Surrender. It is easily one of the most important aspects of spirituality. It is synonymous with letting go and allowing. The hallmark of surrender is the giving up of resistance. It’s a being transparent to energy that is passing through you.
If surrender is so important, what is it, really?
Let’s look at a variety of definitions from a number of spiritual teachers to make sure we’re very clear on what surrender is all about.
The traditional sense of surrender includes a sense of loss and defeat, a place of weakness and inability, a choice to end the experience and exit the journey. In a spiritual context, surrender means something very different. It’s something applied while fully engaged with the experience rather than an end to it.
Surrender
sur⋅ren⋅der -- verb -- to yield (something) to the possession or power of another; deliver up possession of on demand or under duress
-Dictionary.com
Let’s examine some spiritual perspectives of surrender. True surrender is not just an action, but a way of being in the world.
“What is the secret of your serenity?” asked a student.
“Wholehearted cooperation with the inevitable.” said the Master.
-Anthony DeMello
Our buddy Deepak would like to chime in here.
With surrender, passion is directed toward life itself--in spiritual terms, passion is the same as letting yourself be swept away on the river of life, which is eternal and neverending in its flow. The final fruit of surrender is ecstasy: when you can let go of all selfish attachments, when you trust that love really is at the core of your nature, you feel complete peace. In this peace there is a seed of sweetness perceived in the very center of the heart, and from this seed, with patience and devotion, you nurture the supreme state of joy known as ecstasy. This, then, is the path to love, although it isn’t the only path.
-Deepak Chopra
Our good friend Eckhart Tolle is here as well.
Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life. Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the Now, have your dwelling place in the Now and pay brief visits to past and future when required to deal with the practical aspects of your life situation. Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is? What could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life — and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.
-Eckhart Tolle
David Hawkins has some words to say too.
The pathway to Enlightenment via radical truth is demanding and requires the surrendering of all belief systems. Only then does the Ultimate Reality reveal itself as the sought-after ‘I’ of the Supreme.
To let go of the known for the unknown requires great commitment, willingness, and devotion to surrendering one’s faith to God.
The experience of the presence of God is available and within at all times, but awaits choice. That choice is made only by surrendering everything other than peace and love to God. In return, the divinity of the Self reveals Itself as ever present but not experienced because it has been ignored or forgotten, or one has chosen otherwise.
The spiritual aspirant, therefore, is wise to detach from all positionalities and opinions and be willing to surrender the ego’s temporary satisfactions for a higher goal.
-David Hawkins
Ramana Maharshi puts it like this:
There are two ways of achieving surrender. One is looking into the source of the ‘I’ and merging into that source. The other is feeling ‘I am helpless myself, God alone is all powerful, and except by throwing myself completely on Him, there is no other means of safety for me’, and thus gradually developing the conviction that God alone exists and the ego does not count. Both methods lead to the same goal. Complete surrender is another name for jnana or liberation.
-Ramana Maharshi
Bashar just came up and asked for the mic.
Knowingness comes from surrender, letting go. Now, we understand that many of you, according to the definitions you have, many of you will label this as a loss of some sort of a lack of control of some sort and this is not the case.
Surrender, if we may provide our definition, is the letting go of the concept of who you think you’re supposed to be and actually being who you are, because who you are is unlimited possibilities, and when you allow yourself to surrender to the idea and the experience that you were created in the image of the Infinite, which means that you are Infinite possibilities too, then the physical reality, which is only a mirror, can then reflect those unlimited possibilities back to you in the synchronicities as they naturally unfold in your physical day-to-day life.
So surrender is actually acceptance of your total self, not the forsaking of your total self, as many of you have been led to believe through the definitions that your world has provided you with that only serve to limit you, and this is what we want to share with you and what we suggest you learn to give up, are those limitations.
-Bashar
As Adyashanti would put it, surrender or suffer.
Surrender basically boils down to a complete acceptance to life as it is in the moment, creating a space for the presence of Love. It’s more than just an intellectual acceptance, but a true acceptance that permeates your entire being.
Surrender is total internal non-resistance. It is letting go of ALL beliefs and judgments. In its place is an emptiness wherein resides the mystery, the unknown. Silence. It is the fullest emptiness you’ll ever find. It is where you find God.
Surrender does NOT imply doing nothing like a passive bump on a log. Imagine yourself being connected to chains pulling you in many different directions simultaneously. The chains represent your subconscious beliefs, your thoughts, your habits, your desires, and your attachments and aversions. Through non-resistance and allowing, the chains fall away on their own. By resisting the chains, you hold them in place. With the surrender of all chains, there is the freedom to move in any direction, or to sit perfectly still. All possibilities open up. What results is freedom. The ability to do anything.
What is the deepest result of complete and total surrender?
Enlightenment. Awakening. Remembering who you truly are. Self-realization. Peace. Love. Serenity. Ecstacy. Joy.
Last week I decided to simply quit spinning it around in my mind and emotional center and to simply go within and meditate. In meditation, I did a few main things:
Withdraw attention, energy, and interest from thought and emotion
Return awareness back to awareness itself
Surrender away all else without resistance
The key is not to try and fix ANYTHING, but to literally sit as the Self (conscious awareness itself), and allow everything else to fall away by offering it no resistance.
