The Surrender Experiment: My Journey into Life's Perfection

My formula for success was very simple: Do whatever is put in front of you with all your heart and soul without regard for personal results. Do the work as though it were given to you by the universe itself - because it was.

I am so grateful that surrender had taught me to willingly participate in life's dance with a quiet mind and an open heart.

Each of us actually believes that things should be the way we want them, instead of being the natural result of all the forces of creation.

Am I better off making up an alternate reality in my mind and then fighting with reality to make it be my way, or am I better off letting go of what I want and serving the same forces of reality that managed to create the entire perfection of the universe around me?

No matter who we are, life is going to put us through the changes we need to go through. The question is: Are we willing to use this force for our transformation? I saw that even very intense situations don't have to leave psychological scars, if we are willing to process our changes at a deeper level.

How could I possibly explain the great freedom that comes from realizing to the depth of your being that life knows what it's doing?

just kept letting go and practicing nonresistance, whether I liked what was happening or not.

A great spiritual teacher once said, “Every day bite off more than you can chew, and chew it.” Life

Accept the purification power of life's flow.

the practice of surrender was actually done in two, very distinct steps: first, you let go of the personal reactions of like and dislike that form inside your mind and heart; and second, with the resultant sense of clarity, you simply look to see what is being asked of you by the situation unfolding in front of you.

Could it really be so hard to just let it rain when it rains and be sunny when it’s sunny without complaining about it? Apparently the mind can’t do it: Why did it have to rain today? It always rains when I don’t want it to. It had all week to rain; it’s just not fair.

clearly remember deciding that from now on if life was unfolding in a certain way, and the only reason I was resisting it was because of a personal preference, I would let go of my preference and let life be in charge.

Life rarely unfolds exactly as we want it to. And if we stop and think about it, that makes perfect sense. The scope of life is universal, and the fact that we are not actually in control of life’s events should be self-evident. The universe has been around for 13.8 billion years, and the processes that determine the flow of life around us did not begin when we were born, nor will they end when we die. What manifests in front of us at any given moment is actually something truly extraordinary—it is the end result of all the forces that have been interacting together for billions of years.

I was not in charge, yet life continued to unfold as if it knew just what it was doing.

Since most of us only feel good when things are going our way, we are constantly attempting to control everything in our lives. The question is, does it have to be this way? There is so much evidence that life does quite well on its own.

All the events that had unfolded so far in my experiment with surrender had shown me that the more I was willing to let go of the inner noise created by my personal likes and dislikes, the more I could see subtle synchronicities in what was unfolding around me. These unexpected concurrences of events were like messages from life gently nudging me in the direction she was going. I listened to these subtle nudges instead of listening to the not-so-subtle mental and emotional reactions caused by my personal preferences. This is how I practiced surrender in everyday life, and the purpose of all these stories is to share with you the perfection of the journey that unfolded.

That was the essence of my experiment with life: if it’s down to a matter of preference—life wins.

Done properly, yoga is the science of channeling all energies upward until they merge together at the highest point—Oneness.

Because I had inwardly surrendered each step of the way, no scars were left of my psyche. It had been like writing on water - the impressions only lasted while the events were actually taking place.

time it would work itself out. In the meantime, I was not going to let it steal the great peace and joy I felt deep inside. Right from the beginning, I resolved to use the whole situation to finally free myself from whatever was left of that scared person inside who had always held me back. This was my entire journey—liberation at any cost.

It seemed that the more challenges life put me through, the less my inner energy flow was affected by outer conditions. What years of willful meditation had not gotten rid of, life’s situations and challenges were rooting out of me. As long as I made getting rid of myself my only goal, every situation was a fruitful experience. If I’d had any other goal, I think the constant pressure would have been overwhelming. I found that I actually got more peaceful inside as I dealt with the ever-increasing magnitude of challenges. Life was molding me each day to become who I needed to be in order to handle tomorrow’s tasks. All I had to do was let go and not resist the process.

By that stage of my growth, I could see that the practice of surrender was actually done in two, very distinct steps: first, you let go of the personal reactions of like and dislike that form inside your mind and heart; and second, with the resultant sense of clarity, you simply look to see what is being asked of you by the situation unfolding in front of you. What would you be doing if you weren’t being influenced by the reactions of like or dislike? Following that deeper guidance will take your life in a very different direction from where your preferences would have led you. That is the clearest I can explain my surrender experiment, and it became the foundation of both my spiritual and worldly life.

Every time I sat down at the computer to work on the program, I took a breath and remembered that I was writing this as a gift to the universe.

I was gradually learning that life was not as fragile as that voice in my head would have me believe.

great spiritual teacher once said, “Every day bite off more than you can chew, and chew it.” Life was teaching me some very important lessons.

it’s as though we actually believe that the world around us is supposed to manifest in accordance to our own likes and dislikes. If it doesn’t, surely something is very wrong. This is an extremely difficult way to live, and it is the reason we feel that we are always struggling with life.

Following that deeper guidance will take your life in a very different direction from where your preferences would have led you.

Perhaps change only takes place when there is sufficient reason to overcome the inertia of everyday life. Challenging situations create the force needed to bring about change.