This Chapter is taken From The Book ”Guru Ramana – Memories and Notes” by S.S.Cohen

Visitor. What is self-surrender?

Bh. It is the same as mind-control. The ego submits when it recognises the higher authority of the Atman. This is the beginning of surrender. Although the ego cannot exist without the Self, yet, due to its ignorance of this fact, it remains rebellious, and acts on its own initiatives and by its own will.

V. How can the rebellious ego be subjugated?

Bh. Either by seeking its source, when it automatically disappears, or by deliberately surrendering all its actions, motives and decisions, striking thereby at its root. Habits create the false notion that thinking is a permanent institution, with which it is impossible to dispense, but enquiry and discrimination will blast this fallacy. None succeeds without effort and the successful few owe their victory to perseverance.

V. People prostrate before God or the Guru to prove, I suppose, or at least to show their surrender.

Bh. True surrender is the melting of the ego in its Source, the Heart. God is not deceived by physical genuflections; what He sees in the worshipper is how much of the ego remains in full control and how much is on the verge of self-destruction.