Ramana Maharshi

To surrender is to let go of everything,

without anticipating or expecting anything in return. Letting go of everything also encompasses abandoning the aspiration to realize the self.

Suppose you are holding a red-hot iron ball. Your hand is quivering in unbearable pain. Somebody suggests to you that you let go.

If your response is, what benefit will I obtain if I let go? Will not the other person wonder, poor fellow, the pain of holding that dreadful thing in his hand, has it addled his brains?

Samsara is intolerably painful. Why look for reasons to let go of it?

If samsara still appears as being acceptable to one, no matter how remotely or infinitesimally so, can they realize a self? One who does not see samsara as actually being the horribly excruciating misery that it indeed really is.

Will they realize the self? Surrender works only if it is unconditional.

That means your mind must be genuinely reconciled to the possibility that anything can happen or not happen, including one's failure to realize the self. Such acceptance must be natural or genuine.

For instance, it must not be self-imposed, or these conditions spoken of manipulated in any way.

It is so utterly simple that trying to communicate it through words leads us into a hopeless quagmire of complicated sounding ideas. Totally let go and the self stands realized.

That is all there is to realization. On this road,

There are no milestones. How can you know in which direction you are going? Why don't you do what the first class railway passenger does?

He tells the guard his destination, locks the doors and goes to sleep. The rest is done by the guard. If you could trust your guru as much as you trust the railway guard, it would be quite enough to make you reach your destination.

Your job is to shut the door and windows and sleep. The guard will wake you up at your destination.

Your business is simply to surrender and leave everything to me. If one really surrenders completely, there is no room to complain that the guru has not done this or that.

Once we have surrendered to the higher power, that automatically takes care that only the right thing is done at any given point in time.

This higher power knows what to do and when and how.

The activities destined to be carried on by the body go on of their own accord without any intervention from you. Leave everything entirely to that.

But you should not try and judge it. Even if what is done is not to your liking or preference, do not interfere.

If you have surrendered, it means that you must totally accept God's will as being the supreme guiding force of your life and that the exclusive consideration or priority in your life is to not permit your own ideas for your life to come into conflict with the higher power