Surrender:An Act of Love

Defining Surrender

The Free on-line dictionary defines surrender as follows:

v. sur·ren·dered, sur·ren·der·ing, sur·ren·ders

v.tr.

1. To relinquish possession or control of to another because of demand or compulsion.

2. To give up in favor of another.

3. To give up or give back (something that has been granted): surrender a contractual right.

4. To give up or abandon: surrender all hope.

5. To give over or resign (oneself) to something, as to an emotion: surrendered himself to grief.

6. Law To restore (an estate, for example), especially to give up (a lease) before expiration of the term.

I want to look at surrender from the perspective of a process that takes place within ourselves. At any given point in time, I see myself as functioning out of a state of Love and wholeness or fear and lack. I consider the first to be my higher authentic(spiritual) nature and the second to be the base (carnal/natural) ego nature.

My authentic nature is lorded over by Love and this is an easy leading-not tyrannical. It's based on my own desire to live freely and truthfully, in peace and in joy. Conversely, the ego centre is driven by Fear, always concerned with preserving the sensory self, led by the desire for security and manipulated by physical conditions.

All of our human life will be plagued by this conflict unless a commitment is made to, and an understanding attained of how to operate from, this higher place of Love.

So when I speak of Surrender, I refer to the soul surrendering to Love instead of fear.

Bringing Life to Bear

I personally have given birth five times. I loved it and actually wouldn't mind doing it some more. I think I embraced the process of birth because I believed, and still do, that I was purposely designed to give birth and that some part of me knew instinctively what to do even if no conscious part did.

I was so convinced of this, that it belayed fears and settled any issues of concern without my having to understand anything logically. I had wonderful birth experiences-very swift, no stitches, no epidurals, and I had clarity to enjoy my baby afterward.

I came to see that this process as a clever metaphor for creating ALL kinds of life, whether internally in my being or externally in my world. Now, I don't think I even see it as a metaphor because I surrender to a deeper part of me, trusting that it knows how to bring forth that which is needed just as my body knew how to bring forth a healthy baby.

In recent months, I've even gone as far as not needing to understand all the reasons why I've felt afraid or unsure or confused...I replaced all other "workings out" with this simple act of "surrender and breathe, believing..." in that intuitive part of myself that is Love.

Perfect Love

The bible says "perfect love casts out fear, because fear has to do with punishment" ( I John 4:18) and today, I think I've understood this truth in a way I've never seen before and in a way I honestly NEVER conceived or expected to see. It was such a sweet surprise! And yet so typical of the paradox of life in the spirit.

In believing in the righteousness the bible says God gives ( aligning myself to God-Rom 1:16), I started to trust that whatever I was facing about myself or reflected in my body or circumstances as being what was required in order for me to allow Love to grow out, unhindered from my core. I've done this for years and made some wonderful progress by interpreting these things as indicators of what I needed to shift in my thinking/energy/being. I've seen ALL kinds of delightful results BUT...in the last few months, I found my deepest inner workings becoming far too intricate and complex to "get my head around", so to speak.

And I just didn't seem to be able to help myself past a point of SELF judgement that was keeping the best of my personal dreams at bay. That is, until I surrendered completely to humbly accepting the gift of righteousness offered to "whosoever will" believe, and in so doing, understand the great love God has for me even more. I know this may not make sense to those who are unfamiliar with the biblical teaching of righteousness but what this results in is a total release of ALL judgement. Where there is no judgement, there is no fear of punishment or sense of unworthiness either.

Things just got better and better. The more I chose to "surrender" over any other approach the more deeply a shift began to take place. I simply trusted that tried and proven process and applied it to everything. My mind, body, circumstance...I started viewing any hint of worry/fear as part of the process of Love, not fear-and governed by intuitive Wisdom, not personal sabotage. This grew inside me more and more.

Today, after a progression of insights and expanding understanding I realised this has led to the knowledge of how fear is dismissed. It is converted to another format-if you like. In shifting viewpoints, it becomes the servant of a greater good and is no longer a form of resistance, but of relinquishing. No longer a barrier to overcome or strive against but an ally toward success. And it isn't just a nice, pious idea to try and accept, but an actual STATE. Fear is no more when one lives in this place of utter SURRENDER. It is dissolved when trust is pure.

These words don't do the condition justice but with all my heart, I hope any reader will ask to experience this knowing.

