Surrender Happens
If you want to change the world, first try to improve and bring about change within yourself. That will help change your family. From there it just gets bigger and bigger. Everything we do has some effect, some impact.
From "Insight From the Dalai Lama: 2006 Calendar" courtesy of Andrews McMeel Publishing. Copyright © 2005 by Andrews McMeel Publishing.
We have karma that we have created, when we recognize our karma, we are ready to shift and then to surrender. With that surrender we allow the shift to happen. Understand that you have the control of things in your life and that you need to surrender that control to God, or to your higher power and then connect with that power. It’s totally up to you what you call it, there does not need to be a particular religion or name, whatever your belief system is, then you surrender yourself to that power. Surrender means to have trust and faith that we are worthy, that we are loved and that we will be all right no matter what happens in our lives.
Listen to your heart and you will see the way and understand. Do not be afraid, surrender does not mean that you will lose yourself; on the contrary, you will begin to find yourself. Look within, meditate on this, and you will find your way to shifting, surrendering, and knowing yourself in ways you never knew possible. Surrender is not a sign of weakness or indecisiveness; it helps us distinguish helping from co-dependency. Another way to look at surrender is the transfer of responsibility. Karma follows responsibility, so give responsibility for what Is, to the Divine. As Swami Muktananda wrote:
“If you have full faith in God, if you have full faith in the truth that whatever happens to you happens according to the will of God, then every place, every moment, and every event of your life will begin to feel sublime.”
Put your intention out there and then let it go. Surrendering is the essential part of finding your life purpose. This can happen voluntarily or involuntarily. If you set a goal or have an intention you can move forward with it, but not be attached to when or how it will show up. For instance if you say, I would like to be a writer and I would like this to be my profession. To write books would be my vision. You may not have any idea how to start manifesting your ultimate goal, but it is your job to be clear and focused about your love of writing. Once you have made up your mind what it is that you want to do then you need to follow the training, schooling, or the work you need to do, or the thoughts that occur to you, that will make this a reality. Be aware of any synchronicity in what happens in your pursuit of your goal. Perhaps you will meet someone who can help you achieve your goal or they will introduce you to someone who can help you get to where you wish to be. Watch closely to the things that happen in your life, watch how things unfold and one thing will lead to another. While you are doing these things in the external world, you must not be attached to how fast things happen. Actually you may think that nothing will ever happen for you, that all you are doing is going through the motions and running around in circles. That nothing is going the way you want it to or the way you think it should. That you are running into so many barriers you decide that this just isn’t going to happen for you. You have to be willing to let the universe send you clues or messages about how you will accomplish your goal, even if it seems that they are not at all related to your goal at first. You need to pay attention to all the chance encounters that may happen in your life. Surrender is about being patient and trusting that God, your higher power, or the universe, has heard your intention and that it will create that intention and is setting about attracting into your life the people, places, and events that will create that intention! Another word for surrender could be receptivity.
Surrender also happens involuntarily when you have “snapped,” or are so desperately unhappy that you feel as if you have hit a brick wall and there is no way out for you. When surrender happens involuntarily it is because you feel that you are up against a wall and therefore you have no choice but to acknowledge that what you are doing is not working.
Surrender is realizing that you are not in charge of your life; hopefully this will happen before the universe takes it out of your hands and makes the decision for you. What form it will take, only the universe knows and you just have to try to find your way.
I once went to a seminar and heard Caroline Myss speak and she told a very cute but I’m sure true story about angels. She said something like this, “There were two angels standing on the corner watching the person that they were the guardian angels for. Now this person was very unhappy in her life, in her job, actually in almost every way possible. Nothing went right or at least that’s what she thought. So the one angel said to the other angel, “I’ve watched this long enough now I’m going to take it out of her hands and handle it. There are going to be some changes made.” The other angel said, “Look, I don’t know if she can handle things being taken out of her hands,” and the other angel said, “Well I guess we will see, because there’s no other way for her.”
Well, little did I know at the time, but I think she [Caroline] was talking about me [and probably bout a lot of other people in the audience]. Oh, I was very successful, had a great job, good money, nice house, and felt very, very trapped and therefore very, very unhappy, actually if it’s possible beyond unhappy. With trapped comes unhappiness, dissatisfaction, negativity, well I’m sure you get the idea. I truly believed that change was not possible, besides everybody hates change don’t they? I was too established in my practice, where would I find another way or resources to support myself? Start over again you have to be kidding! Didn’t I struggle to get where I was at and now start to think about starting over well that was not even fathomable? Well to make a long story short, I found that letting go happens when you focus less on making something happen and more on participating in life. Surrender is noticing important information and being willing to let that image or intuition lead you somewhere that might not at first correspond with your expectations. I found that what I wanted in life came when I stopped being afraid and let go. This did not happen easily or quickly, and I am still a work in progress, but the point is it did happen and will continue to happen. That it was and is a learning process and that I still need to pay attention when the universe is trying to get my attention. I personally have found that the very best thing that I can do is to let go and let God. Surrendering can mean taking in whatever positive things are coming to you and letting it become part of your purpose, at least for the moment.