The Secret of Totality

The Path of Will & The Path of Surrender

Question 1:

THE END is always the same, but the beginning differs, and all the differences belong always to the beginning. The nearer you reach, the less is the difference between paths.

In the beginning will and surrender are diametrically opposed. Surrender means absolute will-lessness. You have no will of your own, you feel helpless, you feel you cannot do anything. You are so totally helpless that you cannot even say that will exists; the very concept of will is illusory. You have no will. Rather, on the contrary, you have destiny, not will, so you can only surrender. It is not that you surrender: rather, it is that you cannot do anything else.

So surrender is not an act. Rather, it is a recognition. It is not an act! How can surrender be an act? How can you surrender? If you surrender, then how will you call it surrender when you remain the master? If you surrender, then you remain the "willer", the surrender has been willed, and these two things are diametrically opposed. You cannot will surrender. So surrender is not an act; rather, it is a recognition - the recognition of the phenomenon of will-lessness.

There is no will, so you cannot will. You cannot do anything. Everything is just happening. You have happened, and all else that has followed has just been a happening. To feel this, to know this, is a recognition. Suddenly you become aware of the fact that there is no will in you. With this recognition ego disappears, because the ego can exist only if there is will.

So ego means the totality of willed acts. If there is will, then you can be. If there is no will, you disappear. Then you are just a wave in a great infinite ocean - and you cannot will anything. You are as a happening; you will not be as a happening. What can a wave do in an infinite ocean? It has been "waved" by the ocean. It is not: it only appears to be.

If you feel this, and this feeling is a deep search, digging down deep in yourself - is there any will? - then you find you are just a dead leaf blown by the wind. So sometimes you go north and sometimes you go south, and the dead leaf may begin to think that it is going south - only the wind is blowing and the dead leaf following. If you go deep down in yourself you will become aware of a total will-lessness. The recognition of it is surrender. It is not an act. And if you surrender, if the surrender happens, there is no need to offer. You cannot!

So on the path of surrender, really, offering is not possible, because offering is really based on will: you offer, you are there. On the path of surrender offering happens, but the surrenderer never knows. He cannot know; he cannot say, "I have offered my mind to the Divine." Really, he cannot speak in terms of acts; he can only speak in terms of happenings. So at the most he can say. "The offering has happened." Without a will you cannot have an ego, and without an ego you cannot talk of anything as an act. So "happening" is the phenomenon on the path of surrender. Surrender itself is a happening.

But on the path of will there is a different process. The moment I say "the path of will", the will is taken for granted. You do something. This is a fact on the path of will, taken for granted. It is never questioned, because those who follow the path of will say that even to question a thing is to accept will. Even to question a thing means the will is there. To question is an act, to answer is an act, to doubt is an act, to say no is an act. So the will cannot be questioned. On the path of will, the will cannot be questioned. That is a basic hypothesis.

On the path of surrender, will-lessness is the basic hypothesis. You cannot question that. So this must be understood: on every path something is a hypothesis. It is bound to be, because you have to begin somewhere and you have to begin in ignorance. Because of these two factors a hypothesis is needed. So even in science you begin with a hypothesis - something assumed which cannot be questioned - and if you question it the whole edifice falls down.

For example, one of the most accurate, scientific dimensions is geometry, but you begin with a hypothesis. You begin with something taken as an assumption which can neither be proved nor disproved, because only that thing can be disproved which can be proved. So to begin with, you take something in ignorance, in faith. So, really, science is not as scientific as it looks. If you go back to the beginning every science begins with a hypothesis, and if you question the hypothesis no answer is possible. And this is as it should be because you cannot begin from nowhere.

Look at it in this way: if I come to a strange city and I ask someone where the person A lives, he may say, "A is a neighbour of B." But I say, "This is not an answer at all because I do not know B either. So where does B live?" Then he says, "B is a neighbour of C." But I say, "I am in a strange land. I don't know anything about C or D or E, so please tell me in such a way that I can understand. Everything is unknown to me, so from where to begin?"

If he says, "D, E, F, G," they are all hypothetical. So from where to begin? A beginning can only be possible if I assume one thing as known which is not really known; otherwise no answer is possible. And this is the situation, this is how we are in this world: everything is unknown, so from where to begin? If you say, "We must begin with knowledge," then how can you begin? When everything is unknown, how can you begin with something as a known fact? Then you cannot begin. And if you begin with an unknown fact, then too you cannot begin.

A hypothesis means an unknown fact taken in faith as known. A hypothesis means an unknown fact knowingly taken as known. Then you can begin. So a hypothesis cannot be questioned - nowhere, not even in mathematics.

So on the path of will, will is the hypothesis, and on the path of surrender, will-lessness is the hypothesis. So if one path appeals to you, you will not be able to comprehend the other, because both have opposite hypotheses. If will-lessness appeals to you, then will does not have any appeal. Then it is absurd. And if will appeals to you, then surrender is meaningless.