"One thing I've come to accept now, is that there are no short-cuts through one's process. The shortest, quickest, fastest way between you and your dreams, is that which is being presented to you. I've stopped viewing the 'space between' as some chasm to traverse or some test to pass or some obstacle to overcome. It is what I've asked for: the process of manifesting my dream" Lisa Shah

Alignment and Separation

The following are my own ideas and beliefs and I live by them. I write about my own life experiences and findings and as they are my own, I have the right and final authority to do so. Comments are welcome and disagreement is accepted, but arguments will never be entered into.


Alignment.
What do I mean by "alignment"?
Put simply, I mean to know yourself well enough, and to be brave enough, to be able to choose how you will design your life and follow through on fulfilling that blueprint-whatever it is, or isn't. It's your choice.Alignment is therefore to live in one's authentic state. To do this, a person must first know this state.


We can be living at varying degrees of alignment with our personalities  and this can be constantly changing. But what doesn't change is the sense of peace and equilibrium , joy and contentment that we experience when we are in that place of alignment.

Admiring the majesty of a massive waterfall, looking into the face of a loved one or engaging in a practise about which we are passionate are all doorways into our own personal authenticity and conscious connection with not only ourselves, but also the Source/God from which we come.

The more time and energy we give to those things that enhance this connectivity, the more aligned we become with who we really are, the happier we feel and the more opportunity is created for such endeavours. AS simplistic as this sounds, if we would just stay on this path, we would find all our desires awaiting the fulfilling. This is my absolute conviction.

"Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you" Mt 6:33. In my previous blog , I referred to righteousness and alignment as being interchangeable. A person may align to many aspects of their beings without understanding the gift of righteousness. We are wired with talents and preferences and desires that make us who we are. In simply aligning with them, we will immediately experience a greater state of harmony.

So many people live so far away from their natural rhythms, rhymes and routines that this can be a huge difference. Still, the state of alignment that comes from relinquishing judgement is as far superior to this as gold is to copper.


Separation
What do I mean by 'separation'?
I consider separation to be a way of seeing oneself that is not congruent with the authentic state and to live out of synchrony with self, which leads to countless anomolies and raging pathologies that are so prolific as to now be considered normal. This life of "misalignment" has reached epidemic proportions.

All  supposed "enlightened" ones say much the same. It isn't just a Christian idea. But I feel Christianity, in its TRUE form addresses the problem like no other. This has been my experience.

If we go back to garden of Eden for a second, the story reveals that as soon as Adam and Eve ate of the tree of "the knowledge of good and evil", they felt guilty and wanted to hide. Separation and judgement came simultaneously.  When we are separate from our authentic selves, we are in a state of self judgement as well. It's inevitable.

No one living in their place of separation can restore the state of alignment completely. It must be done by one who is aligned. God, or Source's, authentic condition is unaffected by humanity's exploits. God alone has the capacity to re-callibrate us and has made a way for us to partake of that.
But it cannot be done via the Ego ( human effort) other than a simple willingness to allow it.

Ego and Authentic natures.
A person who wants to grow in Love and overcome their fears can get quite a long way if they are truly committed, but I feel that without this re-callibration, there will always come a point of undoing. For this is what the Law ( of sin and death) does. This is what was bought into when the fruit of that tree was bit into: the knowledge of good and evil is the awareness of JUDGEMENT.

It leads us to the knowledge that we are still suffering under judgement, experiencing separation and rejection. Not God's...for he made a way out of it, but under our own  if we do not partake of it. Our sense of Self never truly overcomes feeling unworthy, or feels fully valued or loved unconditionally.

Still we can achieve some wonderful elements of alignment as I said, in simply beginning to take time for those things that bring us deep and profound pleasure...even in simple things. Appreciation of and focus on these things will greatly improve the quality of our lives.

Ultimate Alignment
But the sense of "Resonant Recognition" that I experience in knowing myself as righteous in God, as a result of his gift ( of re-callibration) goes far beyond all this. The states I've experienced in being in oneness with Him and feeling God think my thoughts with me as his own and vice versa....this can only come from such an ultimate alignment. At least, I have known no other way. And whilst I do not claim to be in that consciousness all the time, I have known it as my own experience and more than a single freak occurrence.

In this place "resonant recognition", I feel my life path before me light up and vibrate back to me, the same way an  "A string" will respond to a 440hz tuning fork. As it leaps in recognition, so too does my path before me and I see with a certainty like never before.

The only thing I do is to stay focussed on what it means to be "the righteousness of God"-from the inside out...and as Mt 6:33 says...the rest is taken care of.