The Battle to Surrender

The Battle to Surrender

It recent readings, it occurs to me there is 2 opposite approaches to the spiritual journey here. The Bhagavad Gita presents the spiritual journey as a battle to overcome ego, mind and sense control.

In this blog, I tend to speak of the journey into surrender. Of deeper allowing, of letting go. How by releasing the bonds of a me, we learn to end the battle. These seem like contrasting and contradictory ways home. However, if we look more closely at the traditional paths or yogas, we find elements of each.

Before waking, the process of overcoming internal obstacles can indeed seem like a battle, mirrored by the drama portrayed on the battlefield. Yogananda describes each of us having our own epic battle to overcome darkness. When we are continually distracted from the path, it can certainly seem like a big struggle. A struggle to end struggling.

In some ways, this is the arena of Karma Yoga, the path of action and perception. This is classically covered in Chapters 2 and 3 of the Gita. In Chapter 5, they begin to go into renunciation of action. It is not until Chapter 12 that Bhakti, the Yoga of devotion is covered.

Thus, when the journey gets further along and the heart is more open, we begin to see both sides of the battle as a struggle with oneself. The ego fighting the ego. As this is clearly pointless, there begins the ever deeper letting go. The movement towards perpetual surrender in the flow of life.

As a closing I’ll note this little tidbit. I’ve seen such figures before but I would not make this a hard and fast rule. Consider it a guideline for total integration. We’ll see…
Davidya

“…once material desires as habits take complete control, it requires a cycle of 12 years to rid the bodily kingdom of the usurpers.”
— Yogananda

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7 Comments

  1. Share

    I think one of the planets, maybe Jupiter, takes 12 years to go all the way around the zodiac.

    In any case, All That Is conspires lovingly for us to return home. Perhaps any time requirement is also loving, a way to protect us from having our socks knocked off by God!

  2. Davidya

    Yes, Jupiter, the Guru, takes 12 years. We can also observe that the cells of our body turn over on a regular basis. Some areas on a daily or weekly basis, some take 7 or more years to be replaced. It would indeed take a number of years to shift the body from that grown in darkness to that formed in light.

    (laughs) Yes, it takes long enough to process it all in a step by step journey. Some describe it like roasting the old in fire. The socks would be destroyed!

    The experience can of course come long before this. It’s more how it fully matures, like a marriage.

  3. Share

    When you write “It’s more how it fully matures, like a marriage” do you mean that the underlying love/unity is there from the beginning but it takes some unfoldment of time for that love/unity to be lived? In other words, we love from the beginning, but it might take a few years to experience that love even when they leave the cap off the toothpaste. Like that?

  4. Davidya

    Kind of. When an intimate relationship begins, there can be an infatuated love. One more related to desire and emotion. But as the relationship continues, that begins to fall away. If infatuation is not replaced by something more real, the relationship will falter. Some continue on need or compromise. There is a sort of tolerance. But as I’ve written here before, tolerance is not acceptance.

    There is a much deeper love that can blossom and mature in a relationship. It goes beyond the personal. The toothpaste cap is their issue, not taken on.

    But the heart has to be open enough to give and accept.

  5. Share

    Yes, I have noticed the feeling/energetic difference bt tolerance and acceptance. I’ve also noticed that with time and grace, tolerance can slip into acceptance in a heartbeat or laugh. It’s so amazing to me when flaws/mistakes transmute like that, a blessed alchemy.

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