to do pujas. In particular, there were two men in this town who would go to the temple daily. They were so devoted and so spiritual that they had never missed a single day. Other people went to the temple once in a week, once a month or maybe only on special occasions. But these two men went to the temple every day. In fact, they would be at the temple, even before the doors opened in the mornings! They were so committed to their routine, that while they might forget to eat, they would never forget to go to the temple. Their devotion and connection to God was so strong that everyone in the town knew of them.

As in all of India, these men took gifts with them when they went to the temple. Throughout India, whenever you visit either God or children, you can’t go empty handed. There is a custom by which you need to bring a gift. It is considered a way in which to show your love. It does not matter what type of gift you bring, since it is really all about showing your love. So, when people go to temples to see God, they bring fruits and flowers to offer; and when they go to see a child, they may take them sweets. In India, there is even a saying which states that God and a child are one and the same. This is because there are many similarities between the two: Both God’s heart and a child’s heart are the same; both are full of unconditional love. Furthermore, you can never really understand either God or a child and, thirdly, you certainly don’t know what either will do next. You may think you have plans, but they might have some other plan for you. God and children are seen as similar for these reasons.

With respect to this custom of bringing offerings to the temple, the two men in this town were no exception. They also took gifts on their daily visits to the temple. As it happened, one of these men was a very rich man, a big businessman and the other man was a very poor person. So, whenever the very rich- man went to the temple he took a big garland, full of beautiful flowers. Because he was so wealthy, he could afford them. The poor man however, could not afford to buy a garland everyday, so he would just bring one flower to offer to God.

For many years, the wealthy man saw the poor man and the poor man saw the wealthy man. In this way, they recognized each other and knew that the other was attending the temple regularly. Over the years, they had never had occasion to talk to each other. But one day, an opportunity came up and they had a chance to meet each other. They introduced themselves and gradually started to chat about various things of a general nature. Gradually, they became very close friends.

Then, one day, after prayers, they were sitting outside the temple talking about God. The rich man posed a question to the poor man: “Do you think the Divine blesses us equally”? The poor man replied: “Of course, it would have to be equal.” The rich man disagreed, “I don’t think so, because everyday I offer a big garland and you offer only one small flower. So, I think that I get more blessings than you”. The poor man explained that from all his reading of spiritual texts and scriptures, he knew that God didn’t favour those who just came with expensive gifts. His understanding was that God always looked to the one who had the love for God.

The rich man was not satisfied with that answer and continued to argue. He claimed that because what he was offering was more than anything the poor man could offer, the rich man’s blessings would also be much bigger; otherwise, why should the rich man not also just bring one flower? This poor man was a very strong devotee with a great connection to God. For these reasons, he was very confident and very persuasive with his views. He maintained that God would see them as equals — that God would see their love, not just their offerings. So the men continued to argue all day.

This rich man also had a big ego and after awhile, he found himself getting upset and angry that this poor man could possibly think that God would bless them as equals. At last, at the end of the day, they agreed that they’d have to continue their discussion the next day. They shook hands and went home.
Later that night, God appeared to each of them in their dreams. God said to them both, “I know about your discussion and, if you want the answer to your question, be at the temple tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock. I will be there. After you make your offerings, you will know which man has offered the greater gift. Then the vision of God vanished.
When the rich man woke the next morning, he started to plan. He thought, “I normally bring a three foot garland to the temple, but since this is a special day, I’ll buy a much bigger garland. The poor man will surely only bring one flower, so when I bring my ten foot garland, he will learn why I should receive so many more blessings”. With these thoughts, the rich man arrived at the temple carrying a ten foot long garland. As usual, the poor man arrived with a single flower in his hands.

Both went and stood at the entrance to the temple. At precisely 9 o’clock, God appeared before them. Both men were very happy because they had wondered whether their dream would really come true. They also didn’t know what they would have done about their dispute if their dreams didn’t come true. So, when God appeared, they were both very happy. As God appeared in front of the two men, God said, “I am here. Now, both of you can make your offerings”.
The rich man spoke first. He said, “God, I must go first because I have a big garland.” It was obvious that this rich man’s ego was a problem. So the poor man simply waited for his turn. When the rich man approached God to put the garland around God’s neck, God grew to almost twice the size. Where God had been only about seven feet tall, now God stood fifteen feet tall. Because the garland was only ten feet long, the rich man had to think. He quickly decided that because he had lots of money, he would find a solution. He yelled at the crowd for someone to bring him a ladder. When it arrived, the rich man started to climb the ladder in order to put the garland around God’s neck.
However, by the time he reached God’s neck again, God grew even taller. This time God grew another 20 feet. Still, the rich man did not give up. He figured that he could arrange for another ladder and would just have to climb higher. Once again, by that time the rich man reached God’s neck, God grew another 20 feet. This cycle continued: each time the rich man got close to putting the garland around God’s neck, God would grow another 20 feet. Finally, the rich man was very tired from all the climbing and he stopped.

At that point, God asked, “Okay, is it time to give the poor man a chance to make his offering?” The rich man thought to himself: “Well, if I can’t make an offering with a 10 foot garland, that poor man will never be able to offer a single flower. I will wait to see what happens.” Out loud, he replied to God, “Oh, yes, God. Yes, it is now his turn, so I’ll let him make his offerings”. With that, God directed the poor man, “Okay it is now your turn, come and make your offering.” So, the poor man approached God with the flower and put it to rest on God’s feet.
This action reflects another custom in India. In India, it is considered good manners to bow to a person, as a way to show respect. The proper response of the one accepting this sign of respect is to reach down and lift the person who is bowing. So, the moment the poor man bowed to offer his flower to God, God reached down from a great height to lift the poor man. At the same time, God whispered: “I will take care”.

