Understanding Surrender - Repost

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Understanding Surrender.

 

 

The imperative of Kundalini, is surrender. This is some-

times a hard concept to wrap your brain around, because

society encourages us to be determined, decisive and

have a strong will. To be in control of our lives. Those

qualities are useful in non-awakened people, but after

awakening they become a real stumbling block unless

they are redirected.

 

I had a really hard time understanding the concept of

surrender, I even went to far as to look up surrender and

submission in the dictionary and copy the whole

definitions out longhand, to get a feel for the meaning

of it.

 

The definition I found the most resonance in, was a term

from real estate law. When a part of an estate that has

been temporarily leased or deeded is returned to the

control of the larger estate, it is said to be surrendered.

 

That felt right to me. I have had a " lease on life " , playing

in the illusion of separation and free will, thinking I was

in control... and when K. awakens, the lease is up! My

life, that I thought was my own, is handed over, given

back to Goddess... and She manages it much better

than I ever could. If the surrender is of a furnished estate,

then in a traditional sense, every animal, chair, and fork

will be recorded and documented for the claiming. This

delighted me, as it is so like the process of Kundalini. I

imagined every decision I'd ever made, any choice or

judgment as leaves, and blades of grass, known and

numbered by Goddess. Every part of your life that you

think is " yours " is counted, and will come up to be

surrendered, piece by peace.

 

In the simplest terms, surrender means " give up. " Give

up control. Take your hands off the steering wheel of

your life, and start letting the smarter, infinite part of

yourself make your decisions for you. The first meaning

of " give up " is to stop struggling to get your own way.

Examine your expectations, and realize that if you did

not have expectations then you would not experience

disappointment. Expectations take you out of the

moment, into dreaming the future... and it is only the

Now that is real. Hope itself, is a reflection of fear. We

do not look to hope unless we fear the future and want

to change it. Hope, takes you our of the Present moment.

The past is a memory, and tomorrow never comes. Only

the Now, is real.

 

How often do things turn out like you expect? Probably

so seldom that it is a delightful surprise when they do.

Investing in expectations, in the hope of getting that rare

surprise is as silly as investing in lottery tickets... which

around here are nicknamed, " stupidity tax for people

who cannot do math. "

 

Learn to set aside expectations and really take each

moment as it comes, go with the flow. It may take some

practice of mindfulness to really get the hang of sur-

rendering expectations, but the peace and relaxation you

will gain is well worth it.

 

Someone once asked me, if surrender is all that is re-

quired for Kundalini, then why do I suggest people practice

the Grounding visualization? I explained to him that most

people do not know how to surrender, it is something

we are never taught. Learning to stay grounded, is

learning to get into and stay in a natural state of sur-

render. Allowing your body energy to flow as it is meant

to, before cultural conditioning shut down the flow. You

are being fed unconditional love from Source within the

Earth Mother, and your mind... your crown chakra is

open to guidance from Spirit above. You can hear the

heart voice, only if you are grounded. When you are

grounded, you are fully in the moment, and not hearing

the nagging voices of fear.

 

Proper grounding = surrender.

 

Another type of surrender, is renunciation. In the words

of the Christ, " Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar,

and give to God what belongs to God. " Since God-dess

is All that Is, that means give up everything.

 

Renunciation does not necessarily mean you have to

abandon all of your possessions and go become a

wandering Monk. It simply means that you have to give

up your attachment to things. One way to measure your

attachment to something, is to imagine how you would

feel if it were lost.

 

To sever such an attachment you normally do not have

to get rid of the physical thing: what is more important

is that you hand it over to your Higher Power, mentally

and emotionally.

 

" Goddess, please take this from me, it is a gift for You.

It's Yours. Thank you very much. "

(Breathe and distract yourself by thinking of something

else.)

 

You will find that later, when you think again of what

has been surrendered, you will see it and relate to it

quite differently. Letting go of attachments in this way

gives a great sense of freedom. Your stuff no longer

owns you!

 

One aspect of 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.

 

One way to accomplish this transfer of responsibility, is

by using blame. It would be nice if we could all just

release our karma gentle as a sigh, but Kundalini is a

fire path and sometimes karma unkinking may make

you want to scream and cry and shake your fist at

God for making life so God-damn hard!

 

Go ahead! God-dess won't judge you for it, I guarantee

that lightning will not strike you dead. You may find the

cathartic release very healing. When other people piss

you off and you have no patience for surrender because

PMS is making you howl at the full moon, blame God

for all of it. Blame the stars, blame astrology if you like...

