' Complete effacement of ego '...

"There are only two ways to conquer destiny or to be independent of it.

One is to enquire whose this destiny is and to discover that only the ego is bound by it and not the Self, and that the ego is non-existent.

The other way is to kill the ego by completely surrendering to the Lord, realising one's helplessness and saying all the time:

`Not I, but Thou, oh Lord!', giving up all sense of `I' and `mine' and leaving it to the Lord to do what he likes with you.

Surrender can never be regarded as complete so long as the devotee wants this or that from the Lord.

True surrender is the love of God for the sake of love and nothing else, not even for the sake of salvation.

In other words, complete effacement of the ego is necessary to conquer destiny, whether you achieve this effacement through Self-enquiry or through bhakti-marga."



Sri Ramana Maharshi
Day by Day with Bhagavan
From the Diary of A. Devaraja Mudaliar
Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanasramam, p. 266