This may sound like it’s not accomplishing anything, as if no problems are being adequately dealt with, but believe me, this will impact you on an entirely different level…
There’s this idea that surrender means giving up, waving a white flag, and proclaiming our own weakness and sense of inability to accomplish our goals. This is NOT what is meant here. By surrender, I am simply saying to fully allow things to be the way they are and to let go of resistance. Be fully open without closing down.
After maybe 20-25 minutes of sitting in meditation, something amazing opened up and I realized a deeper part of my being, of who I truly am.
Beneath this idea of a little “me” and all the emotions and thoughts and stories it conjures up, there’s this infinitely more amazing world. Read More …
A quiet mind is something so many people want to experience, if even for a short period of time. An uncontrolled mind is like a living hell and so there’s many different methods people talk about to “control the mind” or to “master the mind” including affirmations, meditations, and more.
So how do you quiet the mind once and for all?
…
You don’t.
Wait, what?
See, quieting the mind is not something “you” can do. The “you” that you think you are IS the mind and the mind is unwilling to commit suicide and kill itself. In fact, the mind would rather throw you (the body) off a cliff to prove a point rather than give up its own positions and desire to be right. The mind does NOT have your own best interests at heart! The ego/mind is something that works on its own and it is not you. By pushing against it and trying to shut it up, you’re creating even more struggle which will never lead to the mind going totally quiet for good.
So what can we do?
Surrender Ego Juice
If you look at the thoughts, you’ll see that it’s not actually the thoughts themselves that give us pleasure, but rather the “juice” the ego gets out of thinking the thoughts. Some examples of this ego juice include the feeling of I (as an individual self) exist, I am better than, I am right, I am in control, I am no good, I can do it, I can never do it, and so on.
Look closely and you’ll find that there’s an emotional payoff the ego gets to thinking. It’s the payoffs that need to be surrendered to God, not the actual thoughts themselves. Take away the ego’s motivation and benefits to thinking and the thinking will naturally subside on its own little by little until there’s a permanent stillness in the mind.
Silence.
How To Do It
Any time you notice a compulsive “pull” within you that says you need to do something, a sense of mental agitation, notice the compulsion and the feeling of “ugh, I GOTTA do this.”
Next look at the payoffs that you’d get by doing the thing. Perhaps it’s a sense of relief, accomplishment, approval, control, security, separation, oneness, or something else that you will obtain by thinking the thoughts or performing the action. There’s some sort of emotional benefit to what the thought is trying to get you to do.
Finally, adopt a Yin position towards these feelings and towards Life, a feeling of ALLOWING thoughts to be and allowing them to be let go of on their own. Simply let go of any emotional payoffs and the thoughts themselves will automatically be released. Do not force them to leave. Allow them to be let go of by simply offering them no resistance. You may need to repeat this process over and over to fully surrender away the attachments to a particular thought or emotion.
Let Go Of Any Personalization
A random pair of shoes you see aren’t deemed important by the mind and thus aren’t spun around in the thoughts and inserted into our conscious memory banks. However, an identical pair of shoes that become ‘my’ pair of shoes are suddenly given a sense of importance and are thus remembered.
The same is true with ‘my’ thoughts, ‘my’ beliefs, ‘my’ body, ‘my’ opinions, ‘my’ ideas, ‘my’ people, ‘my’ land, ‘my’ girlfriend, and so on. The ego loooves to claim ownership of and possessiveness to things because it believes there is some sort of magical benefit to owning things. This is simply not true. Owning more and more “things” does not make one happy.
As one lets go of all beliefs as to personalization, ownership, or value judgments, all is seen to be equally beautiful and valuable. A rose is recognized to be as beautiful as a common weed. Objects and concepts are all seen to have equal importance not because they are mine, but because they are. Everyone and everything is of equal value to the Self.
Collapsing The Mind
The mind focuses on thoughts that it believes are true. For example, you only worry about things that might conceivably happen. If the mind didn’t believe the thought, it wouldn’t focus on it. When one starts investigating, they’ll find that the mind actually has no capacity to discern what’s true.
If you look closely, you’ll find that you can take any belief you believe to be true and find evidence to support why the opposite belief is also true.
Explore some more and you’ll find that every belief is ultimately supported by nothing. There is no belief built upon a solid foundation of truth. Every thought, belief, or opinion that we hold so strongly to be true, we find that deep down we actually don’t know if it’s actually true! Dig deep and you’ll find that every belief and its opposite is false.
Once you realize that every belief and its opposite is both true AND false, you’ll find you don’t really believe anything, nor do you disbelieve anything. Rather, you come to rest right in the middle as the mind begins to collapse on itself.
What remains is your natural state beyond thought. Some call this enlightenment or being your true self.
What Benefit Is There To Doing This?
Peace, Joy, Bliss, Unconditional Love, Stillness, and an Infinite Softness.
The mind is still available as a tool when one awakens, but it no longer runs amok like an undisciplined child. One can simply tell the mind to be quiet and believe it or not, it actually will! The mind will only be used when needed and what one begins to realize is that the mind is needed far less often than originally thought.
