As a spiritual student, I have always asked myself, what does surrender really mean, winning or losing? Many a time, I have found myself confronted with the beliefs of society, on the one hand, and the convictions of spiritual individuals, on the other. The former tells us that surrender amounts to losing, and the latter – the words of saints and my mother – amounts to winning. They tell us that letting go of stress and surrendering to God results in true freedom – an absolute win, second to none. However, the fact that this equation of figuring out whether surrender is victory or defeat is far more complex than you might think.
Surrender can mean a number of different things in the worldly context. One example that commonly comes to mind is the meaning of surrender in the system of law and order. If someone, on the run from legal authorities for having committed a crime, turns himself in – giving up his resistance to arrest – then this is, in fact, the act of surrendering.
Historically, surrender has cropped up amidst war time scenarios. Let us look at an example of World War II. The innumerable battles and the war itself, ended in surrender. After Hitler succumbed his own oppression by taking his own life, World War II ended in the unconditional surrender of Germany. Hence, in a worldly context, the qualities associated with surrender are giving up, or making the winning party more powerful than the party that surrenders.
One of my personal examples of surrender from a couple of months ago involves my class performance. I had only gained a B in class despite my putting in the greatest amount of effort. With what must have been surrender on my part, I gave up the power that earning an A would have given me. This experience of achieving a lower grade than I was accustomed to made me feel less than I was.
Surrender in the spiritual sense can also mean a number of different things. One that commonly comes to mind amounts to the act of obeisance and surrendering to God. For most people this means letting go of material desires and stresses, even if only for a moment, to be able to place all their focus on God. When we surrender, we escape the worldly atmosphere, and enter a spiritual environment, in which we lose all worry and tension.
How and why does focusing on God help us to gain freedom from worry and tension? Essentially, when we surrender and focus in such a manner we allow God –who is all-knowing, ubiquitous, and omnipotent – to direct our lives and actions. In placing our faith in God, we often stop blaming ourselves (or others) for things that happen in our lives. We begin to live with the attitude that everything happens by the will of God, and that as long as we fulfil our duties to the best of our ability, we have no burdens to carry.
When I was first taught this concept, I found it very challenging. The analogy I used was that of driving as opposed to taking a taxi. When you are driving, you are of course in control of how to get to your destination. However, this control comes with many added responsibilities – staying under the speed limit, maintaining awareness of one’s route and not driving recklessly to be protected from accidents. In taking a taxi, you can still get to your destination, but with the difference that the driver takes you there without any stress or responsibility associated with driving yourself. So, when we surrender to God, it is like taking the taxi in life, placing faith in God as the driver!
There is both a complex and a powerful relationship between surrender and faith. Those who surrender spiritually also tend to have strong faith. This is because they trust in God, who enables them to let go of their anxieties and worldly desires. Faith leads to surrender, and surrender, in turn, begets faith. The relationship between Gyan (the Knowledge of God) and surrender is also akin to surrender and faith. Those who have the Gyan and delve deep with their spirituality, are always more likely to surrender. Those who surrender, by the same token, are more likely to embrace the Gyan.
Historically, examples of surrender in spirituality have been recorded countless times. Bhakti or loving devotion in Dharmic religions comes to mind. A Bhakta, a devotee, practises a level of Bhakti in which she places her entire faith and devotion in God. She lets herself go in fulfilling God’s will.
In the Mission, all the Satgurus surrendered to Nirankar. Let us understand this in the context of Baba Gurbachan Singhji’s martydrom, and Baba Hardev Singhji’s response to it. Unlike people in power, whose egos swell, Baba Hardev Singhji, even at the heinous murder of his father and Satguru, refrained from any violence and hatred. Instead, he preached forgiveness, declaring that everyone, without any exception, is his very own. Such was his benevolent nature that he would often say, it’s nice to be important, but more important to be nice, leaving this message indelibly imprinted on our hearts. By letting go of power and living a life, dedicated to unity, humility and God, he demonstrated a perfect example of surrender in spirituality.
It would appear that giving up in the practise of surrender actually liberates us completely. It is, in fact, a paradox to use the phrase giving up or giving in when in so doing, we actually win. Surrender takes away our natural tendency of living life in pursuit of our own egotistical benefit. It gives us the freedom to live a more enlightened life, wherein we are stress-free, having unconditional acceptance and regard for our experience, as also those around us.
How is worldly surrender different from spiritual surrender? If, indeed, they are the same, then how is that so? First of all, they are evidently different in the sense that worldly surrender almost always incurs a loss of power or control and is usually a negative thing which is despised. Spiritual surrender, on the other hand, is gaining bliss and living life in enlightenment in the name of God. It is normally something that is desired, and looked at positively, especially by those who live in awareness of God. While most shy away from worldly surrender, spiritual surrender is a precious privilege. What makes it precious, is the fact that it is quite rare to see. It can be thought of as the epitome of humility, and compass for one’s spiritual journey.
If the two are obviously very different, seeing that their desirability levels are polar opposites, how are they the same? First, they both exhibit a loss of control. While in worldly surrender, this is a loss of desired power, in spiritual surrender, this is increased faith in God’s control, and a loss of the sense of human control over all happenings. Second, they are both hard to achieve, requiring great effort to actualise. Most people fight for their power before they give it up, be it in political races, wars, or even in trying to land a spot in a remarkably competitive college. Similarly, most people try every possible way to control every single thing that happens in their life, prior to surrendering to God. The only real difference is that surrender hurts when done in the worldly context, while it heals powerfully in the spiritual context.
Once we explore the ins and outs of surrender in both the worldly and the spiritual context, we come to the following conclusion: worldly surrender amounts to defeat, while surrender in the spiritual context elevates us above the dichotomy of victory and defeat. Since power and ego dominate our world in this day and age, losing power hurts most people. Spiritual surrender, on the other hand, is above the dichotomy of loss and gain.
Having said this, we lose a lot of the things that we are better off without, such as our ego and unrelenting material desire. It is also true that we gain a lot of things by surrendering to God. We find that God’s hand directs all our paths. In fact, when we truly surrender to God, victory and defeat become meaningless. Why? Because both victory and defeat affect our ego, and spiritual surrender means we no longer invest in it – rather, surrender allows us to give it up. Our souls rise above the worldly concepts and rest in true bliss, where both victory and defeat simply cease to exist. We learn from experience, rather than becoming frozen within it.
– Siddhant Watwani, Los Angles USA
