Changes

''Q. What is the difference between surrender and offering?''

''A.'' The two words are almost synonymous: "I make the offering of myself and I surrender myself", but in the gesture of offering there is something more active than in the gesture of surrender. Unfortunately, ''soumission'', in French, is not the true word; in English we use "surrender"; between the words "surrender" and "offering" there is hardly any difference. But the French word "soumission" gives the impression of something more passive: you accept, while offering is a giving—a voluntary giving. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/22-february-1951#p3,p4</ref>

''Q. How to persuade the recalcitrant parts of our nature to surrender?''

''A.'' Try to make them understand, as one does with a child who does not understand, by all kinds of means: pictures, explanations, symbols. Make them understand the necessity of union and harmony with the other parts of the being; reason with them, try to make them conscious of their acts and the consequences of these. Above all, be very patient, do not tire of repeating the same things.

''Q. In this work, can the mind be of help?''

''A.''Yes, if a part of the mind is fully enlightened, if it is surrendered to the psychic light and has a sense of the truth, the mind can be of great help, it can explain things in the true way.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/8-march-1951#p6,p7,p8,p9</ref>

''Q. You have asked me, "How do you surrender to the psychic if you are not conscious of its action?" I do it in the same way that I surrender to the Force above. I simply imagine that there is the Force above or that there is a psychic being in the heart centre. Imagining so, I surrender myself to it.''

''A.'' It is then a ''saṅkalpa'' of surrender. But the surrender must be to the Mother—not even to the Force, but to the Mother herself.

''Q. When the central being has surrendered, the principal difficulty has disappeared. What is this central being?'' ''A.'' The central being is not the same in everyone—it is the part that governs the rest of the personality and imposes its will on it.

''Q. How can one know whether the surrender is total or not?''

''A.'' This does not seem to me difficult. One may try out a little exercise. One may say, "Let me see, I surrender to the Divine, I want Him to decide everything in my life." This is your starting point. A little exercise: the Divine is going to decide that such and such a thing happens, precisely something in contradiction with your feeling. Then one tells oneself, "Well, and if the Divine tells me, 'You are going to give that up'"—you will see quite easily, immediately, what the reaction is; if it causes a little prick like this, inside, you may tell yourself, "The surrender is not perfect"—it pricks, it pricks.... <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/21-april-1951#p29,p30</ref>

''Q. What is the secret of success in sadhana?''

''A.'' Surrender. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/surrender#p16,p17</ref>