Total Surrender

 

 

Janmashtmi is not just an occasion to sing, pray and enjoy joyfully. It is an auspicious occasion when we need to introspect and contemplate. On this day Lord Krishna was born. Lord Krishna is considered to be Purnpurushottam, a perfect and complete human being. On this auspicious day let us remember what lord Krishna has said in Bhagvad Geeta, and let us pledge to follow that. In Bhagvad Geeta Chapter 18, verse 62 Lord Krishna says,

 

tam eva śharaṇaṁ gachchha sarva-bhāvena bhārata
tat-prasādāt parāṁ śhāntiṁ sthānaṁ prāpsyasi śhāśhvatam

(Meaning: Surrender exclusively unto him with your whole being, O Bharat. By his grace, you will attain perfect peace and the eternal abode.

 

Here, Shree Krishna has shown the necessity of total surrender to God for attaining eternal peace. Are we totally surrendered to Him ? to the omnipresent, omnipotent, to God?

 

We can understand the concept of total surrender to God, the supreme being, through the following theories. Sankaracharya’s Advaitavada and Ramanujacharya’s Vishistaadvaitavada are different stages to the Ultimate Truth. They are not contradictory but complementary. After his death, Ramanujacharya’s philosophy of modified non-dualism, according to which Man can save himself not through knowledge, but through self-surrender, came to be interpreted in two-different ways, called the ‘monkey-theory’ (markata-nyaya) and the ‘cat-hold theory’ (marjara-nyaya). According to the first, the human spirit should actively strive to seek union with god, like the young monkey dinging desperately to its mother, the second school holds that man’s surrender is so total as to involve complete dependence on the Divine as in the case of the young kitten lifted by the scruff of the neck by the mother-cat.

 

The divine Mother principle is represented by the central symbol of the cat. The ‘Cat-hold’ theory is expounded in the novel The Cat and Shakeshpeare , written by Raja Rao. In the words of Govindan Nair,

 

Have you ever seen a kitten fall? You could fall. I could fall. But the kitten walk on the wall. They are so deft. They are so young. They are so white. The mother can watch them. And when they are about to fall, there she is, her head in the air, and she picks you up by the scruff of your neck. You never know where she is (who has ever seen her? Noboday has). To know where she is, you have to be the mother’s mother. And how could that be? Mother I worship you. [The Cat and Shakespeare – 68]

 

The ‘kitten’ symbolizes the devout bhakta who submits himself to God. The mercy of God instills feelings of safety and security in him. Unafraid, he rejoices ecstatic in the divine power of the supreme. The kitten also stands for common man who is willing to seek the grace of the Guru but is uninitiated into the principle of self-surrender, faith and ardour. The cat-kitten theory can be linked to Krishna’s incarnation in the person. Soon after his birth, he was shifted to another place for security. Likewise, a kitten, after his birth, is moved by its mother to a corner.

 

Further in the very next page, Govindan Nair says,

 

Ah, the kitten when its neck is held by its mother, does it know anything else, but the joy of being held by its mother? … I say the kitten is the safest thing in the world, the kitten held in the mouth of the mother cat. [The Cat and Shakespeare – 13]

 

The same can be the case with human being, when they totally surrender themselves to God. Like children are totally surrendered to their parents. They don’t doubt on their parents’ love and care towards them. They have total faith in their parents that they are their creators and always be there to save them. There are six aspects of surrender to God.

1.      To desire only in accordance with the desire of God

2.      Not to desire against the desire of God.

3.      To have firm faith that God is protecting us.

4.      To maintain an attitude of gratitude toward God.

5.      To see everything we possess as belonging to God

6.      To give up the pride of having surrendered.

 

So let us celebrate Janmastami surrendering ourselves to lord Krishna, the Supreme being and get the eternal peace.