My Lord, Everything is Yours....

God says that the amount of His grace or divine gift to a person depends on the degree of his surrender to Him. It means that there is a condition about the degree of one's surrender.

tameva sharanam gaccha ssarvabhavena bharata

tatprasadatparam shantim sthanam prapsyasi shashvatam

( Gita 18.62)

If you surrender to Him, He will shower grace on you depending on the degree of your surrender. God takes complete responsibility of a person who has wholly surrendered to Him. So it is only God and the Saints who give in proportion to the degree of one's surrender. For that you have nothing to offer. Because whatever you have, is of no use to Them. What can you offer? Your body? It is very dirty. It is not worth God's touch, just as you will not touch farces lying near you. A human body composed of the five elements is worse than farces. How can you possibly expect that God will touch it or even look at it? It is not worth His gaze. Mind is still filthier. And intellect is far worse.

What else can you offer? Is it some material thing that you would offer? But EVERYTHING IN THIS WORLD BELONGS TO HIM. How can you say it is your? Did you bring it along from your mother's womb? If you offer God some water, that water itself is of this earth and it belongs to God. Then what is your own? This body of yours too was formed in your mother's womb by God's grace. Only your sins are your own, on which you can claim your right. The selfless offering of God and the Saints is conditioned by the degree of your surrender to Them.

When a disciple surrenders completely he receives his special grace. Without that grace nobody can attain God, because after one's heart is completely purified, the Guru blesses him with a divine power which destroys all his vices and virtues that have accumulated during his endless lifetimes and eliminates the very root, maya; all kinds of panchaklesh (five affictions) - rag, dvesh (all kinds of worldly love and hatred), abhinivesh (clinging to life), avidya (ignorance) and asmita (egoism) disappear and he becomes blissful till eternity. This is the special grace of the Guru. A disciple whose degree of surrender is comparatively less also receives his grace in many ways. The Guru goes to him, looks at him, talks to him, tries to make him understand and cautions him from time to time, forgives him. He points out his mistakes so that he will correct himself and for that he scolds him and also persuades him.

In case the effect of scolding and persuasion of the Guru brings him to a stage where free from all shortcomings, the whole being of the disciple is overwhelmed; it can be safely assumed that he has arrived. But so long it does not happen, he cannot be said to have surrendered fully. He is under misconception that as he has done pranam (salutation), taken the charanamrita, and done the aarti, he has surrendered to the Guru. All these are external activities. It is only by surrendering mind and intellect, that one can claim to have achieved that stage.