Karma follows responsibility, so making Spirit be the

one to blame for all of your problems is an uncon-

ventional, but effective way to surrender your karma.

 

Blaming people, is another story... it is giving your power

away, and bombing them with your emotions. Don't go

there. You do not have to be a doormat, but remember

all that you see is yourself reflected.

 

Those are types of " passive surrender " . There is also

what I call, " Active surrender " . Using blame and surren-

dering to the need for cathartic emotional release is

getting towards active surrender because it involves

following an impulse to action instead of just meditating

things away.

 

As the emotional baggage I call karma is broken down

and released from the body, their emotional content is

sometimes also released... It is like how when you begin

a cleansing program, at first you feel worse because

toxins are being stirred up, and you do not feel better

until the body has flushed them out. You may find your-

self getting upset about things that happened so long ago

they were forgotten, till Shakti brought the stored

emotional memories to consciousness so you can

surrender them.

 

Repressing the emotions under these conditions is

resistance that will make things worse. It is a little like

if you have food poisoning and keep swallowing the

vomit each time it rises. The body wants the stuff up

and out of you for good reason, it is poison and if ego

keeps trying to stuff it down again then the body will

need to send the message louder and louder till it gets

its own way, and that could be messy.

 

Sorry to be graphic, but this is an important message.

What is repressed, comes up ugly, and with the force

of the repression added to its size and power.

Repression is resistance. Resistance will get your ass

kicked, with Kundalini. Kundalini is like getting arrested,

you can go quietly, and trust the legal process, or you

can get beat up for resisting arrest.

 

You cannot be stronger than that, and the more you

resist releasing your issues and emotional baggage,

the more likely it is to end up spattered all over your

external results as Goddess keeps turning up the

volume to get you to hear. If you want a peaceful

process, spend at least 1/2 hour twice a day turning

inward, observing your thoughts and feelings, and

surrendering whatever comes up. It is your free will

decisions that made your ego, and now you must make

a free will decision to surrender it, piece by peace by

piece... It cannot be dismantled all at once. You would

experience great trauma, if it did!

 

The stuff is just emotions, on their way out. Emotions

come and go, but You remain. The more you identify

with that eternal self and the less with the transient

emotional states, the smoother the emotional release

will flow through you. You will be able to observe

yourself in an emotional state. Observe your body

reacting to emotions, watch the feelings arise and pass

away. From the perspective of an inner place of peace

and non-attachment that is the Witness.

 

Sometimes the best way to surrender an emotional state

that is simply the side effect of karma on its way out, is

to find a safe outlet for the emotion. If you are processing

anger, kick an old box or plastic garbage can around an

empty parking lot with all your might till you are ex-

hausted, venting your emotion. Get a plastic baseball

bat and beat up your bed or couch.

 

Avoid imagining the box or couch is a person, because

you might unconsciously send them the emotion you are

releasing. Black magic, like the box is a voodoo doll with

their name on it. Blame God, and project God onto the

box. God-dess is All that Is, so it is a safe projection!

 

If you are releasing old grief and sadness, rent some

tearjerker videos and have a good cry! Don't wallow in

the emotions and make more karma drama out of them,

but respect your feelings and allow them an outlet.

 

Sometimes the ego wants to be sneaky and disguise

resistance as surrender. Surrender becomes an

avoidance behavior, a way to avoid dealing with what

Goddess is rubbing their noses in. That is a game

you will not win.

 

If you surrender something ten times and it still sticks,

then most likely Goddess will not take it because She

gave it to you in the first place, as a gift. You can identify

this stuff because each time you surrender it, it does not

go away, but you will get back little hints about what it

is for.

 

Every problem has a gift hidden inside, challenges make

us grow. You have to accept the gift with gratitude to see

it clearly. Gratitude defuses resistance. Examine it,

unwrap it like a birthday present to find the silver linings

inside. Often, within the package will be a call to some

kind of action. Often it may be a lifestyle change, or a

recognition of an ineffective pattern. It is a navigation tool.

That is why I call this " active surrender " ... you are sur-

rendering to acting as Goddess Wills. Often this means

simply observing and following synchronicities.

 

Active surrender requires discernment. We have all

heard the news stories of some whacko said they

murdered people because the voice of God in their head

told them to... this is an exaggeration, but it happens

often in lesser degrees, in spiritual circles. " The road

to hell is paved with " good intentions " . If your active

surrender activity revolves around what you think

someone else needs, then you are probably acting

from ego.

