In this teaching, self-inquiry and surrender are not rival methods but mutually illuminating movements of the same inner process. Self-inquiry turns attention toward the “I” that claims to think, choose, and practice, while surrender loosens the felt ownership of these very activities. As the question “Who am I?” is pursued, the sense of individual agency naturally weakens, and with it arises a growing willingness to yield personal will to the Self or the Divine. In this way, surrender both supports inquiry and is gradually deepened by it, each reinforcing the other.

Surrender plays a crucial role in quieting the mind so that inquiry can genuinely take hold. The attitude “Everything is Your will; I am Yours” softens the force of desires and fears, reducing the restlessness that obstructs sustained attention to the “I”-sense. As agitation subsides, it becomes easier to trace the feeling of “I” back to its source rather than being swept away by thoughts and emotions. This same surrender also extends to the fruits of practice: attachment to particular experiences, insights, or states is relinquished, allowing inquiry to proceed without subtle grasping.

At a subtler level, surrender functions as a practical non-resistance to whatever inquiry reveals. When fear, pride, or craving arise, surrender means neither arguing with them nor following them, but allowing them to dissolve in the light of awareness while attention returns to the one who experiences them. Over time, this includes the surrender of the very inquirer, the “I” that asks the question and seeks results. The ego that attempts to conduct and control the process is gradually seen as a construct and is given up, along with the sense of personal doership.

Ultimately, self-inquiry and surrender converge in the dissolution of the ego and the abidance in pure awareness. Self-inquiry undermines the false “I” by direct examination, while surrender yields that same “I” completely to the Self or Divine, including the claim to be the doer or the knower. When surrender is complete, inquiry becomes effortless, no longer driven by a separate will, and what remains is simply the Self recognizing itself. In this sense, self-inquiry can be understood as the highest form of surrender, and surrender as perfected inquiry.