How can we know whether we are surrendered?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
what are the symptoms of surrender at our level we can look at the six elements of surrender so among these six, the first two are about actions accept that which is favorable, avoid that which is unfavorable and the remaining four are about dispositions so those are, Krishna is my protector without him I am useless I can do nothing so all these are dispositions which will take time to be cultivated but the the actions is something which we can do even now so for example if I am chanting and now I am surrendering I surrender during chanting if during chanting I lean back against a wall and make everything very conducive for me to sleep then that is not surrender that is Pratikun, so I avoid that then if I am feeling sleepy then I get up I put some water on my face that is Anukun so surrender simply means that at our level practically it means we use our intelligence to accept that which is favorable and to avoid that which is unfavorable so if we are talking with some devotees and some devotees start getting into gossip or offensive talk then Trajalpa basically if we have the relationship or the authority tell them to stop talking like that then even doing that although we are taking authority position that can also be surrender because that is what is favorable for bhakti but if we don’t have that kind of position or relationship then we just walk away from there we say I have got some other things to do and we just leave from there so that is also one way we exhibit surrender because essentially surrender means that we do that which is favorable so we have certain spiritual guides we may have our authority our counselor now if we have good relationship with them and we have basic faith in them that they are our well wishers then when they tell us to do something even when we don’t like to do that so much but if we understand it is good for us then we do it so it is generally we talk about how following the instructions that are given to us is surrender yes but it is to be understood why is it surrender because it is not just that any instruction is necessarily good for us we use our intelligence to understand that following this instruction will help me to grow in my spiritual life and because this is what is favorable for my spiritual growth so I will do it so by using our god given intelligence to accept that it is favorable even when that doesn’t seem very palatable so we need we need intelligence to accept the favorable even when it doesn’t seem palatable so palatable is what is pursued by the mind first impression but favorable is what is pursued by the intelligence like Krishna says in 18th chapter that you know that which tastes like poison in the beginning will taste like nectar in the end so so so that way we can so if we are doing that which is favorable even when it doesn’t seem palatable then that is surrender or if something is unfavorable but it seems palatable then we avoid that, that is also surrender so in that sense we can focus on this practical aspect of surrender accepting the favorable and avoiding the unfavorable and that way we can that means rather than considering surrender in terms of some stereotype, if I am doing this I am surrendering if I am doing this I am not surrendering, no we can be surrendered by doing whatever it takes to choose the favorable and avoid the unfavorable