 

Spend some time contemplating your selfishness...

take a cynical look at yourself and discover what hidden

selfish benefit you are getting from the illusion of altruism,

and you will uncover the fear that is the true underlying

motive. Surrender it, and the motive may go also.

Passive surrender and introspection must always come

first, and be applied repeatedly before turning to active

surrender.

 

Don't feel bad about your selfishness, instead, learn to

keep it front and center. You cannot love until you love

yourself, you cannot care for anyone unless you take

care of your self, first... take the stone from your own

eye before trying to take the sand from your neighbors,

yadda yadda. You have to turn inward, and follow your

own bliss. Let others live theirs, too... live and let live.

On a higher level, you are All that Is, and there is

nobody else.

 

Applying enlightened selfishness and following your own

bliss does not mean to be greedy or selfish in a negative

way, ignoring how your actions affect other people.

Those actions would have karmic results that would not

give you long term bliss.

 

I trust my heart voice first, and externals, second.

Sychronicities appearing in my external reality need to

be repeated three times before I consider acting on them,

because I know a lot of the odd co-incidences of life are

just the environment reflecting my thoughts back to me,

so I can observe myself and apply passive surrender.

See it, recognise that it is myself reflected, let it go.

Goddess speaks all the time, through everything... if

you are mindful. Don't get paranoid and obsessive

about it, though.

 

Hard to interpret a single synchronicity. Easy to mis-

interpret it and make erroneous assumptions about where

it is leading. Surrender them as they come, and take a

closer look if it comes back in a pattern of three. Three

sychronicities together will mark a direction, the co-

ordinates to a destination in space and time. I will still

surrender them and wait to see what comes back, let

Goddess put the puzzle pieces together for me and spell

it out, before taking action that affects other people.

 

Eventually, as the surrender process continues and the

veil of separation thins, you will more often have the

experience of a Zen Master. A knowing that does not

require thinking, arising into action with perfection from

a silent mind. Then, it is automatic to surrender to the

flow of Goddess using you, because You are That.

You have surrendered enough to take a leap out of

ego and rest awhile in the Self. There is no surrender

because your surrender has taken you beyond

separation. You are not acting from ego, but from the

Self. Your actions will flow, and the results will amaze

you later, when you are back in your ego, thinking

about it. Surrender your ego desire to pat itself on the

back at the results. Enjoy awe and humility. Amazing

Grace did it, and you were honored to be the Vessel.

 

For discernment in being guided by synchronicities when

applying active surrender, look for patterns of threes. If a

book comes up in conversation with three people I know,

who do not know each other, then Goddess is speaking

through them to guide me to take a closer look at what

that author has to say.

 

Active surrender, at its best, is a graceful surrender to

allowing the body to follow its bliss.Following the

thoughts that make your heart feel warm, the " yes "

from Spirit comes through the body. An example: My

ancestry is British, Welsh, German and French. All

cold countries where preparing for winter by squirrelling

away food is essential as a survival pattern bound deep

into the DNA.No longer needed in an age of grocery stores,

... but come fall, my body has an impulse to gather in a

harvest of some sorts, and that impulse is very fulfilling to

surrender to, in a way I cannot explain.

 

It is often only a symbolic harvest, but it does not matter.

One Fall I gathered a basket of chestnuts that I do not

eat, and placed them in a basket with pine cones as a

table centerpiece. Every time I looked at them I felt good,

my body gave me a sense of fulfillment and bliss.

Another year, I may only harvest some seeds to plant

the following year... not actual food, but it is the action

of harvesting and gathering that is important. A fall ritual

that my body needs, to feel fulfilled.

 

Another time, I kept getting a persistent desire to bake

some bread. It was illogical, I do not eat bread. I felt

very drawn to enact the whole ritual of bread making,

kneading the dough and watching it rise, punching it

down and shaping it. So, I did... more as art-ritual than

cooking, blessing all ingredients at every stage of the

process and braiding the dough into a wreath marked

with blessing symbols. My husband said it was delicious.

The birds liked it too. Afterwards, I got an insight that a

minor health complaint I had wondered about, was caused

by an internal candida yeast overgrowth in my digestive

system. I surrendered to honoring yeast, and yeast

spoke to tell me what needed to be balanced within me.

 

This is active surrender, surrendering to the gentle

nudges of internal guidance.

 

from: Kundalini-teacher.com

>understanding surrender<