Q: I want to experience sweet fellowship with God. Also, how do I get to know God without giving my mind away while still being surrendered?
Intimate communion with God is not just a possibility–it is your actual nature. Even at this moment you are absolutely one with God, but the focus of your consciousness has slipped away from the Divine Center into a state of disunity in which the dream has hidden the Divine Dreamer. Nevertheless, nothing has really changed any more than if you dream your are someone other than your waking self makes you that someone. When you wake it is all over. In the same way, when you awake from this prolonged dream we call samsara and Maya, you will not be attaining something or becoming something, you will be remembering the reality of yourself and the Reality that is God.
How to go about awakening is the crucial question. Even though awakening is a purely spiritual process, we cannot forget the body and mind that presently are blinding us to the Divine Vision. So here are some recommended steps:
- For the body: Become a vegetarian if you are not already so, eliminating all meat, fish, and eggs totally from your diet. Further, abstain absolutely from alcohol, nicotine, and mind-altering drugs.
- For the mind: Obtain and read the first four books listed in A Yogi’s Recommended Reading List on our website.
- For both body and mind: Adhere strictly to the principles of yama-niyama as outlined in the article The Foundations of Yoga.
- For the spirit: Begin meditating seriously and regularly, using the next three resources listed in A Yogi’s Recommended Reading List.
Surrender?
Now about your second sentence. First of all, the idea of “surrender” in spiritual life is a Western concept and a colossal aberration. God is not your enemy, so why would you surrender to God? Surrender is a tool of cult domination intended to bully people into giving up their intelligence and personal welfare. Guru cults traffic in this propaganda of surrender, but they are spiritual criminals, not true dharmic institutions. In Sanskrit the word they mistranslate is sharanam, when means refuge, protection, and shelter. Taking refuge in God is hardly surrender: it is safety and assurance, the end of doubt and fear. It is loving trust placed in the only worthy Protector.
As far as giving your mind away is concerned, it is the same situation. This is why the Bhagavad Gita should be studied. Krishna keeps speaking of the necessity for Buddhi Yoga, the cultivation of the intelligence and discrimination. There is no giving up of the mind in the path to Self-realization. It is just the opposite, for spiritual cultivation–yoga–enables us to master our mind and use it as a tool for furthering our evolution.
Finally, please do not accept the mistaken idea that we “give” ourselves to God or are some kind of “offering” or “sacrifice” to God. That, too, is complete and dangerous nonsense. We are one with God right now; giving, offering, or sacrificing is an impossibility. What is needed is reclamation of what we have never lost! That is one of those glorious contradictions in which Eastern wisdom abounds, but whose realities can be experienced by the yogi.
“Therefore become a yogi” (Bhagavad Gita 6:46).
Further reading:
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