Surrender to Merge

By Barnabas Tiburtius

"It is enough that one surrenders oneself. Surrender is to give oneself up to the original cause of one's being. Do not delude yourself by imagining such a source to be some God outside of you. One's source is within oneself. Give yourself up to it. That means that you should seek the source and merge with it." —Ramana Maharishi

It is the fallacy of religious 'dogma promoters' that our source of being lies somewhere else. This is mainly due to the teachings of religions which had located God as the source and outside of oneself. But all original thought leaders in various religious traditions have always insisted that the source is not outside of oneself.

Jesus says "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'there it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you." Mark the words of Jesus, "the kingdom of God does not come by observation." Today we are told in Quantum Physics that all physical reality is the result of observation. Minus the observer we live in a universe of possibilities or potentialities. Hence spatially locating any reality including God is an illusion or maya.

Buddha calls all physical reality and subject-object duality as "dependent co-arising from the ground of inter-being." The three dharma seals highlight this tendency and how to attain insight. The three dharma seals are:

• The relative is impermanent
• The separate Self does not exist
• Nirvana is the ultimate reality

The three Dharma Seals are inter-related:

• Impermanence is from the point of view of time.
• Non-self is from the point of view of space.
• Nirvana is from beyond space and time.

Nirvana is merging of the self with the source. It is the deepest realization that we are the source and we are all beyond space and time.