With will, it is taken for granted that you can do, so now the question is - what to do? You can do something which leads you away from the Divine and you can do something which leads you nearer to Him. And you are responsible - I have discussed that yesterday. How can you will, by and by, to be near and, ultimately, totally with That? But remember this fact: that will is taken as a hypothesis. Once you take it as a hypothesis, you go on willing, ultimately you will totally - that is, your mind is arrowed totally towards That - in that total tension, on that c1imax and peak, will dissolves, because perfection is death. The moment anything is perfect it dies.

That is why Lao Tzu says, "Never be perfect. Stop half way - never go to the end!" If you go to the end, success will become failure and life will become death. If you go to the very end, love will turn into hate, friendship will be reduced to enmity - because perfection means death. And when something dies, it dies into the polar opposite.

When will is perfect, when mind is wholly arrowed, will dies, the will disappears - because perfection is the point of evaporation, just like water evaporates at a hundred degrees heat. The hundred- degree limit is the perfection. As far as water is concerned, the heat has come to the peak. Now if heat continues to be, water will not be there. And if water wants to be there, then heat must not come up to the peak. So when you are a hundred percent will, you are on the verge of explosion, you will die, your will will die. The very phenomenon of will disappears. And when will disappears, you come to the same point where one who begins with will-lessness comes. Now it is will-lessness.

So either zero or perfection: both go to the same end. It will depend on you, on your type of mind. If you can conceive of will-lessness, then there is no question. But that is difficult - not only difficult: in a certain way it is impossible. It is inconceivable. It happens, sometimes it happens. But that happening also has a long, long effort of will. Many, many lives lived will then give you the experience that you have been dreaming of. One who has willed for a long time and yet reaches nowhere may come to a point where suddenly he becomes aware that he is working with something which is not.

Buddha, for example: he reaches the Ultimate through will-lessness. But he worked very arduously on the path of will for six years in this life. He went to every teacher, inquired about every path, endeavoured his best, tried everything that was taught and said. He did everything that a human being can do, and with every teacher he worked hard. No teacher was able to say, "You are not achieving because you are not working," because he was working even more than the teacher.

So every teacher had to say to him, "I cannot say that you are not working - you are working hard, impossibly hard - but now this is all I can teach you. You must go somewhere else." So he went around to every teacher, worked on every method. And Bihar was a very potential place in those times. Only twice have such great peaks happened. Once it was in Athens, in the Greek civilization. Athens was a very potential city, and a very potential situation happened in Athens. And another time was in Bihar: it happened that Bihar became the peak of all that mind can do. And in Bihar, in Buddha's time, every method had been evolved and every method had its own teacher, its own Master. And Buddha worked with every one. He worked so hard and so sincerely that every teacher had to ask him to leave, because he had worked totally and nothing was coming out.

Really, he was not the man meant for the path of will. Mahavir, a contemporary of Buddha, reached through the path of will and achieved. But Buddha could not achieve. After working hard in every way, in a sudden moment of helplessness he became frustrated. He felt helpless. He had done everything and nothing was achieved, and he remained the same with no transformation. A total frustration set in, and one day he left everything.

Previously, he had left the world: that was the first renunciation. But the second one, which is not mentioned in the scriptures, was greater. The Buddhists don't talk about it. A second, greater renunciation happened: after six years of tortuous effort, Buddha left the path of will. He said, "I feel helpless - and it seems that nothing is possible, nothing can be done, so I leave all efforts."

That was a full-moon night and he was sitting under a tree. The world he had left; now all religions, all philosophies, all techniques, he left on that evening. He relaxed under the tree. For the first time he could relax after lives and lives - because somehow or other we are always working, doing, achieving. But on that evening there was no achieving mind in him. He was so totally helpless that time ceased, future dropped, desires became meaningless. Effort was not possible; will was not found at all.

So he was really dead - psychologically dead. He was alive only in the sense that a tree is alive - with no desires, with no future, with no possibility. He was just like the tree he was laying beneath. Conceive of it. Try to conceive of it! If there are no desires and no future and no morning to follow, and nothing is to be achieved and everything has been just absurd, and the thought that "I cannot do" penetrates deep, then what is the difference between you and the tree? No difference! He was as relaxed as the tree. He was as relaxed as the river flowing by.

He slept. This sleep was strange. There was not even a dream, because dreams belong to desires, effort, will. He slept as trees sleep. The sleep was total. It was just like death - no movement of the mind, no motivation inside. Everything stopped. Time stopped.

