Seven Principles of Right Surrender:
An Explanation
 
 

Behram Irani

The Art of Listening
 

This chapter introduces and explains some very important spiritual Principles. However before we start explaining these Principles, the author would like to express a few thoughts about the art of listening.

Listening is more difficult than speaking. In order to speak you have to get in tune with yourself and then project your thoughts in words. In order to listen, you have to first silence your mind and then get into tune with the mind of the speaker. In order to absorb what the speaker says, you have to prevent your thoughts from getting in the way. Quite often instead of listening to what the speaker is offering and absorbing his/her thoughts, we use our thoughts as a filter. We reject the thoughts we disagree with and only allow the thoughts we agree with to enter our minds, with the result that we really have not listened to the speaker at all but have merely heard him/her. Quite often, because our minds wander, we do not even hear the speaker.

The chapter, "Value of Opinions", explained why we hear with our ears but listen with our mind and that we look with our eyes but see with our mind. Our attitude and past experiences influence what we absorb through listening and seeing. Our attitude shapes our experience, and our experience in turn influences our whole being. So it is most important that we have the right attitude. Now what is the right attitude?

It is said that Almighty God who has created the Universe can do anything. Nothing is impossible for Him. In other words everything is possible for Him. We can conclude from this that God must have an open Mind. A Mind that is open to all possibilities. Why? Because if God's Mind were closed to any possibility, then that possibility would not be possible for Him. But since nothing is impossible for God to achieve, He must have an open Mind. The Limitless Source of all sources cannot have limited possibilities and yet be Limitless. Therefore It has to remain open to all possibilities.

You can only receive new ideas and grow if you have an open mind. Unless you have an open mind to what is being experienced, you cannot learn from that experience, and thus you limit your possibilities. So the right attitude is to listen with an open mind.

To help overcome the resistance in his own mind, Revered Dr. Dinshah K. Mehta, Founder Chairman of the Society of Servants of God, received a Principle from the Spiritual Planes of Consciousness that crystallizes this attitude beautifully. To deal with difficult subjects, the Principle Revered Dr. Mehta received is, "Accept what is acceptable but do not reject what is not acceptable." So when reading this chapter, the author requests the reader to accept what you can accept, and not reject what you cannot accept. As Rev. Dr. Mehta has often indicated, with time and spiritual growth, what is not acceptable initially will not only be accepted, but may be the very thought or principle through which will create the opening in your mind through which the higher consciousness can descend into your mind.
 
 

The Need to Surrender
 

The need to surrender our human will to the Divine Will has been emphasized in one way or another by the High Beings through whom the religions of the world have been founded, or who are considered in the various religions to be intermediaries between the relative or human plane of consciousness and the Absolute or Divine plane of consciousness. For instance, it is recorded that the Lord Christ said words to the effect, "I am the door and I am the way. Those who will come unto me will be saved." It is also reported in the Srimad Bhagavad Gîtâ that Sri Krishna said words to the effect, "Surrender the situation, surrender the action, surrender the result unto me and I will take care of the rest." The Buddha inspired His disciples to surrender to and seek refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha of the Buddha. And the very word Islam literally means "Complete and utter surrender to the Will of Allah".

However, many human beings are not aware of the need to surrender, and many who are aware do not know how to surrender. The step-by-step process of surrendering one's will to the Divine Will was not revealed in any scripture until the Divine Mind did so through Rev. Dr. Dinshah K. Mehta. Some of the individual principles have been revealed in past Scriptures but all of them have not been codified as they have been through Dr. Mehta and are presented in this chapter. We shall try and explain how to surrender your human mind and will to the Divine Mind and Will. We shall discuss in fair detail each of the steps involved and give the basis for each of them.

