In the context of my last post on third initiation, today I will write about the key principle of "Active Surrender" (a term referred to by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother) connecting my personal experience. Having gone through a certain kind of surrender (subconsciously) during my challenging years of doctoral work, it is only after having contemplated on the words of Cyril Scott (and his master JMH), and more recently Alice Bailey (and teacher Djwal Khul) and now Sri Aurobindo and Mother Mirra Alfassa, I think they all have described this type of surrender in their own words. In that context I will try to connect it with what I feel can be seen as an example - "the complete rejection of Masters by J Krishnamurthy". Having been on the same path (which is called Jnana Yoga and Advaita Vedanta here in India) and is simply the Ray 2B Wisdom path of Buddha on which our beloved teacher Djwal Khul has been. I realize that there are times when simply our mind cannot get past a certain level and keeps going round and round in circles (it reminded me of the scene where Frodo told Sam that they were lost and going in circles when they had to take help of authority of Smeagol).
A. From the Book - Glamour A world problem
"Those of us who are considering him (the prisoner of glamour of freedom) and looking on at him from the clearer heights of attainment see him gradually becoming obscured by wisps of fog and by a glamour which is gradually growing up around him as he becomes a "prisoner of the fog of freedom" and revels in what he deems the fact of his independence. When his sight has cleared, and when his mental aspect is more developed and unfolded, he will know that the Law of the Group must, and will, impose itself upon him, and that the rule of the lower nature has only to be exchanged for the rule of the soul. This is group rule and works under the law of the group. He has struggled out of the mass of seekers of the Road on to the Road itself. He is, therefore, ahead of the masses but he is not alone, even if he thinks that he is. He will discover many others who are travelling the same way with him, and their numbers will steadily increase as he progresses. The rule of interplay, of travel, and of group recognition and work and service will impose themselves upon him until he finds that he is a member of the New Group of World Servers, working under the conditions which are the rules governing their activities. As he learns to travel with them upon the Road, their governing incentives and the techniques of their chosen service will penetrate his consciousness, and automatically and naturally he will begin to obey the higher rhythm and give his assent to the laws which control group life and group consciousness. Finally, he will find himself entering into the silent places where the Masters of the Wisdom dwell, and will work in group rhythm with Them, obeying thus the laws of the spiritual realm, which are the subjective laws of God.
The authority to which we, the teachers on the inner side, respond is twofold in nature, and to it you are just beginning (as units in a group) to respond. To what do you respond?
1. To the slowly emerging realization of the "light beyond," using that phrase as a symbol. This light is different in its appeal to the individual. Yet it is ONE LIGHT. But its recognition reveals new laws, new responsibilities, new duties and obligations, and new relations to others. These constitute an authoritative control. None can escape this authority, but can disobey it in time and space and for a temporary period.
2. To the authority of the Rules of the Road (Six Rule in DINA) which are imposed upon one as one passes from the Path of Probation on to the Path of Discipleship. Yet it is ONE ROAD. Upon this "narrow, razor-edged path," one learns to walk with discipline and discretion and with the desirelessness which one experiences in unison with one's fellow disciples."
B. A similar kind of surrender is alluded by Sri Aurobindo in his magnum opus Savitri where he adores the Divine Mother (which is "ONE LIGHT" Alice Bailey describes above) and talks about the active surrender to her -
"This was a seed cast into endless Time.
A Word is spoken or a Light is shown,
A moment sees, the ages toil to express.
So flashing out of the Timeless leaped the worlds;
An eternal instant is the cause of the years.
All he had done was to prepare a field;
His small beginnings asked for a mighty end:
For all that he had been must now new-shape
In him her joy to embody, to enshrine
Her beauty and greatness in his house of life.
But now his being was too wide for self;
His heart’s demand had grown immeasurable:
His single freedom could not satisfy,
Her light, her bliss he asked for earth and men.
But vain are human power and human love
To break earth’s seal of ignorance and death;
His nature’s might seemed now an infant’s grasp;
Heaven is too high for outstretched hands to seize.
This Light comes not by struggle or by thought;
In the mind’s silence the Transcendent acts
And the hushed heart hears the unuttered Word.
A vast surrender was his only strength.
A Power that lives upon the heights must act,
Bring into life’s closed room the Immortal’s air
And fill the finite with the Infinite.
All that denies must be torn out and slain
And crushed the many longings for whose sake
We lose the One for whom our lives were made.
Now other claims had hushed in him their cry:
Only he longed to draw her presence and power
Into his heart and mind and breathing frame;
Only he yearned to call for ever down
Her healing touch of love and truth and joy
Into the darkness of the suffering world.
His soul was freed and given to her alone."
- BOOK III: The Book of the Divine Mother, CANTO TWO
C. In the same context of surrender there are two interesting chapters in the book "THE INITIATE IN THE DARK CYCLE" by Cyril Scott where the group around Justin Moreward Haig discusses the incidents and come to similar conclusion as they were actually happening in the last century -
"Oh Krishnaji! You led us all to believe in 1926 that we were seeking happiness, in 1927 liberation, in 1928 truth, and in 1929 uniqueness; in 1930 you shattered our beliefs in reincarnation, masters, saviors, and now you speak of the removal of the “I,” of the ego, of a state without birth and death, of life which seems to have a meaning to you, but not to us, and yet you speak of an attainment, of a realization, of a culmination. Has your realization, then, a progressive character--progressive in the sense that you have much to say and so your message is now passing through a state of incompleteness to completeness?"
--“Star bulletin,” September, 1931.
I believe it is here, that the Western people (like JK) find their difficulty. They have been taught to fear and avoid all that threatens their personal independence. They have imbibed with their mothers’ milk the sense of individuality. And surrender means giving up all that. Yet if we contemplate the above words (of DK and Sri Aurobindo) we can intuit that the surrender that is asked is an active one (and not the usual passive one due to which civilization such as India became crystallised passively surrendering to the Divine). Also I leave to those whose intuition has started unfolding to come to their own conclusions (without any sense of criticism as we are all subjected to same glamours including the one who thought of writing this post for his own study and sharing) whether JK became the prisoner of the fog of freedom and rejected all authentic authority ?
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