ATMA NIVEDANAM - SURRENDER / MERGER OF SELF WITH GOD
In the post on “why did God create man”, we heard God answering a question and saying thus: -
No joy of the senses, no joy of possession, can match the joy of God. Though I had everything from eternity to eternity, I began to think, "I am all-powerful, and Joy itself, but there is no one else to enjoy Me. I will make souls in My image, and clothe them as human beings with free choice, to see whether they will seek My material gifts and the temptations of money, wine, and sex; or whether they will seek the million times more intoxicating joy of My consciousness."
The Bhakta ultimately has sought and attained the million times more intoxicating joy of God consciousness!
Bro. Hari, very often speaks on Nava Vida Bhakti and takes us through the nine stages through and through with the aid of Bhajans. When he reaches Atma Nivednam, the last stage or the ultimate state, he says that he got stuck. For all the other stages, he got choice of bhajans.
However, when he reaches Atma Nivedanam, even after searching the entire Bhajanavali book, he could not find an appropriate bhajan. He says, "Swami perhaps had something to teach me, so I sat in silence and started contemplating and then it stuck me. At that stage, upon complete surrender, every bhajan is appropriate because, no matter what the wordings of the bhajans are, whether it is a namavali bhajan or a bhajan filled with bhava or any other type, the state of mind of the singer after reaching the stage of Atma Nivedanam, has to be the same."
Believe me, brothers and sisters, once a devotee reaches this stage or anywhere near the stage, both the statements given below are identically same for him/her.
1) Bhajans now mean nothing for him, because the purpose of bhajan is fulfilled. All rituals, all religious practice, all devotional practice followed till now, were immensely useful for him to reach the state of TOTAL SURRENDER but after reaching such state, he is freed of all such practice. Through all the devotional practices undertaken by him,which were MEANS, the END that is merger with the Lord, has been attained.
Or
2) Any bhajan is the same at his state of existence now. Once you have ceased to be a nadhi after merging in the prema sagara Sai Rama, percussion/ bhajan/ singer/ song/good singing/bad singing/shruthi/ apashruthi -All these mean nothing for you because none of these can now segregate/ divide/isolate you from the prema sagara and make you think on all the above mentioned things. The doll made of salt has merged in the lake of salt. The sugar cane has ceased to exist and only the sweet essence exists now. Is it possible for the essence to revert its status to the sugar cane any more?
The stage is explained as Atma Nivedanam, surrendering the SELF/ ,merger of SELF in God supreme.
With folded hands, with prostrations to the Author of Srimad Bhagawatham, the author shall modify the wording ATMA NIVEDANAM to ATMA SAYUJYA or ATMA SAMYOG, because, at this stage, there is no one left to surrender/offer anything to anyone. It is complete merger of Jivatma with the Paramatman, the individual consciousness with the pure absolute universal consciousness.
THE SURRENDERER HAS BEEN SURRENDERED ULTIMATELY.
THE SURRENDERER HAS BEEN SURRENDERED ULTIMATELY.
In the next concluding post on SURRENDER, we will consolidate all the important learning in many previous posts on surrender and join all the learning to make a Garland of Surrender, Garland of Atma Samyog!!
Love.
