Total Surrender - Subramanian A

8/6/2019 Total Surrender - Subramanian A

1/5

Total Surrender

Throughout our life, we are under a fear-complex or ananxiety syndrome. As a baby we were afraid of the beatings of our

parents. We were afraid of darkness and other crawling and flying

creatures. As a boy or a girl, we were afraid of our schools and the

never ending examinations. We were afraid of our teachers and text

books.

As a teenager, we were afraid of the changes that took place in our

body the conditions of puberty. There was anxiety. There was

expectation.

Then, as an youngster, we were anxious to come up in life. We were

eager to get a good job. What next? We had anxieties of love. We fell

into love affairs. We were afraid of our parents and the society. We

made either history of it or lost the battle. Sometimes we found in a

meter of rope the eternal solace.


2/5

And by winning the battle, we got married. We were afraid of our

first night. It was a mental battle between our great expectations

and the realities of the moment.

As years went by, we became anxious to become a father or a

mother. The process was delayed during the initial days of marriagebut now everything seemed to get out of the hands in a natural way.

We went to see the doctors and the help of all gods were sincerely

sought after.

And finally, we were blessed with a son or a daughter. As they grew,

our anxieties also slowly began piling up. The children got cold or

fever and we rushed to the steps of a cosmopolitan hospital. If the

baby was slightly under weight or slim, our anxiety had no end. We

were eager to grow our babies strictly according to the prescriptions

of the medical charts and certain health magazines in which we hadmore faith than in ourselves. Our shelves were always filled with an

array of medicines meant for our children. Every month we took our

children to the nearby clinic to find out their growth , to find out

whether eggs or bananas were required for their health.

When those anxious days slowly came to an end, another fear crept

into our mind in the form of their education. Admission looked at us

like a laughing devil. We nearly fainted when we heard about the

amount of LKG admission fee plus the donation amount. The morewe intended to send our children to very good schools, the more was

the agony in the regard. We realized that the schools were just

auction centers in this regard and swallowed our tears just for the

sake of the future of our children.

And when our children began their education, it became a question

of ranks and dispositions. We became embodiments of anxiety and

tension during their examinations. During their SSLC public

examination, we took leave and sat at home and closely watched

their performance.

Then, the days of Entrance and admission to a professional college

tore our heart and pocket. It drained our nerves.

After those years of educational acrobatics, we were anxious to see

our children well settled in life, well married and brought forth the


3/5

next generation. The memories our wayward youth added fuel to our

anxieties and so took all precautions to avert such dangers in the

case of our children. We were aware of the stones that were thrown

during our youth!

Slowly and steadily, we were becoming old. We were losing our vital

forces. We were becoming old people. We were realizing that at no

point in life, the actual result coincided with the expected result.

Both our job front and family front did not yield the desired results.

We were afraid of the uncertainties of life after our retirement.

Sometimes, the picture of total annihilation haunted us. We were

eager to secure our financial position for a better life and in that rat

race very much less thought that our mental attitude towards life

was the key factor for leading a peaceful life. At every step in our life,

the anxiety syndrome did not leave our thoughts. Once we botheredabout paying Income Tax. We tried to evade it. Our mind was fuil of

various investment schemes. We were eager to see our money

multiplied ten fold in no time and always brooded about paying

Income Tax. We often cursed our Government for taxing us for no

apparent reason. According to our notions, however we were rich,

we always fell into middle income group and never fell into the class

of rich. We never looked at those who were struggling to meet a

square meal when our children were leading a carefree life and that

our kitchen never knew shortage of provisions.Then, we were afraid of snakes and thieves. Whenever a window was

open, we were afraid of thieves and snakes entering through it.

Whenever we locked our houses and went somewhere on a short

visit, we could not really sleep peacefully. The picture of a gigantic

thief stole our sleepy nights. We were often anxious and over

cautious. It was like that we were keeping a treasure at home

equivalent to the treasure of Padmanabhaswamy temple! In short,

we always chased a shadow.

We became old. Our children were away by that time. We were leftalone. We did not know how to manage with our time. We practically

had no mental pre-occupation except worrying about our future! We

were forlorn. We received money orders every month from our

children. The relationship existed in letters and annual visits. We

wanted love in the form of a persons presence but it was not to be

there. We were husband and wife alone in that big house looking at


4/5

each other and often killing our time by watching those wretched TV

serials.

That was one set up. In another set up, our children deserted us

totally and we were all alone. We swallowed tears and our sweetmemories became fading clouds and walked like mindless, aimless

men and women.

On the one side life was exhausting and death was around the

corner. On the other side, life itself revealed a great uncertain future.

We were dejected. We were thrown out of gear. A fear complex

always followed us like a shadow.

Ad did we ever live? We simply existed and tried to live happily and

peacefully but both were rather elusive. In one sense, we had overexpectations in life. At no stage in life we admitted that we were

contented about life. If anybody asked us why we were over anxious

and over expected, we never agreed with them and said that we were

only natural in our behavior and expectations about life. The fact

remained that the uncertainties always caught us somewhere and

pinned us like a shapeless figure.

We believed in god and admitted that we were god fearing but in

reality we had no implicit faith in Him. This was the reason for our

misery. We went to temples, mosques and churches, worshiped thegod inside the sanctum, praised the lord for his mercy and

benefaction of life, cracked coconuts to get rid of the pains of life,

lighted candles and sought his blessings and knelt before him and

searched Him in the distant skies but in our heart of hearts there

was the element of refusal to totally surrender before Him. We

appreciated the existence of god in so far as He bestowed on us all

the goodness of life but failed to give our heart whenever He seemed

to desert us. This really brought us sorrow.

If we could appreciate the existence of god , then, why did we fail to

totally surrender before Him? There wasnt the element of total

honesty in our approach to God. He was believed and at the same

time disbelieved. This wont work in our approach to god. Even in

our approach with other people, this attitude wont pay dividends.

Our level of ego drove us to a corner. We had a feeling that we could


5/5

change the course of our life with our own efforts the Will to work

and achieve results. We felt that we could plan well our life. We were

under the guise that we had the steering wheel in our hands.

In this context, we claimed all credits for our victories in our life andblamed god for all the short comings. Who is god to give us only

miseries and no happiness? Is He so partial? Then, why should we

believe in such a god? Why should we go to temples and churches in

expectation? We could have dispensed with the whole idea because

after all god was sure to give us only miseries!

If we believed in god, we had to fully believe Him, surrender before

Him. Otherwise, we have to discard Him. There should not be an

indecisive thought as in our approach to friends and relatives. God

cannot be casually approached. In fact, god has no hands in ourmisery and happiness but if we surrendered before Him, He would

give us enough mental resources to properly think and act and

Providence would always prevail on us. Just try to understand deeply

the life of Swami Vivekananda and other people and you will

certainly be convinced. Even in our personal life, we can cite many

incidents that were acts of Providence. Somebody would have guided

you at one point or a book might have turned the tables at some

point of time. Your entry to Poetriesonline in itself might have been

an act of Providence.

If we are open in our life, Providence is surely to follow.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Documents

Total Surrender - Subramanian A