Because people so cherish the self, surrendering is a very frightening experience. A person may experience the surrender as a leap into an abyss or as death. This may be perceived because s/he has not yet attained a complete trust and faith in God, the complete assurance that once the self is abandoned, the being automatically merges with a higher stage of existence which is necessarily ready and waiting to accept it. There is no chance for the process not to function. At the instant of surrender, the entire being of the individual merges into the specific higher manifestation of reality that it is in relation to at that point in its development. God streams into the soul that has managed to negate the self. This is the surrender of the idea of i.