| It is timely to talk about the idea of surrender and it's meaning. Surrender is a concept that is talked about often on the spiritual path and in the world of emotional work. It seems a straight forward process in some ways: one thinks of a letting go; relaxing; going with the flow; and other similar terms. All that is very well until a time comes when surrender is the only option and one finds that they have no idea how to do it or what it means in reality. What does it mean to sit and surrender? One thing is certain, it is not something that you can do; it is only something you can allow or 'let' happen. It is a complete absence of doing. This is a very difficult concept for many people to grasp. You cannot try to surrender. Surrender implies that you have given up the fight; you give in to what you are fighting. What most of us are fighting in our lives is a deep, internal experience of ourselves, the allowing of our deepest self-expression. This is the one thing that most of us have the biggest fear of and resistance to. It is this journey that we sealed progressively as we grew up, originally out of fear for our own survival, and to surrender takes us back on that journey through the locked doors of our heart, through the pain, the grief, the rejection and abandonment. It does not seem like an attractive journey when described like this, but the truth is that it is a wonderful and exhilarating trip at times, as we recover our deepest and truest selves and learn how to be fully human again. When we learn that we do not have to be alone, our pain is much more tolerable and we see that our compassion is more than strong enough to cope with the rejection and abandonment. For in reality, it is only us who are doing that to ourselves now. In the beginning it looks grim but the truth is that what we discover is our own love. The greatest prize of being human is the experiencing of love and that love brought to these painful places heals and lightens them. And so the benefits far outweigh the potentially awful moments and in truth there will be some. Surrender is an inevitable and necessary part of the path to spiritual and personal expansion. In the next message we will talk more about the process of surrendering, both physically and mentally. |
