Surrendering to a Living Master

Surrendering to a Living Master

By Desmond Yeoh SC

In my previous article, ‘Surrender: The Foundation of Kriya Yoga’, I shared the following story from a friend:

Recently I faced some problems at work. I prayed to the Divine to bring peace to my heart while I go through this challenge. One night, I dreamt that I was a construction worker working on a skyscraper. I was very high up in the sky walking along the steel beams. I have a fear of heights and the Divine chose a good way to get His point across! I was scared stiff but the Divine said to me that I have protective wires tied to me. All I need to do is to test those wires once by falling off in the scariest way possible. Once I see that I am protected by the wires, I will no longer be afraid! So, I let go of the beam which I was clinging to and spread my hands out. I then leaned back with my eyes closed and fell off. I was caught by the security wires and pulled back to safety.

 After I woke up, I could still remember the dream clearly. I know that whenever I remember a dream with clarity, it is a message from the Divine. It was clear to me that the Divine asked me to trust in Him. The message was simple: Do not be afraid of falling because I will be there to catch you!

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We can see that surrendering to the Divine can give us the strength and confidence to face all our challenges. Surrendering to a living master can also lend us strength but it is much more difficult than surrendering to the Divine. We are not able to judge the Divine but we can easily judge a living master. Our mind can easily find fault with a living person but it is impossible to find fault with the Divine.

First of all, the Master needs to earn the complete trust of his disciple. He does this not to benefit himself but to help his disciple. Secondly, the disciple needs to conquer the wall of doubt and scepticism that he had built to protect himself. This process can easily take years or decades but once such a relationship is established, it can be extremely rewarding because there is an on-going and personal interaction between the Master and his disciple. The Master will set up circumstances and situations that challenge the disciples negative karmic inclinations so that he can overcome them and evolve spiritually.

Nowadays, with mountains of scandals involving spiritual masters, it appears that the wall of doubt that we build around ourselves is getting thicker and thicker. Surrendering to a living master becomes superficial – we stay with the Master only if he can continue to help us fulfil our material desires. This is not surrender. It is more of a conditional relationship.

A true Master-disciple relationship involves complete surrender and unconditional trust. One who has established this kind of relationship with a Master, whether or not the Master is fully enlightened, is truly blessed.