Self-Surrender in Principle and Self-Surrender in Detail

When the seeker takes up the path of yoga and surrender of the ego-consciousness to the Divine, he identifies himself with the psychic being, the soul entity, in his being and makes the offering from that part of his being. What is frequently not recognised however is that the human being is made up of numerous different parts or planes of action that represent the various evolved forces that have developed this complex interaction which we identify as ourselves. These other aspects of his being, whether his physical body, his vital being, his emotional responses (more or less a combined effort of the vital and the mental) and the mental being each have their own preconceived notions and ways of reacting and responding to situations, events, forces and circumstances. Some of these represent embedded habits or what we call 'instincts' going back to pre-human times in the evolutionary cycle. Various forms of behavior are learned as the human individual grows and develops as well. All of these reactions are carried out despite the central surrender of the ego from the psychic being at the center of this human amalgam.

The work, then, is not simply to accept the psychic being's aspiration and surrender as the final and definitive action; rather, each part of the being, each habit, instinct, reaction, and trained response needs to be brought within the framework of that self-surrender and thereby adjusted to conform to the dictates of the psychic offering.

Sri Aurobindo notes: "It is the psychic surrender in the physical that you have begun to experience."

"All the parts are essentially offered, but the surrender has to be made complete by the growth of the psychic sel-offering in all of them and in all their movements separately and together."

"To be enjoyed by the Divine is to be entirely surrendered so that one feels the Divine Presence, Power, Light, Ananda possessing the whole being rather than oneself possessing these things for one's own satisfaction. It is a much greater ecstasy to be thus surrendered and possessed by the Divine than oneself to be the possessor. At the same time by this surrender there comes also a calm and happy mastery of self and nature."

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 2, Faith — Aspiration — Surrender, pg. 36