The freedom that we seek on the path of awakening inevitably leads us to necessity of surrender. And yet surrender is very much misunderstood. It’s often believed that “I have to surrender myself” — but this is in opposition to the innate authority of the self, so there's a conflict between the survival of the personhood and the call to a deeper surrender if freedom is to be known. Let’s take a closer look at this...
To surrender “yourself” is a surrender of the individuation, a surrender of the human being that you are, it’s about surrendering to something — to another person, to a relationship, to a job that you don't like, to an abusive situation, and so on. So it involves a giving up of your personal will, just like waving the flag to the enemy and saying “OK, I surrender” and then you’re taken as a prisoner. There is no freedom in that!
The surrender that is spoken of with regards to spiritual awakening is not a giving up of your inner authority nor a giving up of your personhood to anyone or anything. If you do that, you’re a victim, a doormat, something passive. We must understand what surrender is if there is to be true freedom. Let’s take a closer look at this...
Surrender is a surrender of the grasping mind, not a surrender of the individuation that you are. And it’s not about surrendering to a circumstance, even though the circumstance may be the catalyst for a deeper surrender within. The grasping mind interprets the circumstance, it interprets what’s happening, and then either likes or dislikes the experience. Liking and disliking will naturally arise as your inner authority, but then what usually happens is there’s an attempt to grasp the experience by holding on to it or avoid it by suppressing it. If it’s a good experience — a good feeling, a good relationship, and so on — we don’t want to lose it. If it’s a bad experience — an uncomfortable feeling, a challenging relationship, and so on — we want to reject it. Either way, there is a tightening around the experience, a violence towards it … and this creates a psyhcological suffering.
Surrender is the softening of the clenched fist, a softening of the inner tension — not a softening of your personality or the individuation that you are. You don’t have to modify your unique self to walk through the doorway of surrender. It’s not on the level of form that surrender takes place, it’s on the level of the inner mechanism that drives behavior, that drives reaction and response to the experience of life.
It's the mechanism that is invited to surrender, because the mechanism is the root of suffering. If we don't see that, then there's no possibility of surrender. We cannot force surrender just because it's a nice spiritual carrot that's dangled as the key to freedom. Yes, it is the key to freedom — without this key, there's no real awakening out of the dream that is created from this unconscious craving and aversion, the constant “moving towards” and “moving away from” that causes the tightness and agitation and restlessness. But we can't force it — we have to see it, we have to be ripe for it.
Before we can be ripe for it, there’s often work to be done on an energetic level, such as loving the parts of ourselves that we berate or reject. This is fundamental, it’s prior to surrender. Surrender is like the fruit that falls off the tree when it's ripe — we have to prepare the ground for it, but we can't force it and we can't create a spiritual principle out of it. We can only speak of it and point to it. And when the fruit is ripe, then surrender will invite us all the way in.
But we can prepare the ground — by being willing to see the inner mechanism of resistance. The more you see it, the more you see that it's the cause of suffering. This willingness to see is not a process, it's not a method. It's more like a prayer. It’s not begging for something, or asking for something, or expecting something. Prayer is an openness — making yourself available, without agenda. If your’e really available — if there’s a deep desire to know the root cause of suffering — then you are close to the ripening.
And you will also realize that it’s not just your suffering — your suffering is all suffering because the root cause is the same. It’s the same for each human being. It's collective, it's endemic, it's the root of insanity, it’s the root of violence, the root of all conflict, it’s the root of war. Without really wanting on a deep level — not just intellectually or philosophically — to really discover the root cause of suffering, there cannot be a transformation. It’s like a thorn that you want to pulll out. But actually, it's not you pulling it out — God will pull it out for you, the divine does the work.
But you must have the tenacity and the willingness and the curiosity and the depth of inquiry. If you're not interested in that, then you won't get to the root of suffering. If you’re looking for comfort in life, if you’re looking for a pain-free life, nothing will shift. The ripening comes when you've inquired into the nature of things. And then you’ll start becoming sensitive to where the inner mechanism that causes suffering is operating — you’ll see and feel the grasping, the rejecting, the denial and suppression and avoidance.
Another way of saying it is that you will start to meet what is with tenderness, with non-violence, allowing everything to be in the unconditional field of open awareness. All this can be a kind of living practice that brings us closer to the root cause of suffering. And then surrender is inevitable. The fruit has fallen to the ground of being.
Amoda Maa offers a profound invitation to all those who wish to embody the truth of awakened consciousness in the midst of everyday life. Her teachings are free from any ideology and are not affiliated with any lineage or tradition, and yet the luminous truth is the same nondual understanding at the core of of many spiritual traditions. Arising from her own direct experience and expressed in a contemporary language, these teachings are relevant and accessible to all people from all backgrounds and cultures.
Since 2016, she has been living in the US and today her teachings are followed by a growing global community. She has been a speaker and guest teacher at conferences, featured in magazines, interviewed for numerous broadcasts and podcasts, and is the author of several books including Embodied Enlightenment and Falling Open in a World Falling Apart.
Her life and work are dedicated to supporting an “inner transformation of consciousness” and envisioning a new world of peace and enlightened living. Amoda and her husband, Kavi Jezzie Hockaday, are Spiritual Directors of the Amoda Maa Foundation.
More info at www.amodamaa.com.