Like most exercises, in order for self surrender to be effective, it must be done in the right way. This is only possible if you follow the Principles of Right Surrender. There are seven Principles of Right Surrender. These Seven Principles of Right Surrender are a gift from God to humanity and have been delivered by God through Rev. Dr. Dinshah Kaikhushroo Mehta, from the Higher planes of Consciousness from which scriptures of all the world religions have descended. As mentioned earlier, Revered Dr. Mehta is the Founder Chairman of the Society of Servants of God, and has over the past decades given many discourses explaining, among other things, the basis of the Seven Principles of Right Surrender as well as how God Himself came into Being.
 
 

Surrender is Not Submission
 

The question may arise: Why surrender at all? The word "surrender" seems to imply a sense of weakness. This implication of weakness does not appeal to some of us who think of ourselves as strong-willed, independent individuals who can influence if not control our own destiny. Similarly people in the armed forces, and civilians with a militant attitude, find the word "surrender" distasteful. The author also did not initially the word "surrender" because of the usual connotation associated with it. Conquering heroes do not surrender. Only losers surrender. And who wants to be a loser?

Rev. Dr. Mehta explains that in the spiritual context, surrender does not indicate weakness. Rather it is the inability to surrender which is a result of weakness and ignorance. Spiritual surrender requires disciplined self-restraint and is an act of wisdom, love and strength. In the usual way of life, when there is a clash of wills, the weaker submits to the stronger. One submits to the oppressor against one's will. But the Good Lord never oppresses. Even though His Will is omnipotent, if we have the slightest resistance to what He Wills, He lets us go our own way, until such time as our will clashes with the manifestations of His Will and threatens to upset the balance in creation. Only then does He assert, and that too, only in the interest of the greater good. But we can voluntarily surrender to the Lord long before things come to such a drastic pass. In a spiritual context, one surrenders to one's spiritual Beloved voluntarily and with joy, realizing that it is mutually beneficial to do so. This is reflected in earthly relationships in which lovers voluntarily surrender to each other's' will.
 
 

Universality of the Principle of Surrender
 

The Principle of surrender is universal. You can only live and grow through surrender. As explained in the previous chapter, "The Journey" the process of life and creation itself would not be possible without the Principle of surrender. An analogy from the physical world may help to refresh the reader's memory. Even though an analogy may not be perfect in every respect, all the same, it may give an idea of how important the principle of surrender is for all life.

Let us take the situation of a newborn child. When a child is born it immediately gasps for breath. As soon as it gasps for breath, the atmosphere -- which is the source of all air on earth -- surrenders itself to the child's gasp, and fills the child's lungs with itself. After the atmosphere surrenders to the child's gasp for air, the child then surrenders the air back to the atmosphere. Because of this mutual surrender of air between the child and the atmosphere, the cycle of breath is completed, and the child begins to live. Without this mutual surrender of breath between the atmosphere and the child, life for the newborn infant could not even begin; and life continues only so long as this mutual surrender continues.

So life begins when the atmosphere, the source of air, first surrenders to the child; and life ends when the child or adult -- which are the creations -- surrenders the last breath back to the atmosphere: or more correctly can no longer continue the process of mutual surrender.

Thus life for the creation begins with the Principle of surrender, with the source surrendering first; life is sustained by continuous mutual surrender between the source and its creations; and life ends when the mutual surrender ends. All life is thus gets started with and is sustained by mutual surrender.
 
 

The Five Great Elementals of Nature
 

The Hindu Scriptures explain that life on earth depends upon the five main elementals known as the panch mahâ bhootas or Five Great Elementals. These are the earth; water; air; heat; and space or âkâsh (or what may be referred to in modern terminology as the space-time continuum). The Principle of surrender also manifests itself in our relationship with these other elementals. We receive food from the earth, and after it passes through our bodies, whatever remains is surrendered back to the earth. The same thing happens with water, heat and space. And just as we are not consciously aware of the blood that flows through our vascular system -- although we know that it does -- similarly we are not consciously aware of the mutual surrender that occurs between our bodies and space, even though it is occurring all the while. Biological creations have to surrender to the source of their biological bodies, which are the five elementals as explained earlier.

