There are some beautiful metaphors for the surrendered mind... At every moment, when the mind arises with a desire or thought, the surrendering mind drops it, and lets it fall into the fire of Self. Thought serves as an offering: and in that continuous motion of sacrifice, there is motionlessness.
The difference between "I am" meditation and self-inquiry
Meditating on the "I am" thought can be helpful: it can concentrate the mind dramatically. However, that thought is *just* a thought. That said, it does not undermine habits as well as either self-inquiry -- which is *chasing the knowledge of the I* -- or surrender. Nor does it touch on the incompleteness of our knowledge of the I, so it does not prompt the final insight we seek as sharply. That said, if it is followed with devotion and energy, it is a powerful spiritual method.
The story of the fallen celebrity: insight as an element both "in" the dream and "out" of it
Insights into nonduality are those elements that are somehow both "in the dream" and "outside of it." They appear to have one significance inside the dream, but that significance is in fact pointing to a different reality, a different perspective, of which they are a part... and in which their significance is very different. I illustrate with my made-up analogy of celebrity who suffers a seizure... and plunges into a dream.
Self-inquiry mistake: do not just believe what your mind tells you is the I feeling
When engaging in self-inquiry, seekers often just ask themselves "Where is the I coming from?" but then simply take at face value whatever intuition or feeling that they get in response. The problem is that such a response is often repeatedly misleading. Use a little more discernment: you're looking for the knowledge of how you know that you are. So don't just assume that whatever you think of first when you ask a question like "Who am I?" is correct; use intelligence and understanding and look for the source of your everyday, common sense knowledge that you exist.
Surrender means relaxation, which is neither action nor inaction
I often describe surrender as ignoring all thought except the thought of surrender, and relaxing. What is relaxation? Is it simply doing nothing? It is -- but not in the sense of avoiding all bodily and mental action. It is dropping that effort that feels like YOUR effort, YOUR interference in what is happening... and sometimes starting action can feel like that, and sometimes stopping action can feel like that. In either case, relaxation means moving towards lower tension.
Surrender is reducing voluntary, deliberate effort in the physical, attentional, and decisional
You can think of surrender as reducing a certain kind of tension: the tension over which you have deliberate voluntary control. Anything that happens automatically and involuntarily in the mind and body is just fine -- only that which feels like YOUR burden, YOUR decision -- in the body, in the attention, and in the mental decisions of the mind -- should be relaxed. The deliberate, voluntary grasping should be reduced. While grasping has an object, relaxation has none. It should also be clear that relaxation is not about preventing any particular thought or action from occurring -- any kind of rigid prevention of anything would simply be a tension in the other direction.
In this relaxation of voluntary tension... a relative quiet is created. If that quiet is vigilantly maintained without the mind going to sleep, and if one asks intensely and continuously how the surrender may be completed, the door will open and the Truth will become apparent: that there was never anyone to deliberately, voluntarily control anything.
Three views of the ego: static, dynamic, and structural
There are at least three useful ways of thinking about the ego and how it is generated. One is the static: this is the sense of the subject, of the "I," that is generated whenever you have an experience. The I is generated from and contrasted to the not-I. The I here is a mass of unconscious and unseen assumptions. Self-inquiry and surrender discern away these assumptions, leaving the I by itself, whereupon it disappears.
The second view is the dynamic: this is the sense of the "I" that is generated by the motion of thought. Thought by flowing creates the hallucination of a stable perceiver OF those thoughts. If this motion is slowed down or stopped, that hallucination can be seen for what it is. Self-inquiry and surrender concentrate the mind, redirecting it away from its usual desire-and-fear focused movement, thereby slowing and even stopping it.
The third view is the structural view of the ego: this is the fact that the content of our thought all refers to a self-image, and is validated by all the other thoughts referring to the same image. These form a kind of web or net of mutually reinforcing illusion. Spiritual pointers like the simple question "Who am I?" or the image of the ego as being like a dream try to gesture one away out of this web.
Enlightenment isn't just about sudden insight -- it's about structural change of mental habits
Enlightenment is often seen as a sudden insight, as the aha! moment of insight into the Self. But insights that come can also go. At least as important -- and perhaps more important -- is the gradual change of mental habits that in fact lead to those insights... and that, when prolonged far enough, lead to a situation where the insights don't revert back. That situation is called faith.
Boredom and depression are pointers to the Self
Boredom and depression suggest a futility and meaninglessness to the outside world and a restless searching for an exit, for a something else. Yet they are actually pointers to the spiritual, to the Self. Give up the expectation of a something else and discover the gold mine on which you sit.
Hakuin, Ramana Maharshi's surrender, and kensho
Surrender is often misunderstood as simply doing nothing, exerting zero effort, and concentrating on no words. The Zen monk Hakuin criticized this understanding of surrender, and suggested a focus on insight into one's true Self -- kensho. Yet surrender *properly* understood is far from doing nothing. True surrender is continuous vigilance to avoid falling into thought, relaxation, a staying awake to avoid falling asleep or into trance, and then a desire to surrender the surrenderer. This is in fact the path to kensho.