Surrender
Letting go of the desire to succeed | Effort vs letting go | Self-Surrender
Devotion is key | Do we need to make an effort? | Yoga Vasistha | Sadhanai Saram
We need to make an effort, but the primary effort we make is to let go and surrender ourselves to Him, and then it’s done by God’s Grace. You’ll find all the answers come, synchronicities happen, or a great difficulty will come your way and it will give rise to a Jewel.
Here is a link to the piece about Sadhanai Saram mentioned in this video.
https://tomdas.com/2020/11/05/sadhanai-saram-the-essence-of-spiritual-practice-devotion-and-self-enqiry-ramana-maharshi-advaita-vedanta/
This video was recorded live during a Satsang meeting with Tom Das and put together by volunteers.
To attend satsang, see here: https://tomdas.com/events.
For guided meditations see the ‘guided meditation’ playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/c/TomDasNonduality/playlist
For recommended reading for liberation see here: https://tomdas.com/2020/10/19/recommended-reading-books-for-enlightenment-liberation-and-self-realisation/
To book a 1 to 1 session with Tom see here: https://tomdas.com/nondual-spiritual-counsellor/
You have to surrender the mind | holding on to the branch of the tree of Maya
We have to surrender the mind. And then That what we are looking for is revealed naturally, spontaneously, effortlessly, but not to the mind. If you start the practice, even if it is atrocious in the beginning, faith will come. You will start to fall into the path and accelerate.
Every attempt at stilling the mind is progress.
You are holding onto the branch of a tree (your mind is holding onto the illusion of body/mind/world – Maya) when your feet are on the ground (you are the Self already).
Only when you turn within and let go of the name and the form (the illusion/Maya) you will discover that you have always been standing on the ground (you have always been the Self).
Do not take this world to be real, or this body mind to be yourself. Do not take your thoughts to be your thoughts.
Abide as the Self. Merge with the Knowledge that is within you.
This video was recorded live during a Satsang meeting with Tom Das and put together by volunteers. To attend satsang, see here: https://tomdas.com/events.
For guided meditations see the ‘guided meditation’ playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/c/TomDasNonduality/playlist
For recommended reading for liberation see here: https://tomdas.com/2020/10/19/recommended-reading-books-for-enlightenment-liberation-and-self-realisation/
To book a 1 to 1 session with Tom see here: https://tomdas.com/nondual-spiritual-counsellor/
When you let go of everything | Letting go vs effort | The spark of the divine | Inner knowing
Q. I want to see if I comprehend properly, between the terms self-effort and self-inquiry, because what comes into my mind is letting go, which seems to be somehow in contradiction to the term effort.
This video was recorded live during a Satsang meeting with Tom Das and put together by volunteers.
See https://tomdas.com/events for further information.
Letting go vs effort | The spark of the divine | Inner knowing
Effort vs. letting go | When you let go of everything…
Q. I want to see if I comprehend properly, between the terms self-effort and self-inquiry, because what comes into my mind is letting go, which seems to be somehow in contradiction to the term effort.”
You Have to Surrender the Mind | Self-Surrender
We have to surrender the mind. And then That what we are looking for is revealed naturally, spontaneously, effortlessly, but not to the mind.
If you start the practice, even if it is atrocious in the beginning, faith will come.
You will start to fall into the path and accelerate.
Every attempt at stilling the mind is a progress.
You are holding onto the branch of a tree (your mind is holding onto the illusion of body/mind/world – Maya) when your feet are on the ground (you are the Self already).
Only when you turn within and let go of the name and the form (the illusion/Maya) you will discover that you have always been standing on the ground (you have always been the Self).
Do not take this world to be real, or this body mind to be yourself.Do not take your thoughts to be your thoughts.
Abide as the Self.
Merge with the Knowledge that is within you.
These videos are recorded live during satsang meeting and put together by volunteers.
To attend satsang see tomdas.com/events
How to Surrender in daily everyday life | Sri Ramana Maharshi
Give everything to God. What remains is what you ARE
Give everything to God. We give everything to God and what’s left is what we are. What remains is love, love in your heart. The tranquility that feels whole that feels right, it feels gentle, it feels right. Feels like home, that’s what we are looking for.
This video was recorded live during a Satsang meeting with Tom Das.
Q. I read your articles about Tony Parsons and Rupert Spira and I was wondering how you feel about the teachings of Byron Katie?
Question: Dear Tom, how are you? I read your articles about Tony Parsons and Rupert Spira and I was wondering how you feel about the teachings of Byron Katie. Do you think with her saying ‘loving what is’, that she actually means devotion to the Self? Could this be the same? ‘Loving what is’ is like a surrender to what is, just like Bhakti devotion right? 
Is loving what is, kind of the same thing as giving it to God? The same surrender? I ask this question because I hope the the teachings of Byron Katie can help, but Sri Ramana is the one for me and I think I just want the teachings to be the same 
Tom: Hi _____, I’m well thanks. To answer your question, please note that most teachings that you are drawn/attracted to, as long as they are not unethical, are probably good teachings for you. There are many wonderful and varied teachings that can help us in a variety of ways. There are many ways of reducing ignorance and thinning the ego, and this will lead to less suffering and more happiness, relatively speaking. So any teaching that you are drawn to is probably right for you for now.
That said, there only very few teachings are ultimately liberating, that is, only very few teachings direct us to actually truly ending the ego and so ending duality and suffering completely by tackling the root issue.
These teachings of ‘ultimate liberation’ urge us, in essence, to turn away from objects towards the subject, and abide as the Self, as this is the only doorway to removing ignorance completely and thus end suffering, whereas all other teachings that do not advise this in some way or other perpetuate the ego and the suffering therefore continues. Here is an article on why other teachings are not ultimately liberating.
Not everyone’s ego-mind is able to accept this ‘ultimate teaching’ initially, due to attachment to worldly things and the body-mind, so often there is a process by which we gradually let go of worldly things and the body-mind until the ego-mind is ripe enough to be open to and fall in love with this True Teaching. Until then we will, generally speaking, be more attracted to other more-worldly type teachings that direct our attention to various gross and subtle objects.
Ramana Maharshi wrote down the basic sequential teachings that most go through in his text Upadesa Saram. Here is an article of mine that outlines the method to attain liberation in brief and also goes through several common objections to this teaching, as well as citing various ‘spiritual authorities’ in support of the teaching.
If you haven’t already, I also recommend you read The Path of Sri Ramana as it clearly explains both what the True Teachings are and what they are not in clear and simple language.
I hope this answer is helpful for you.
Namaste
Tom
