Question: Could you speak a little bit about will-power and surrender?

Sri Chinmoy: From the spiritual point of view, divine surrender comes from will-power. Now, if we have will-power, adamantine will-power, then we will get the capacity to have unconditional surrender. Again, if we can surrender unconditionally, then we develop will-power. Inner will-power, which is the soul's light, and surrender, which is the heart's oneness with the Absolute, go together. There is no difference between the soul's will-power and unconditional surrender to the Will of the Supreme. Both of them are equally strong. If one can make unconditional surrender to the Will of the Supreme, that means it is the result of one's inner will-power, the soul's light.

Without will-power one cannot make unconditional surrender; it will be all compromise. God will do something for us and in return we will do something for God. Naturally there are people who do not do anything for God and do not expect anything from God. But again, there are people who feel that if they do something, then God is bound to do something else for them.

When we pray, we feel that God will listen to our prayer. When we meditate, we feel that we will have Peace, Light and Bliss, which is an absolutely true and legitimate claim. But when we pray, when we meditate, we have to feel that it is our business to pray and meditate and it is God's business either to give us Peace or not to give us anything. We have to come to that kind of surrender. We shall play our part by praying and meditating; that is our task. God's task is to feed us with His Light, Peace and Bliss. But He knows the right moment. So if we can meditate, and during our meditation if we have the feeling that we shall not expect anything — that if Peace, Light and Bliss enter into us, well and good, if not, then we will be equally satisfied — then this will be the best type of meditation. We shall meditate because we feel that that is the only way we can become inseparably one with God.

So to come back to your question, will-power and the surrender of the entire being always go together. They are inseparable. To surrender unconditionally to someone takes tremendous will-power. We find it so difficult to obey our superior although we say, "He is my superior." We accept it theoretically, but when it comes to practical life, immediately we revolt, because we feel that we know better than he does. In the spiritual life, our Guru is our superior. But the real Guru is the Supreme. At every moment we have to feel that our Guru, who is the Supreme, knows infinitely better than we do. Then we have to surrender to His Will, not to our so-called conviction. If one can surrender to the Will of the Supreme, then it is as good as having tremendous will-power. There is no difference between soul's will and life's dedicated surrender.