Q/A with Srila Prabhupada on Sarnagati (Surrender)?

Govinda dāsī raised her hand. “Prabhupāda,” she asked, “what does it mean exactly to surrender?”

“Surrender,” Prabhupāda replied, “is to know that ‘I am nothing…’ ” As Prabhupāda spoke, Govinda dāsī, accustomed to taking dictation, wrote down the answer, while other devotees – some seated on the floor around Prabhupāda’s desk, some standing in the doorway – listened attentively. “I should know,” Prabhupāda continued, “I am less than the stool of a hog. And Kṛṣṇa – You are everything. That is very difficult. We can find millions of Isaac Newtons and Einsteins, but one very rare soul might be surrendered to Kṛṣṇa. Because it is very difficult. So as long as you are thinking that ‘He is more learned than me’ or ‘I am more learned than him’ – that is material. You must know that you are nothing and surrender.”

A new boy who had been attending Śrīla Prabhupāda’s classes asked, “Why is it that one time I feel this way, like you say, ‘surrendered,’ but at other times I forget?”

Prabhupāda: “That is māyā. That is our battle with māyā. We are in māyā’s kingdom, so we have to fight. It is like an ocean, birth and death. There are so many universes and so many species of life, and we are transmigrating birth after birth. It is like you are standing on the edge of a boat, and just a little shove and you may fall into the ocean. Then you do not know where you are going, here or there. So it is like that. If you want to keep back even one percent – to surrender all but one percent – then you have to stay here. Kṛṣṇa is so strict. If you have any desire for material enjoyment, you have to remain. Just one percent may take millions of years. So you have to surrender everything.

“Kṛṣṇa consciousness is already there within you and within everyone, but it has to be invoked. It is like a match, and if you rub it, fire comes out. And that rubbing process is chanting. So we have to inject Kṛṣṇa consciousness into the ear, and we have to go on injecting. Wherever you go, you have to chant – and without any motive.”

Gaurasundara brought in a plate of cut fruit, which Śrīla Prabhupāda distributed to each person. It was late, but Prabhupāda continued speaking: “People want to go on asking God for bread. But as soon as there is bread elsewhere, they won’t go to church. But if you teach people to love God – that they will never forget.” Prabhupāda smiled. Finally the devotees left him, satisfied. They would see him in the temple in the morning.

Source: Srila Prabhupada-lilamrita, Ch. 59