Surrendering

I have been thinking a lot about the role of surrender and how we engage in the process of surrendering - whether to the will of god or life's issues. It seems to me that surrenderers (is that a word?) fall into two groups: those who, through their insight and reflection of the events, seem to be willing to “turn over the keys” and let the universe or the powers do the driving (I'll call that a "standing surrender"), and those who have to be beaten into submission and get to the point of knowing that it is either “surrender or die” (which I will call "on your knees" surrendering). The qualitative difference between the two groups is not in the nature of the surrender itself, however. It is in their willingness to surrender and in their view of the end point of the process. The second group (who resist the surrender) seem to believe that there must be an end point. They hope against hope that “this too will pass” but in the end join in with Churchill who allegedly said after the Battle of Britain, “nothing focuses a man’s mind like a loaded pistol next to his head.” Each time they surrender (yes, on their knees again) they get up thinking that this time was "it" and that they finally learned the lesson.

The former group (standing surrender) however, come to a realization that there is no end point, that in fact it is the process of being willing to surrender over and over (see Between the Garden Gates, posted 12/27/07) that is the result. They seem to understand what is at stake. Surrendering fully is letting the ego die of starvation. The great masters knew this truth and followed this path or guided their students along the path. They systematically denied anything that would feed ego or even looked like it might be self serving. In fact, they willingly took direct shots from the world around them knowing somehow that the pain would eventually defeat and drive out the pride and egocentrism that prevent the surrender which would lead them to advanced leadership. Richard Rohr says it a bit more succinctly, “In the great spiritual traditions, the wounds to our ego are our teachers and must be welcomed. They must be paid attention to, not litigated.” In today’s world we have built a society that wishes to program away or drug out anything that may be even marginally perceived as painful or uncomfortable. Yet those are exactly the conditions that produce and shape our development. The ego will not go quietly! Its whole identity is at risk. The belief that we can prevail and conquer anything, any condition – even death itself – must pass away and yield to a greater truth of life: that life is borrowed time, that living is for service to others and not the self and that ultimately universal chaos is in charge, not our petty little plans and schedules. Surrender is the process of facing the inevitable setback and pain in the knowledge that through it we become shaped into vessels.