Then God spoke to both of them and asked, “Now do you understand who has the greatest devotion? The greatest devotion is the one with love, the devotion with surrender. To the rich man God said, “You wanted to see My head, but the poor man wanted to see My feet. This also demonstrates his willingness to surrender”. God continued, “It’s not possible to measure God with your wealth or with your power. You cannot ever know God through your wisdom or your knowledge. You can only surrender to God. You need nothing in order to surrender. You don’t even need to know how to surrender. In fact, this is the easiest way: for as long as you think, “I can surrender”, you can’t, because there is still an “I” in there. Only when you know that God can do it for you, then it will come easily. So the best kind of devotion is to surrender. To surrender you do not need material things. You just need love, unconditional love of God. This pleases God.

Really, if you think about it, what else could it be? Does it make sense to think that you could ever offer God something special? When in actuality, everything you have was created and given to you by God. You didn’t invent it. So, what would make you think that you can ever offer God anything, even a garland? When, the fact is, that garland — its flowers, its thread, even its fragrance all came from God? It would be like taking God’s things and then giving them back to God, and saying that it was your offering.

So you receive God’s blessings for the love that accompanies your offering, not for the gift itself. Since we now know that people aren’t blessed for offering God any of God’s own creations, we might ask, why would God bless people at all when they bring offerings? You might even wonder how anyone gets blessings when they make such offerings.
God is blessing people for their love, for the thoughts behind the offerings. When people bring offerings, it is because they created the thought of wanting to bring the offering. So, God blesses them for the thinking behind the deed, not for the offerings themselves. The thinking is the love. For example, let say that you had ten apples and, in looking them over, you chose the best one of the ten to offer to God. So the blessings you’ll receive are not for the apple, because God made that apple and gave it to you in the first place, but for the thought and your love. You must have been thinking something like this: “Because this is the best apple of the bunch, I will offer it to God”. You’ll be blessed for that love, for that devotion.

In India, whenever there is a “if you do this, then I’ll do that” type of deal, you need a contract. Not with God, once you understand the meaning of surrender, then your life will be very easy. You don’t even need a contract! You can’t measure God’s greatness with material things. You can only measure it with love. So great is God’s love that, once you surrender, you do not even need to search for God, God will come to you. This reminds Amma of a story that Amma told in Calgary:
It is another story about surrendering: it is about a mother and her child.
There is a mother who is always taking good care of her child. She feed him and bathes him and treats him very nicely. Then, one day, she decided to play a game of hide-and-seek with her child. They live in a very big home and so she leaves her child in the main hallway and she hides behind one of the walls. The child is doesn’t realize that the mother is watching. He is feeling pretty good, lots of strength, energy and power. So, the child starts to look around the house for his mother. First, he goes to the kitchen and asks the cook, “Where is my mother”?

The cook doesn’t know. Then, the child goes out to the garden and asks the gardeners, “Where is my mother?” They respond, “We haven’t seen her”. So, the child walks around to the garage and asks the driver, where is my mother”? The driver doesn’t know. Finally, the child goes back into the house and looks in the study. No one has seen his mother. By this time, the child is getting tired of looking. All the energy and strength he had initially has been spent. He’s looked everywhere for his mother and knows that there is no place left for him to search. So, what next? As with all children, this child starts to cry. He just stands in the middle of the hall and cries for his mother.

Meanwhile, the mother has been watching the child all along. She remained hidden, but watched him run from room to room, inside and outside, looking for her. She was happy to see him search for her. She enjoyed his excitement and energy. But finally, when her child started to cry, she came out from behind the wall and hugged her baby. In the same way, once the child started to cry, it is like us when we surrender. Like the child, when we realize that there is no where else to look and that we have no more energy to search, we surrender.

When we look for God with our ego and power, it is like the child running around the house with energy to burn. But once the child stops or when we let go of the ego, then the mother will come and hug the child. When you look for God with ego and power, it’s like the Child’s strength, like the child we run around. Like the mother, God just sits back and watches with amusement. But, when you surrender it’s like God gets your message and says, “Oh that one has had enough”. At that moment, God will come to you. So, you can decide what you want to do. To surrender, once you understand it will help you in many ways. It is a great blessing: it is having that faith.

Note too that it is impossible for other creations to surrender. If you take a dog, for example, maybe a dog can surrender to its owner. It will listen and do what it’s told. But, in general, faith and confidence is possible only for humans. Other creations can’t have faith or confidence. They have to worry, they have to live in fear, they have to live their life in sadness. While humans, once they surrender, can stop worrying, can stop being sad, can surrender everything. Other creations cannot do this. If you take a lion, an animal that we consider so powerful, even that lion, after he hunts, can it eat its food in a relaxed state? No, it must hurry, it has to eat fast because another lion or maybe even some people will come along and take his food. So there are no possibilities for other creations to relax and have peace in their lives. They cannot trust anyone. The lion can’t say, “Ok, I’m going to trust on so and so to watch my food for me”. It has to live it’s life with sorrow and sufferings, fear and sadness. It is only possible for humans, once they surrender, to get rid of all their suffering. Amma bless you all.
Amma: So what is the way to surrender?
Devotees: Om Namo Narayani
Amma blesses you all.