Complete Surrender

Sri Ramana Maharshi

7-7-1946 Night

A visitor said, “In the Pondicherry Aurobindo Ashram it is said that the final stage of spiritual progress is to become the purushottama and it would seem that activity is predicated of that purushottama i.e., some vritti would seem to be associated with that state, whereas it is believed by other schools that cessation of all vrittis is liberation.” 

Bhagavan said, “You say, all schools advise you to give up all vrittis so that you can reach your final goal, whether it is becoming purushottama or something else. You must cease to be the three kinds of ordinary purusha i.e., the adhama, madhyama, uttama and become that purushottama. This is accepted. Whether, when you transcend these three kinds and cease to be the ordinary purusha, there is any vritti still left is a matter with which you need not concern yourself now. Attain that state and see for yourself what that state is and whether there is any vritti in it. To speak even of brahmakara vritti, as we sometimes do, is not accurate. If we can talk of the river that has merged in the ocean as still a river and call it samudrakara river, we can talk of the final stage in spiritual growth as having Brahmakara vritti. When people from Sri Aurobindo’s Ashram come here and ask about the differences between our school and theirs, I always tell them, ‘There, complete surrender is advised and insisted upon before anything further could be hoped for or attained. So, do it first. I also advise it. After making such surrender, i.e., complete surrender and not any partial or conditional surrender, you will be able to see for yourself whether there are two purushas, whether power comes from anywhere and gets into anywhere, etc.’ For we know nothing about God or any source from which power comes and gets into us. All that is not known. But ‘I exist’ is known beyond all dispute by all men. So let us know who that ‘I’ is. If, after knowing it, there still remain any doubts such as are now raised, it will be time enough then to try and clear such doubts.”