8 August 2014 - QA 1

Gurudev, what is more powerful between surrender and resolution? How should we believe that what we are resolving to do is good for us or not?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Leave everything and relax. Why are you thinking so much and getting worried? First of all, what do you have to surrender? You have nothing to surrender. Is this body your own? How long have you been able to control on it? When you were young, this body was not in your control! You weren’t independent. Somebody has brought it up, fed it, cleaned it, bathed it, made you sleep, done all this. Now when you grow old, then you will need someone’s help. To walk you will need a helping hand, and to carry your suitcase you will need someone’s help.
This body belongs to the nature, and nature takes care of it. Your mind belongs to the Divine. However it is, the Divine will take care of it.
If you look at life from a wisdom point of view, there is nothing that belongs to you in the first place to surrender. Don’t worry about not being able to surrender, just sit and relax. You should not do what you are not able to do. Just understand this.
That which you are unable to do but want to do is stress. So if you cannot surrender, then don’t. Just sit silently.

Don’t use this knowledge in the wrong way. If you are habituated to drinking alcohol, then it doesn’t mean that you say that you can’t live without it and so you are not able to leave it.
I know how to make you quit. Put your wallet here. If you don’t have money then how will you go and drink? But don’t apply this knowledge there, that since you are not able to quit drinking, you shouldn’t try to quit. No! I won’t agree to that. You can definitely do something to quit, so you must take a resolve that you won’t drink. If you break your vow once or twice, no problem, but immediately take your vow again. Sometime or other it will definitely happen.