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Actualizing the Surrender to the Divine in All the Parts of the Being · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Particularly when we are predominantly seated in our
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  mental consciousness, we tend to believe that knowing something
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  with our minds represents knowing it in its reality.
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  We gain what may be called the arrogance of the mental
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  consciousness. We soon learn, however, that
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  mental knowledge is not equivalent to actual practical
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  experience. Reading a book on swimming does
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  not help much if one is flailing and drowning in the lake or
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  ocean without actual experience in both understanding the
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  principle of swimming and having experience with its practical
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  application through the training of our body to respond and
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  thereby succeed in the practice. Similarly, yogic seekers
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  frequently believe that knowing and accepting a particular
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  knowledge or teaching in our minds, with the ability to
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  recite it back and explain it, means that they actually have
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  mastered it. There's an apocryphal story
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  which has been passed down, but which we have not been able to
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  locate in the source material as of yet, which describes an event
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  from the time of the Mahabharata.
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  The preceptor of the royal Princess was tasked with
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  educating the 100 sons of Drutherashtra known as the
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  Korovas, along with the five sons of Pandu known as the
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  Pandavas. One day he indicated that the
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  lesson was not to become angry. Mastery of anger was essential
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  for the role that these Princess would play in their later lives.
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  So it was an important lesson. After teaching the lesson, he
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  asked each Prince individually whether he had learned the
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  lesson and was told by each one, Yes, the lesson is not to become
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  angry until he came to the eldest, the future king of the
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  clan, Yudhishtira, who responded No, I have not learned it.
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  The lesson was repeated the next day and then the following day
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  with the same result. As Yudhishtira demurred from
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  having learned the lesson, Drona in a fit of anger struck
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  Yudhishtira across the cheek. Striking a Prince of the royal
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  blood was a capital offence, and Drona had thereby put his life
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  on the line if Eudistira chose to respond.
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  However, Eudistira then answered, I now understand and
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  have learned the lesson not to become angry.
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  Eudistira understood that a mental knowledge was not actual
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  knowledge or mastery, and it was only after he had an actual
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  circumstance that he was able to judge how deeply the lesson had
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  been impressed upon him. Yiddishtira's lesson is useful
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  for the spiritual seeker who wants to carry out the spiritual
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  surrender to the divine. The first step is generally a
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  central commitment, a will, an aspiration that the mind and
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  psychic being adopt as their understanding.
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  Eventually they find that the reactions of the mind, the vital
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  and the physical body, the responses that are embedded due
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  to instinct or habit, the force of the ego personality, all
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  continue along their pre established grooves and thus the
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  completeness of the process has been derailed, delayed or
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  entirely denied. Srioro Bindu observes quote A
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  complete surrender is not possible in so short a time.
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  For a complete surrender means to cut the knot of the ego in
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  each part of the being and offer it free and whole to the Divine.
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  The mind, the vital, the physical consciousness and even
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  each part of these in all its movements have one after the
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  other to surrender separately, to give up their own way and to
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  accept the way of the Divine. But what 1 can do is to make
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  from the beginning a central resolve and self dedication, and
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  to implement it in whatever way one finds open at each step,
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  taking advantage of every occasion that offers itself to
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  make the self giving complete. The surrender in One Direction
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  makes others easier, more inevitable, but it does not of
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  itself cut or loosen the other knots, and especially those
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  which are very intimately bound up with the present personality
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  and its most cherished formations may often present
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  great difficulties even after the central will has been fixed
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  and the first seals put on its resolve in practice.
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  End Quote. Reference.
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  Srioro Bindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 2.
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  Faith, Aspiration, Surrender, page 27.