When we surrender in our spiritual life we give up resistance to a truth, or a meaning, or a being, greater than our conscious self. This could be our deeper more authentic selves, the will of togetherness in community, or of a higher power.
To surrender to a more authentic self can mean to let go of false ways of being that don't serve us anymore. To do this we recognize what these false ways of being are and yield or surrender to the more powerful honest and authentic forces within us that wish to be expressed. We make way for our true self to come to the fore, that which we did not allow ourselves to experience until now. This could also mean allowing feelings that have been suppressed or unresolved to come to the surface in order to be processed. We surrender and allow the feelings we have to come and don't deny them anymore. Finally we can learn to surrender to our heart's intelligence, recognizing and realizing what we love and care about, as well as what is right, and surrender to it, follow it, and not deny it or fight it. In this way we actualize our lives and our fulfillment.
Surrendering to the community means to sometimes let go of our individual wants and needs in order to serve a whole. In this way we surrender to service. This could be our family, our work community, our town, our country, all humans or all beings. We surrender to that which brings life to the whole, allowing ourselves to recognize our place in it and becoming a part of an organism composing many together. This is not to say that we lose our individuality. On the contrary, it is through the fullest expression of our unique individual love disposition that we express our greatest contribution to the community. It is in this way and this way only that we find what we are called to in life, a calling that always serves the greater good.
Surrender to a higher power can mean surrendering our will or our being to God, the Buddha, Jesus, Allah, The Universe, or The Divine Within, or to life itself. We do this by recognizing that this transcendent presence in us and around us is an intelligence that is ultimately qualified to guide our lives to fulfillment and fruition. By surrendering we don't give up who we are, rather we actualize our own greatest potential to be who we truly are and who we may become. Surrendering means coming home, it means making amends with our being and abiding in grace. Through giving of ourselves we receive ourselves, and with it a thousand-fold blessings to endure and thrive and be fulfilled spiritually. Surrender for us can be the way we let the current of a holy river bring us to the ocean.
In meditation practice we attempt to surrender to the deepest truth of our being, one which our authentic self, our communal will, and the presence of the transcendent are all aligned with. In the silence of our minds we give ourselves the opportunity to hear the whisper of the transcendent, that which we meditate on and allow ourselves to become one with. This process is not something we do, but something we surrender to. May you know the true power and meaning of surrender that your may ride the wave of truth and grace in the ocean of your life.