how do "I" surrender? what will "I" get in return?

Ajahn Chah

Q.  How do "I" surrender?  What do "I" surrender? Aren't you afraid?  What will "I" get in return?




If you let go a little, you will have a little happiness.

If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of happiness.
If you let go completely, you will be free. 

- Ajahn Chah

G.  There are few aspects of deeper spiritual practice so misunderstood, feared, and exploited as "surrender".   It is the one concept that folk struggle with deeply and the one that most often halts the awakening process.  Surrender in many cultures, is/was the most unimaginable alternative.  "Death before surrender", made it clear where surrender lay as an option.   With the increasingly pervasive contemporary culture of winning and losing, success and failure, surrender was not an option.

The mention of "surrender" evokes cringes, as experienced spiritual travelers have seen how badly and often it is abused.   Many believe, or are taught, that surrender is giving your possessions, family, savings, etc. to the guru, teacher, institution, etc. so that one can find freedom and peace without these possessions.  It is not that easy.  Giving away something isn't giving up your attachment to it.


Two renunciates/sannyasis, who had given away everything, were down to their loincloths.  A fight broke out as to whose loincloth was the most austere, had the fewest fibers, was the most poorly woven of the poorest fabric.   It isn't about giving it away, it is giving up your attachment to it and what it means to "you".  


What often happens is that surrender becomes a bargaining process with your God, guru, or institution, a holy eBay of "let's make a deal" or “I’ll give You this, if I get that.”  The bargaining becomes "You can take everything except my car, iPad, iPhoneX, job and partner.  Well, take my partner, he's not that great, just so I get a shot at a better one later.  And the job, take it, but I need more money and benefits with the next one."    


This process is pervasive in religions;  buying and selling indulgences to obtain better positioning in purgatory drove Martin Luther away from his beloved Catholicism.  As someone gives more, she receives a nicer robe, bigger title, special badge and better seating.   Institutions of all sorts are masters at appropriating others’ possessions through  installed guilt and promised graduated rewards.


True surrender is essential to non-dualistic awakening.  This is not bargaining for a better deal.   Rather, it is total surrender including, and particularly, the “I” that has the attachments.  As Ramana Maharshi says in Upadesa Saram:

Ramana Maharshi

30.  Surrendering the “I” is the greatest spiritual practice and leads to Self Realization

Many spiritual seekers, spend great time, energy, and resources chasing ever more sublime  experiences and arcane knowledge.  This strengthens the ego, the root of the problem, that will have to be removed if the search is to be successful.   Many seekers have a glimpse of enlightenment, or something, and now possess an enormous ego which will be all but impossible to remove. 

Some practitioners ("myself" included), who would not accept experiences, fantastic as they were, as the final result (and wouldn't b.s. themselves), came to the point where everything and everyone they could try, had been tried, and all failed to produce the "ultimate".   In deep despair and total hopelessness, amid the realization that they couldn't do it themselves, they totally surrendered everything, everything, even the "I", as they had to know the Truth.  Then awakening happened, "all by itself".   

Some suggest that this is the only point of practice; to realize that the “I” can’t do it, that it is THE problem and must be surrendered.   The “I” plans to be around for the coronation, which is actually its own funeral.  Without diligent inquiry to deconstruct the “I”, it is very difficult to fully surrender it. 

   

There is the philosophical sticking point of “Who surrenders the I?   Doesn’t there have to be a doer, an "I" of some sort to do the surrendering?”   If surrender is giving my land to an invader, there is someone to do that surrendering, who feels the pain of that loss, who remains afterwards.  We are deeply conditioned to resist that situation.  

Surrendering the "I" comes from a different space, more like the total acceptance near death.  It is over, and the "I" is disintegrating, with no choice or alternative.   This acceptance arises from understanding the "I"'s falsehood and unreality.

In the interest of full disclosure, the surrender of "my" I, needed someone to take it away, like Valkyries or angels.   The "I" would not go, even though it was weak, terminal and on life support.   As the "I" was anti-guru, it remained in the ICU.  Amazingly, Ramana Maharshi manifested, and the "I" was given to and taken away by Ramana.  As Ramana left the body decades earlier, it is a great mystery how his presence was so palpable as to be surrendered to.   There is no explanation for how it worked, but it did.

There are practices to make surrender easier.  As pointed out in a recent blog, chanting is a powerful approach.  There are many approaches described in Happiness Beyond Thought: A Practical Guide to Awakening.  (Net profits go to kids in south India.)  

Another useful approach to surrender is to just say “yes” in meditation, or at the end of each breath cycle before the next inhale or exhale.   Say “yes” when a difficult situation occurs, when you experience pain or complex deep emotions.  Direct the “yes” to a spiritual figure, guru or to the Universe.   You may not even know what you are saying “yes” to, but it carries the feeling of “This is OK just as it is.  I surrender to this situation.  I accept this.”   The whole Universe is waiting for you to stop saying “no” and to stop struggling against reality.  All you need to do is say “yes” and accept things just as they are.


you can learn to surrender by trying it out, little by little.  i found that if i surrendered a little, i was "held" like in the palm of a hand, somehow, by "something" and it was better.  If i surrendered more, i was "held" more and it was better still.  It was a great feeling that ultimately, in some way, the "path" was real and "i" was going home. 

As frequent readers of this blog and viewers of "my" youTube videos know, there are many insights from cognitive neuroscience, complex systems mathematics, game theory, and contemporary physics, as well as ancient texts, that make surrender much more "reasonable".  If one understands that they are not in control, that cognitive neuroscience can't find an "I", and there there is no "real" choice, surrender comes much easier.  

Surrender, surrender, surrender...