This Principle of surrender is universal and cuts through all national, geographical and religious boundaries. All human beings, regardless of the circumstances of their birth be they paupers, millionaires, ministers or kings, or whether they believe in God or not must surrender to the earth, water, air, heat and space if they want to live. Life for all biological creations ends when the mutual surrender ends with respect to any one of the five elementals. Thus we can suffocate to death due to lack of air; die of thirst or dehydration; die of hunger and cold; and our bodies would collapse into a solid point having no dimensions were it not for the space between the various cells and organs of the body. Indeed our bodies need space even after we are dead. So one can see that this Principle of surrender is universal in its manifestation. Yet how many of us are cognizant of this universal Principle of surrender?
 
 

Nature of Surrender
 

In the discussion thus far we have observed five things about the Principle of surrender:

1. Surrendering is not a sign of weakness, nor is it submission.

2. Surrendering is a natural process -- as natural as breathing -- and our life depends upon surrendering to the natural source of our bodies.

3. The material source that sustains our bodies is both outside and inside us. We are totally surrounded by the atmosphere, and it also fills our lungs. Likewise the earth, water, sun and space are all around and within us.

4. The source of any creation surrenders first to its creations. Thus the atmosphere surrenders first to the gasp of the child. The mother feeds the first milk to the child, etc.

5. The source does not stop surrendering to its creations. Life ends when an individual creature stops the process of mutual surrender voluntarily or otherwise.

These points are being repeated, because it is so very important to grasp and be conscious of this phenomenon of the Source surrendering a portion of it to begin life for its creations, and the need for mutual surrender between the creation and its source to sustain life. We should never forget that life begins when the source surrenders the first breath of air to the child; life is sustained by continuous mutual surrender between the atmosphere which is the source and the child; and life ends when the mutual surrender ends, only because the creation -- and not the source -- can no longer continue the process of surrendering. Even a dead creature's lungs and stomach are filled with air.

Just as the physical body needs to enter into a relationship of mutual surrender with the Five Elementals, which are its source so that it may live, similarly we need to enter into a relationship of mutual surrender with our spiritual Source so that we may take a spiritual birth and live spiritually.

It is necessary to point out at this juncture that we have given physical examples to illustrate the principle of surrender in manifestation. However, some readers may get the idea that what is physically true is also true spiritually. The author wishes to emphasize that is not the case always. As it is said in the Bible: "God made man in His Image"; God did not make Himself in man's image. So whatever is true spiritually is reflected in the material, but the reverse is not necessarily true. The Principle of surrender is spiritual, and is reflected throughout not only the physical creation but all creation, physical or otherwise.
 
 

To Whom and Through Whom Should One Surrender?
 

Most of us surrender to our desires and the source of our desires, namely the human mind and ego. This only leads to further desires with all their accompanying problems. Just as you had to be physically conceived to take a physical birth, and then surrender to your physical source in order to live physically, similarly you have to be conceived spiritually in order to take a spiritual birth, and then surrender to your spiritual Source in order to live spiritually.

But how to be conceived spiritually, and where is your Spiritual Source? Just as the five elementals, which are the source of the physical body, are all around and within the body, similarly your Spiritual Source is all around and within you. Also, just as you need a medium or an intermediary, your parents, to be conceived physically and through whom you took a physical birth, similarly you need a medium or an intermediary to be conceived spiritually and take a spiritual birth.

That medium or intermediary through whom you can be conceived spiritually and take a spiritual birth is none other than a High Spiritual Master such as Buddha, Râm, Krishna, Christ, Zarathushtra, Mohammed, the Jain Tîrthankars, the Prophets of Israel, the Gurus of the Sikhs, The Bab or Baha'ullah of the Baha'i faith -- all of whom have taken birth on earth -- or they can be High Beings who have never descended in human form but have been given human and other forms in various religions. These Divine Beings are known