Surrender of the Heart

In our previous episode, we looked at surrendering works as spoken about in the Karma Yoga. It was about knowing how we can allow this guidance to be reflected through our works, through our actions, through our speech, through our thoughts, in everything that we do in our manifested being, how can we allow our limited self to fall away and become an instrument of a greater, greater truth. In this episode, we will look at the surrender of the hearts, it's the emotional being. And this of all the kinds of surrenders is actually the easiest to do because it is something that we are in many ways in our own lives familiar with. It's the surrender of love, the ability of opening the heart and allowing us to dissolve our personality and offer it to something which is more dear to us, to something where we have no hesitation to give ourselves to.

So the surrender of the heart is the next level or the Bhakti Yoga which is different ways of opening up the heart center of the individual. And this practice is about allowing oneself to really go beyond our expectations of people, expectations of things and immerse ourselves in this, the quality of love for everything. And this experience of love in everything also becomes more powerful the more we realize that at the end of the day there is much more that we share with the universe around us than we actually believe we do. So the more we can allow ourselves to rest in the experience of oneness, the more it would be easy for us to open our hearts without fear and trusting that there is an intelligence, there is this mother principle who is holding us and supporting us whether the situations are easy or difficult. But it is this allowing oneself to fall completely and be carried by her.

There is a very cute story that highlights this quality of surrender of the heart through love and devotion. A sage was once performing a lot of austerities in order to see the divine. And on another side there was another devotee who was just blissfully singing away the songs of the Lord. One day a divine messenger comes to visit them and he meets the sage who asks him that when am I going to have the vision of the Lord, when am I going to see him, I have been waiting for so long. So the messenger tells him you know it will take a little while, at this rate it would take you another 50 years.

The sage is highly discouraged, he says you know I have been working so hard and I have not borne any, it hasn't borne any result. The divine messenger Narada, he could do nothing so he walks on and then he suddenly meets this singing devotee in the forest. And then the devotee asks him so when am I going to see my Lord and Narada, the divine messenger tells him that I am very sorry but you know the sage who would see him in 50 years was so disappointed I don't know what to tell you. So the devotee said don't worry just tell me and he says that it will take you a hundred years to meet the Lord. And the devotee is so delighted that he starts singing blissfully again.

And Narada is totally surprised, he says what happened, how come you are so delighted. He says at least I will see my Lord. And at that instance the Lord appears and you know welcomes him. So this quality of loving and giving without expectations is one of the most powerful tools of surrendering from the heart. This can be practiced more specifically by the use of mantras.

So if you have either a master or if one has a deity or if one has a certain quality anything that can serve to open one's heart can be used as a tool to practice surrender of the heart or the bhakti yoga. And the more one engages with that practice the more often one thinks of one's master the more often one thinks of the deities and thinks of the qualities of those deities the more one would allow oneself to be colored by the uplifting qualities of those beings and become more free. Surrender of the heart is one of the easiest ways of practicing letting go and becoming a recipient of the universal love. This can be further enhanced by the practice of the simple mantra sound the oo. A more regular practice of the oo can help create the space of expansive embrace.

So we'll practice that together once and allow yourselves to flow with this oo and gather everything into yourself. And as we do it the second time give everything that you have to the universe yeah. Let's do it then close your eyes take a deep breath and as you do the sound oo embrace yourself as widely as you can we'll do it a second time and this time give as generously and unconditionally as you can. Simple sounds are powerful ways of helping us achieve this surrender of ourselves but bhajans, kirtans these are other ways by which many people find this liberation of being through love. So find your own tool but open your heart that is the key to the Bhakti Yoga.