On surrender and devotion
The alternative path of Bhakti
The great non-dual sage Ramana Maharshi is famous for his method of self-enquiry.
In this method, one investigates the source of all “I” or “me” thoughts and, ideally, discovers the unnamable space of awareness, or Self, from which such thoughts emerge and return to.
After practicing self-enquiry for some time, one begins to realise that one is not simply that entity which the “I” thought points towards, but rather is that great Source, the Self, that the thought arises out of.
With this realisation, the “I” thoughts decrease, and one lives more from that expansive “space” of awareness.
However, Ramana Maharshi also presented another path which he stated as equivalent to the path of the more well-known practice of self-enquiry.
This is the path of devotion, or total surrender, to God / Self.
Ramana himself had devotional Bhakti to Arunachala-Shiva, who he understood as being identical to Self. He didn’t see this Bhakti, this devotion, to be separate from the state achieved after self-enquiry - for both total surrender and self-enquiry lead to the same end point.
Regarding surrender - much of our separate self is caught up in the idea, the fantasy, of control. It makes complete sense, given the starting point of the distorted view of what one really is.
If we believe we are separate from the world out there, then we are a fragile organism in a dangerous environment. So it is completely rational to try and control one’s circumstances to ensure safety and survival.
Even in the relatively safe environments in our modern world we still have a nagging sense of insecurity, of danger. All arising from this separate self sense.
This is where devotional views of God can be useful. If we trust God, if we trust the larger Self, then we can let go of this control impulse.
In so doing, our recursive separate-self-sense can slowly dissolve.
Our ego can let go of itself. It can dissolve back into the Self or God from which it emerged.
But this requires total surrender and trust. If we surrender just so we can achieve some award from the deity in the future it is just another ego salvation project.
It means letting go of all control in one’s life, it means letting go of defining who or what you are, it means accepting that your behaviours don’t at the moment align with what your self image would like.
It means accepting that God is still working in you, as you.
“I no longer live, but Christ lives within me” as St Paul said, in the Christian tradition.
What is left for the ego to do in such surrender? Nothing.
Instead one becomes a space in which God acts, rather than as an isolated, separate entity which has to posit itself over and against God / Self and world in order to continue to exist.
But this requires an act of courage and trust in Self, in God. It requires faith that, if one lets go, the True I will not disappear or be destroyed.
If there is something to Christianity it should have been this - offering the ego an icon of God it could relate to, a loving figure into which it could safely hand over the reins.
But, alas, Christianity, for the most part, has been thoroughly distorted by the cursed idea of eternal hell. This is the largest fear paradigm going - it makes the ego structure embark on a constant, frantic, neurotic search for safety away from the worst of all possible fates - eternal torture. It only surrenders to God in the hope of ego-salvation from this terrible fate.
And so the ego remains the dominant force in one’s life - trying to save itself by believing the correct things, or doing the correct works, to ensure its salvation.
Personally - when I am in a devotional mood, I engage in Christian Bhakti. But not the eternal damnation version. Thankfully there has always been a small minority of Christian Universalists who believe that we are all on a journey into greater and greater glory, and no one is doomed to hell or suffering forever. In fact, there are arguments to be made that this position was perhaps a majority for a short period of time in the early centuries before the influence of St Augustine.
In any case - I see a version of Christianity that is suited to this devotion and surrender. It is the story of a God who loves the world, who shines transparently through the human Jesus, so much so that the human Jesus can be basically identified with God. And this God-as-Jesus worked to heal the sick, restore people’s sight, identified with the poor and religiously marginalised, and didn’t hold Godself aloft from dying an agonising slave’s death.
This is a vision of God who identifies with all humans, including the poor and suffering.
A God who is identified as Love Itself.
That vision of God could have been a potent figure in which the ego was willing to fall back into. But alas, in the history of the religion, it has turned into another ego-marker for exclusivism and another ego-salvation project.
But the original vision still remains, and it is my Bhakti when the Spirit or Self moves my humanity in that direction.
So if you miss the devotional or affective aspect of spirituality in your own journey on the non-dual path, and feel like there is no place for it any longer, rest assured that it can fit comfortably in a non-dual spirituality. In fact, it might, at times, make it feel less dry and clinical.
Don’t take my word for it, consider the great sage Ramana Maharshi’s view also.
Or alternatively you can stick with the non-devotional self-enquiry path if that feels better suited to you at the moment.
All blessings to you on this journey of many paths.
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