Sharanagathi

Arhatic Yoga practitioners would be quite familiar with this term. Sharanagathi is often translated as "surrender" but according to Master Choa Kok Sui in his book Inner Teachings of Hinduism Revealed, it would be more accurate to say that it means "inner conductivity." It means reducing one's inner resistance to the spiritual blessings given by the Teacher, so that like a copper wire that is extremely conductive to electricity, massive amounts of spiritual energy can flow unimpeded through the aspirant. Master Choa even goes so far to say that if one has a high degree of sharanagathi, one does not need to do as much sadhana (spiritual exercises and practices) because with the amount of spiritual energy that one would be receiving it would be as if one had already done sadhana.

Since there are always many facets and levels that can be extracted from esoteric concepts, I would like to explore a complementary way of looking at sharanagathi, and to do this we need to first refer to Franz Bardon's Initiation Into Hermetics. In the Step VII exercises of Initiation Into Hermetics, Bardon describes the methods by which elementaries may be created.

Before we go further, a clarification of terminologies may be in order. In Bardon's system, he talks about elementals, larvae, phantoms, phantasms and elementaries. At the risk of oversimplifying, elementals are thought forms deliberately created by the magician for specific tasks. Larvae are the unintentional thought forms produced by people; for example, if one suddenly saw a cute puppy on the street, a larvae of affection can be produced, leading to a feeling of happiness. Phantoms are usually fears, phobias or intense desires of people that have been given so much energy by repeated thoughts that they take a life of their own. According to Bardon, the legend of succubi and incubi who feed on the sexual desires of their victims (and entice their victims to produce more sexual thoughts) are examples of these phantoms. Phantasms are the etheric forms of deceased people that have been animated by various invisible beings.

Elementaries are also deliberate creations of magicians, but they differ from elementals in that elementaries are loaded with specific elements (fire, air, water and earth) and their creation follows a strict set of procedures. Elementals only work on the mental plane. On the other hand, because elementaries are loaded with the elements, they have an astral body and can therefore also work in the astral and material planes.

One method of creating an elementary involves forming a wax figure (the form that the elementary will inhabit during its lifetime), loading this form with the elements of earth, water, air and fire thus creating the astral body, then weaving its mental body, and finally giving life to the elementary by the act of accumulating the universal light and breathing it upon the wax form. There are other details, such as giving the elementary a name by which one is able to command it, and setting a definite death time (down to the date, the hour and the minute) upon creation of the elementary.

Dissolution of the elementary also has a set procedure: stabbing the "heart" of the wax figure using akasha, resulting in the death of the elementary, followed by dissolving the mental body, then dissolving the astral body (by scattering the elements back to the universe) and then finally burning or burying the wax figure. The dissolution process is so detailed because the elementary was given life through one's own energy, thus it is essentially a part of one's Self. The sudden rebound of energies caused by sudden destruction could cause severe injuries to the magician.

Do the above procedures sound familiar? They should, because they are similar to the process by which the Higher Self pours out a portion of itself to produce the incarnated soul, and the incarnated soul uses the mental, astral and physical bodies to interact with the material plane. The act of dissolution is also similar to how the Higher Self withdraws the life energy from the physical body at the time of death. I highly recommend Master Choa Kok Sui's book Achieving Oneness with the Higher Soul because the process of incarnation and death is explained in that book in more detail and in an easy-to-understand manner.

What does all of this have to do with sharanagathi? One thing about elementaries is that they have a mind of their own (literally, because they have a mental body). Because of this, they are imbued with a certain amount of willpower and the longer they exist, the stronger their instinct for survival becomes. This is why it is very important for the magician to set a definite death date and to follow through on it even if the elementary has been quite faithful and effective in its tasks.

Some elementaries, according to Bardon, may even plead for their lives but the magician must remain resolute, otherwise the magician risks the elementary becoming so strong-willed that it can escape the magician's control and refuse to follow orders. Any mischief caused by such wayward elementaries will result in negative karmic consequences for the magician. There are procedures that can deal with these out of control elementaries, but it only emphasizes the need for the magician to maintain full control at all times.

Relating the case of the elementaries with our own lives, how many people can be considered "lost souls" because they refuse to follow the urgings of their Higher Souls? Are we ourselves any more sensitive and receptive to what our Higher Souls want us to do? Do we even bother to ask for guidance from our Higher Soul?

For me, this is where sharanagathi comes in. It is truly humbling when we realize our true nature, that we are really an outpouring of our Higher Self, incarnated in order to accomplish something on this physical plane. Against such a truth all our pretensions and puffed up feelings about ourselves and our importance pale in comparison. In the end, we are destined to go back and re-unite with Source at the close of our physical life, a date that has been set even at the moment of our incarnation.

The question is, can we "surrender" to the will of our Higher Soul? Is there a joyful reunion with our Higher Soul during meditation (or during death)? Or are we like a wayward elementary, requiring more desperate procedures from our "Divine Magician" to get us back on track to our purpose in life? It's a question that we will need to answer sooner or later.

In the end one always stands alone in the face of one's Self. How we develop this relationship is entirely up to us, but for sure our presence in this life is not the product of whim or chance, considering the effort and risk that the Higher Soul takes in extending a portion of itself. Considering all this, to have sharanagathi is to be grateful. To have sharanagathi is to be humble. To have sharanagathi is to surrender to the will of the Higher Soul. To have sharanagathi is to be internally conductive to the Higher Soul's directions. Sharanagathi is all this and more. Anything less risks going down the path of the "wayward elementary."

During meditation, I always call to mind this process of elementary creation in order to get myself in the proper frame of mind when communing with my Higher Self. It reminds me of my part within the whole, and this is what the essence of sharanagathi means for me.

Not my will, but Thy will be done.