When one stops judging and personalizing and mentally farting around, the mind subsides and the ‘veil’ of the mind lifts. Only then does one find the true beauty of God/Nature/All That Is.
When the veil lifts, it’s like suddenly having the experience of a TV show we used to watch on a small black and white TV suddenly appearing on a huge, colorful HDTV.
Colors are richer and juicier, tastes are more delightful, sounds are exquisite, sensations are glorious, and the whole world feels radiantly alive and beautiful. It’s like someone cranked the “juiciness” knob WAYYY up on life.
All that used to be a struggle has been changed into a conscious observation, an all-pervading softness, and effortless power to accomplish anything necessary.
Life becomes a magnificent journey for no one, an exquisitely beautiful moment perpetually unfolding from perfection to perfection all on its own. What an incredible ride…
Steve Pavlina gave a summary of the levels of consciousness that span the linear domain as mapped out by spiritual teacher and author David Hawkins. This map, as well as the associated limitations that must be surrendered at each level in order to progress up to the next level of consciousness, is discussed in detail in the book Transcending the Levels of Consciousness.
Let’s take a look at the higher levels of consciousness that begin at enlightenment, the levels that are experienced as the Self abides entirely in the nonlinear/nondualistic domain.
Contrary to what most people believe, there is not just one “enlightenment.” Just like the spectrum of lower level states of consciousness that run from guilt and shame to unconditional love, the higher levels of enlightenment include the gamut from the dissolution of the personal “self” to full realization as God.
“My father’s house has many mansions.”
At lower levels of consciousness, there is “someone” experiencing the various level of consciousness such anger or courage. At higher levels, the personal self is dissolved entirely and the consciousness progresses ever-closer to full Oneness with Divinity.
Peace
With the dissolution of the personal self, everything in the world is realized to be an aspect of Divinity and radiates as such. The inner stillness and peace of God is all-pervading and imperturbable. This state is traditionally called sat-chit-ananda (silent bliss). With the dissolution of the personal self, there is no longer a “me” doing anything, nor is there a ‘this’ causing a ‘that.’ The world is seen to operate as the unfoldment of Creation from perfection to perfection, akin to a cosmic wind-up doll. The reality of the dualistic observer and the observed merge into simply observation happening.
With careful observation it is recognized that observation itself is identified with and must be surrendered. Even the exquisite bliss of God must be surrendered to God himself in order to move to the next level.
Prominent spiritual teachers at this level include Lao Tzu, Swami Satchidananda, and St. John of the Cross.
Self-realization
With the surrender of localized awareness as one’s identity comes the nonlocalization of consciousness, awareness which is equally present everywhere. There is no longer any identification whatsoever with the physical body, nor an experience of a personal self separate from all others. The body is simply a tool for consciousness, the main purpose of which is communication. At this level, one’s sense of existence transcends all sense of time and individuality. With the nearly incapacitating bliss surrendered, it is possible for one to resume functioning in the world. At this level, one identifies with aspects of Divinity such as Oneness, Consciousness, and Awareness, but not Divinity itself.
With all of one’s personal resistances surrendered, it is now necessary to surrender the resistances of the collective consciousness of mankind. Since there is no one there to surrender, surrendering happens by itself by virtue of God’s will. With all illusions and fears fully surrendered, the consciousness travels towards the Void, or complete nonexistence. This is the pinnacle of Self-realization, the infinite nothingness. Then the question of existence vs. non-existence arises along with the question of which one is actually real. This is the natural result of the pathway of negation when the consciousness negates all that is as illusion and therefore abides in the infinite Silence.
People at this level include Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Shankara, Bodhidharma, Ramana Maharshi, and Nisargadatta Maharaj.
Full Enlightenment
With the recognition that God is nondualistic Love (spiritual Love as opposed to human love which is false and leads to attachment), the enlightened being recognizes God as existence and sees non-existence as illusion. Love (Divine Love) is the only Truth. Instead of simply identifying with Awareness, Consciousness, and Beingness, which are simply qualities and characteristics of Divinity, one finally recognizes their true nature as Divinity itself. This is the highest possible level of human consciousness. “Full enlightenment realizes the Presence of God and Divinity as the Source and Essence of Life, Creation, Consciousness/Awareness, and Existence. God is therefore descriptively omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and both Immanent and Transcendent, as well as Manifest and Unmanifest (The Godhead).” At this level, one is truly God-realized.
People at this level include the great avatars such as Jesus Christ, The Buddha, Lord Krishna, and Zoroaster.
You Are Truly Loved features content designed to guide people towards spiritual enlightenment, unconditional love, and inner peace through Self-realization. We Are All One.
Surrender. It is easily one of the most important aspects of spirituality. It is synonymous with letting go and allowing. The hallmark of surrender is the giving up of resistance. It’s a being transparent to energy that is passing through you.
A quiet mind is something so many people want to experience, if even for a short period of time. An uncontrolled mind is like a living hell and so there’s many different methods people talk about to “control the mind” or to “master the mind” including affirmations, meditations, and more.
Peace, Joy, Bliss, Unconditional Love, Stillness, and an Infinite Softness.
