Surrender

What does it mean to surrender? Is it raising the white flag? Giving up? Loosing hope? Surely, I tell you it’s none of these, unless of course we are involved in physical warfare. But what if it’s a spiritual war our souls are fighting? What then? How do we fight the invisible? Where do we start?

In Pantajali’s Yoga Sutra’s the Niyama’s are the second limb in the eight-limb path.  Every virtue in the Niyama’s teaches self-discipline to help us reach liberation and enlightenment. The fifth virtue is Ishvara Pranidhana. It instructs us to ‘Let Go’ and surrender to a Higher Power after we’ve done everything in our human existence to find a solution. I find it one of the hardest niyama’s to understand when we yearn for control over our lives (and sometimes others).  We need to know that what we do today will have a positive effect in the tomorrow/future, otherwise why do it, right? I mean who doesn’t know about Karma?

HA! On the surface Karma sounds plain and simple. ‘What we do, we get in return’, but it is beyond that, especially if you believe in past lives 😉 So let’s take the philosophy of Karma out of the picture for a moment. Everyone has had times in their lives when they’ve given their all to something or someone, only to be crushed.

Some people spend their whole lives living a healthy lifestyle but die younger than the unhealthy. Parents do their best to raise their children with morals and to do well for themselves, yet up with prodigal sons or daughters. Doctors study their whole lives to save patients, though meet those they can’t help. Students study relentlessly in search of a life ‘reward’. Couples get married in hopes of being together forever. This list can go on and on, and in every scenario, there is an attached expectation.

These attachments or expectations can steal our joy. They steal our understanding and dim our light, causing us to suffer (Dukkha). It changes the mind patterns to convince us there is nothing beyond the ‘Terrible’. The levels of suffering on this planet range greatly and many times, there isn’t anything or anyone that can change it. When there aren’t solutions to our problems, are we supposed to stay in a state of depression, bitterness, or loneliness for years?

Yoga provides a pathway to help still the mind when this happens, and Ishvara Pranidhana instructs us to give our pain, expectations, and worries to God. You don’t believe there is a God? Okay, I’m not here to convince you of it. There is a Universe however, and there is no denying that. Hand it over to the Universe and have faith that though we don’t have the answers to simple problems, nor horrendous tragedies, life is still a precious gift to be lived.  It is up to us to continue to do what we love and live in the present moment.  To smell the roses, despite its thorns.

Namaste

Liza Torres