You are always defending yourself. Life is a struggle - a struggle for survival, to survive. This struggle gives you a closing. You are closed, afraid; you are afraid to be vulnerable. Someone may enter, someone may do something within you. So you shrink yourself, you remain closed - just hiding behind, constantly defending.
In initiation you have to lose this defense; this armor of defense has to be thrown away. You become vulnerable, and then the master can enter you.
If there is surrender, even an absent master can help you. If there is no surrender, even an alive master who is present cannot help you. So in initiation, in any initiation, surrender is needed.
