Surrender
There is a beautiful part of Swamiji’s book In Divine Friendship that I have lately been drawn to. Rather than a written letter Swamiji sent, this is a verbal response he gave to a devotee who asked how we should relate to him.* Because of the impromptu nature of the setting, in his response he weaves through many different ideas, perhaps giving responses that the many people in his audience needed to hear. The part that I find particularly sweet is about Master:
“In my relationship with Master, I have found that I’m the most in tune with him when I don’t have the thought of what I’m getting from him, but dwell rather in the thought of what I’m giving to him. When with my whole energy I give him joy, appreciation, openness, service—in short, my very self—I receive from him the greatest energy and blessings.”
Surrender has always appealed to me. In the Bhagavad Gita, this is the true meaning of the yogic fire ceremony. By throwing ourselves into the fiery spiritual eye, we become increasingly purified. We give our little self to allow the Self slowly to emerge. It’s like paper mâché. As we offer the layers of paper we have built up over our soul nature, we start to reveal the magnificent balloon we have covered over lifetimes.
Lately though I have come to understand this surrender in a deeper way, as I have been in more regular contact with disciples. One example is from helping plan Asha Nayaswami’s visit to Finland in October.
The planning has taken much more time than I realized it would. The small group of us leading the effort have met regularly throughout the year.
By having to work with them so often, I have broken a bubble that kept me always “looking my best” when with devotees. Now, having to not only meet in satsang as an end in itself, but also as an act of service through organizing, has meant I must put out all of my energy in these moments, leaving very little for maintaining that image of perfection.
Asha and Nayaswami Kirtani gave a satsang in Assisi a few years ago that has helped me through the fear that revealing myself has often brought. The topic of the satsang was on the need to and importance of establishing community. One image they gave was of a mirror: by being in community we serve as mirrors for others to see themselves as they truly are, both in their higher Self and the self that we are all working on. We also get to have others be mirrors for us so we can see both the true Self of our soul nature and the veils of maya that cover our perception.
At the time, this satsang didn’t seem very relevant to me, but its importance in my life has emerged this year while increasing the service I do through Ananda. In the process I have often remembered this satsang often and have tried slowly offering the difficult moments where I am not my best to the mentors who Master has sent to me. By opening up to them in these situations, and in this way offering them to Master, I have found that their gentle guidance has helped reduce and even melt away long-held habits and thought patterns.
It has taken time to get to this point and has been painful at times. In that same visit to Assisi, my first morning was marked by very strange encounters with people where they seemed to not even see me. One woman literally walked away from me after making a cursory response to something I said. I was left feeling utterly alone in the breakfast hall. I decided to take action and see if there was a way to serve in the kitchen that would help keep me occupied for the week. In the moment of waiting for the chef, Jayadev walked by me and paused to really look at me. This was the first time I felt seen since arriving and I fell apart, having a panic attack right there in the hall. But immediately afterward, it was as though the walls I had put up out of fear of being seen for the imperfect person that I am (for now) were broken by letting go. Importantly, it took the help of another fellow devotee to help me break them, I could not have done so on my own.
This is I think what Swamiji speaks about later in that same response I quoted earlier. He says, “The wise devotee, rather, knowing how difficult it is at all times to get out of delusion, is eager for any guidance he can get on his journey.”
Opening up to this guidance takes energy though. We’re planning a visit to the Village and I was taken aback by how much more energy is needed to plan this trip compared to others that we have planned recently. A friend said that this is normal: coming to Ananda and being at Ananda call for us to put out a great deal of energy.
When she phrased it that way, I experienced a shift in how I thought about our visit. Instead of being for me, I started thinking of the trip as being something I do for Master. I found that this automatically helped lessen the tension I was feeling in the process of planning. Over the next few days, all of the problems we were having were resolved, if not outwardly, then at least inwardly.
It is as Swamiji said. By giving ourselves away, we gain so much more than we could have imagined.
*You can read the full response on page 156 of this wonderful book
