Week 5. Spiritual Practice
Surrender
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Okay, to fully understand this spiritual practice we must collectively understand what it means to surrender. Therefore.
“In Zen Buddhism, there’s a concept called “zen mind” or “beginner’s mind.” They say that the mind should be like an empty rice bowl. If it’s already full, then the universe can’t fill it. If it’s empty, it has room to receive. This means that when we think we have thing already figured out, we’re not teachable. Genuine insight can’t dawn on a mind that’s not open to receive it. Surrender is a process of emptying the mind.”
— Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love
So, to surrender is to...
“Empty your mind of all thoughts.”
— Lao Tzu
Because ultimately...
“To be full of things is to be empty of God; to be empty of things is to be full of God.”
— Meister Eckhart
Which means...
“We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can - namely, surrender our will and fulfill God's will in us.”
— Saint Teresa of Avila
Therefore...
“The moment of surrender is the moment you choose to lose control of your life, the split second of powerless where you trust that some kind of “higher power” better be in charge, because you certainly aren’t.”
— Bono, “Surrender” (Rock Star)
Which makes...
“Our real journey in life is interior; It is a matter of growth, deepening, and of an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts. Never was it more necessary to respond to that action.”
— Priest Thomas Merton
However, unfortunately...
“The word "surrender" is often interpreted as giving up, as weakness, as admitting defeat. Although this is one way to use the word, we will use it in a different way. Surrendering means letting go of your resistance to the total openness of who you are. It means giving up the tension of the little vortex you believe yourself to be and realizing the deep power of the ocean you truly are. It means to open with no boundaries, emotional or physical, so you ease wide beyond any limiting sense of self you might have.”
— Author David Deida
For example...
“At Epidaurus, in the stillness, in the great peace that came over me, I heard the heart of the world beat. I know what the cure is: it is to give up, to relinquish, to surrender, so that our little hearts may beat in unison with the great heart of the world.”
— Novelist Henry Miller
Furthermore...
“To the ego mind, surrender means giving up. To the spiritual mind, surrender means giving in and receiving.”
— Marianne Williamson
And...
“Surrender will always feel like dying, and yet it is the necessary path to liberation.”
— Richard Rohr, Breathing Underwater
And...
“Whatever life takes away from you, let it go. When you surrender and let go of the past, you allow yourself to be fully alive in the moment.”
— Author Don Miguel Ruiz
And another example...
“With my feet up on the dashboard, I watched the world fly by through a dirty windshield and learned to surrender to the unpredictability of a life without design, to rely on a roadmap with no destination, letting it take me wherever it might lead, never knowing what was around the next corner but faithfully relying on the music to keep me alive in the event that everything fell apart and I had to start over. And start over I did.”
— Dave Grohl, The Storyteller (Rock Star)
Which means...
“Surrender is faith that the power of Love can accomplish anything even when you cannot for see the outcome.”
— Deepak Chopra
Therefore...
“With your intention set, and the destination unknown, you are free to surrender your conscious mind, dive into the raging stream of creative energy, and watch the unexpected appear, again and again.”
— Music Producer Rick Rubin, “The Creative Act: A Way of Being”
Which means...
“Yeah we're playing those mind games forever. Projecting our images in space and in time. “Yes is the answer and you know that for sure. Yes is surrender. You got to let it, you gotta let it go”
— John Lennon, Mind Games (song lyrics)
Therefore...
“Let's forgive the past and who we were then. Let's embrace the present and who we're capable of becoming. Let's surrender the future and watch miracles unfold.”
— Marianne Williamson
Which means...
“Lay down all thought. Surrender to the void. It is shining. It is shining”
— Beatles, Tomorrow Never Knows (song lyrics)
And even more examples...
“I wanted to tell this story, the story of how I learned to surrender.”
— Actress Demi Moore, Inside Out
(Referring to her exterior existence of fame, fortune and physical beauty didn’t make her happy)
And...
“Despite my fear, I calmed. I surrendered.”
— Model/Actress Emily Ratajkowski, My Body
And...
“The wounds of my teenage years that had become an opening is now closed. The search for home now over. It is you. I am home. No longer in exile even here. And I need to learn how to be home to be still and surrender in the end a new beginning.
— Bono, “Surrender” (Rock Star)
And...
“Surrender to life itself and you'll just be rewarded with so many things. And I've been rewarded so many times, in so many mysterious ways. So I have no reason to be disappointed with anything."
— Singer/Songwriter Jason Mraz
So, in summary...
“Spiritually, no action is more important than surrender."
— Deepak Chopra
And...
“The moment of surrender is not when life is over. It's when it begins”
— Marianne Williamson
And pertaining to love, our true existence...
“Life, as we all know, is conflict, and man, being part of life, is himself an expression of conflict. If he recognizes the fact and accepts it, he is apt, despite the conflict, to know peace and to enjoy it. But to arrive at this end, which is only a beginning (for we haven’t begun to live yet!), a man has got to learn the doctrine of acceptance, that is, of unconditional surrender, which is love.”
— Novelist Henry Miller
Which means...
“When it comes to love as a spiritual manifestation, it is an experience of utter surrender to that which is greater than any concept of love can define.”
— Author Michael Beckwith
And...
“Surrender your self-interest. Love others as much as you love yourself. Then you can be entrusted with all things under heaven.”
— Lao Tzu
Therefore...
“Love conquers all; let us surrender to Love.”
— Poet Virgil
And pertaining to the OCA movement...
“Try something different. Surrender.”
— Poet Rumi
So, in John Lennon’s song “Mind Games,” what is John referring to as, well, mind games?
He is referring to the ego’s mind games—those patterns of consuming ourselves with relative thought that exist exclusively in the world of form (the dimension of duality).
For example, we try to create a positive, winning storyline for ourselves. And as good as that may sound, this is one of the ego’s greatest mind games. It’s a game you will never win, because the ego is the referee, the umpire, the judge, the scorekeeper—and ultimately, the player—in his own illusionary world of form. Remember, our thoughts are merely matter, and therefore illusions too.
The ego will insist that you keep playing its mind games…
It will convince you that life is about winning and losing. It is not.
That life is about success and accumulating material wealth. It is not.
That life is about being right and proving others wrong. Again—it is not.
Life is about becoming divine and creating Heaven here on Earth. Period. No mind games are necessary.
To free ourselves from the all-consuming mind games of the ego, we must collectively learn how to surrender—to tell the ego, “I will play your mind games no more.”
The ego will not take this lightly. It will try to convince you that you are giving up on life, when in spiritual reality, you are finally beginning to live—a divinely driven, purposeful life.
Heaven is not a game to be played, but an infinite, eternal unknown—experienced as love in the present moment. There are no winners or losers. No goals to accomplish. No wealth to accumulate. No rights or wrongs. Only a state of being.
To surrender to our loving hearts, and not to the mind games of the ego, is the only way the world will be one.
So, in relation to our OCA Movement, let’s take some advice from the poet Rumi and try something different. Let’s learn how to surrender—preferably to the love in our hearts—where we can be one with God and not trapped in the mind games of the ego.
Because you can never win those games. The ego will always add more illusionary time to the game clock—because, after all, he’s the timekeeper too.