In the morning at five o'clock he opened his eyes. Rather, it would be good to say that eyes opened, because there was no motivation. As the eyes dropped in the evening, in the morning they opened. Refreshed by the night, refreshed by relaxation, refreshed by a deep desirelessness, Buddha opened his eyes. The last star was disappearing in the sky, and it is said that just by seeing the last star disappear Buddha became Awakened. He Realized!

What happened? It was because there was no effort; effort had ceased. There was not even desire. Now there was not even frustration - because frustration is part of desire and expectation. If really expectations cease, there is no frustration. He was not asking, he was not praying, he was not meditating, he was not doing at all. He was just there - empty. When the last star disappeared, something disappeared in him also. He became just space, he became just nothingness. This is surrender, with no feeling of surrender - because who is to surrender to whom? But this also happened as a culminating peak of long efforts.

This is what I mean to say: one has to begin with will. Begin with will! If you are the type who can reach to perfect will, you will just disappear from that peak. If you are not the type then you will reach a perfection of frustration, and from that peace of frustration you will disappear. If the first is the case, will then is known as the path; if the second is the case, then surrender.

But begin with will. You cannot begin with surrender, because surrender cannot have any beginning. Action can have a beginning - but how can a happening have a beginning? You can begin w!th action; you cannot begin with happening - that is the difference. You can begin with something to do, but how can you begin with surrender?

So begin with will and put your whole being into it. Only then will you be able to know whether this path can work for you or not. If it can work, then it is okay. Then you reach to the most perfect ego. And when the ego is perfected, the bubble bursts. Or, if you are not of that type, then you will go round and round and round and round... and frustration and frustration. Then you reach another peak - the peak of frustration - and then surrender happens.

So even for surrender don't think that you have not to do any thing - remember this! Don't think - because mind is very cunning and the mind can say. "Surrender is our way. That means I am not going to do anything. Surrender is my way!" This is a cunning deception. If surrender is your way, then surrender can happen this very moment - because surrender needs no time. There is no tomorrow necessary for it. If you say, "Surrender is my way," then don't wait for tomorrow, because surrender can come just here and now. No effort is needed in surrender so no time is necessary.

If it is not coming just this moment, then know very well surrender is not your way. Mind is deceiving; mind is just trying to postpone effort. And mind can do everything. Mind can rationalize: "There is no need to will because there is no will, so I am ready to be on the path of will-lessness." But remember well that your "readiness" will not do. Your readiness is not really a readiness: your preparedness is not really a qualification for surrender. Your total helplessness is the qualification. Really, are you totally helpless? Have you felt it, that nothing can be done, If you feel it, then surrender can happen this very moment.

Surrender cannot be postponed; will can be postponed. So with will you can take time, lives, and you can go on working slowly. But with surrender there is no go, and you cannot think of the future - future is not allowed. So if you say, "Surrender is my way and someday it will happen," you are deceiving yourself. If surrender is your way, then surrender would have happened already.

Someone asked Mozart, "Who is your teacher? From whom have you learned your music?"

Mozart said, "No one is my teacher. I have learned it myself, alone."

So the questioner said, "Then tell me, can I also learn it myself?"

Mozart said, "But I never asked this question to anybody. Even to know this you have come to ask me, so it will be difficult for you to learn music by yourself. Even this you have to ask someone else - whether you can learn music without any teacher. A teacher is even needed to decide this! So you will not be able."

The man persisted. He said, "Why? When you are able, why am I not?"

Mozart said, "If you were capable of it you would have done it already."

So if surrender can happen and if you are really ready for it, it would have happened. You cannot choose it. Choose will, because with choice will has an affinity. With surrender choice has no affinity. Choice needs will. So choose will, work hard. And there are only two types. Either you succeed or you fail; but work so hard that if you succeed you succeed totally, or if you fail you fail totally, and that totality will decide.

Mild efforts and mediocre efforts lead nowhere, because you can never decide what your type is with mediocre efforts. With mild, lukewarm efforts you can never decide what your type is. You can never know. Work hard! Either succeed totally or fail totally. Both the ways you will reach the same point. If you succeed totally, then will disappears. Being perfect, it dies. If you totally fail, then will-lessness becomes a recognition and surrender follows.

All efforts are on paths of the will. When someone tries with his whole heart and fails, then the other path opens. It is a sudden path! It is like an emergency door. In any air crash you have emergency doors. You may not even be aware of them. You need not be. Ordinarily, you open, you enter and you come out of the common, usual door. The emergency door opens only when there is an emergency and total failure. Now the usual door will not do.

Surrender is an emergency door. You begin with the usual - the will. When will fails totally, the emergency door opens and you are out of it. And if you succeed, then there is no need for the emergency door to be opened. You may not even become aware of it. You may reach your destination without the awareness that there was a door, an emergency door, which could have opened any moment.

So you cannot begin with surrender - no one can. Everyone has to begin with will. The only point to remember is: be total in it so that you can decide either way.

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