Surrender To The Mystery

As Kirtana sings “I surrender to the mystery... I really don’t know anything.” Isn’t this a most curious challenge of human nature, the act of surrender, giving up, letting go? Somehow our ego considers the nature of surrender a weakness. Is this why we find it so difficult? How come we cling to our own suffering, to the insanity of our conditioned beliefs? We grasp on to our own righteousness as if it would save us from what we believe is wrong with the rest of the world and everyone else, except us. 

And, yet, if we really investigate the simple act of surrender, it is not easy. Not easy because one component of surrender is forgiveness, to “others” yes, mostly to ourselves. Our ego sternly warns and reminds us that asking for forgiveness is a sign of weakness. 

If you have ever taken the incredible act of faith and opened to the grace of letting go of a relationship, a loved one, a job, a home, a child, a belief... remember that feeling of spaciousness, perhaps tinged with some fear yes, but in letting go space is opened up for something new and true. 

Don’t believe what I write here, after all they are just words, try it and see. Let go or surrender something cherished and see what happens. Sometimes letting go simply means letting someone else be who they are without the neediness or expectations of “me”. Other times it may mean dropping “your story” and the belief that that is what defines you.  

Surrendering to the mystery for me means letting go of the control i have needed to have in moving through each moment of each day. In letting go of the mind’s need to control, the need to know everything, i am learning to trust that i really don’t know. In that not knowing, comes the freedom to be who i truly am.