The Surrender Experiment

There are days when I wish I could go into the bush, get on my knees, put my ear to the ground and listen. I want to hear and feel our earth’s heartbeat. There are days when I wish I could find a tree as old as time itself and wrap my arms around it as far as they’ll go. I want to hear it whisper its hidden wisdom. I want it to answer the questions that plague my conscious and hide in my subconscious. There are days when I want to hug someone; anyone, just to know that I’m still connected to this human experience.

It’s a silly notion, of course … so I don’t do it. Maybe it’s because I’m so in my head that I can’t surrender to any kind of whimsy.

But lately I’ve been trying to do something about it. I’ve been trying to surrender to the totality of what is. It all started when I met my friend Bill Gibson for coffee on January 6, 2016. Bill is 71 and one of the wisest and most compassionate human beings I’ve had the privilege to connect with. I know if I had to hug him, I’d feel the earth’s heartbeat, hear the whispered wisdom and connect to the human experience in its totality. Of course, I never hugged him because I suppose it would be, um, too whimsical. He gave me a book called The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer.

I devoured that book and his other one, The Untethered Soul. By reading these books I’ve realised that my puny attempts at denting the universe and moulding it to my desires is an exercise in futility. I thought that I’m in control of my destiny when of course I’ve never been. It has taken me a while to realise that very little in my life has gone the way I figured it should go. In fact, most of the time, it has gone better than any plan I could ever have hatched. Although, sometimes it’s disguised in deep pain and hurt.

Signs

Around this time a friend of mine asked me what is it that I really want to do. I said, “You know what? I could easily live a monastic life, work on my spirituality and just write my books.” Well, not even two weeks later, my friend Etsko Schuitema suggested I come and stay at his spiritual retreat,  The Zawia Ebrahim in Rand Vaal. Talk about a sign. I was still on the fence when a catastrophic event happened (for me, anyway). My daughter moved with her mother to Mosselbay. It knocked the stuffing out of me. But, it got me off the fence and got me to the Zawia because there was pretty much nothing left for me in Benoni.

So, here I sit writing this article at the Zawia. I’m living the Surrender Experiment and seeing where it’s taking me.

And, you know what? It’s not bloody well working!

How do you make God laugh? … tell him your plans

Even though I meditate, pray and run 11km every day, my life has become even more convoluted, complicated and just darn right messed up. What’s with that? I’m supposed to be at peace and things are just supposed to be falling into place. I think and hope I’m going through what Steven Pressfield in his book, The War of Art calls resistance. When you have a plan, you contrive things that will scupper your plans. Because if you’re distracted, you don’t have to do the real work. In my case, doing the inner work that is vital to my sanity and redemption.

But, maybe things are working out. Slowly. Just last week I had an epiphany. I’m convinced an angel was sent to me to give me a message. I met this amazing being who absolutely surrendered to the totality of what is many years before I even thought about the concept of surrender. She saw right through my bullshit. She said something to this effect, “I’ve totally surrendered and have been so blessed ever since. Jacques, you just think about surrendering as an intellectual concept. For you it’s just an experiment. And, that’s the difference between me and you.”

Annihilation

She’s right, of course. Until I get it out of my head and into my heart, surrender will never work for me. Until I can annihilate myself and totally surrender to something that is way bigger than my comprehension, I’m never going to experience the amazing things that are still awaiting me. I’ll never be grateful for the amazing life I’ve already had up until now. 

You see, I need to get over myself and my fat ego and stop thinking that surrendering is giving up. That surrender makes me less. That it is capitulation. That it is loss. But it’s none of these. Surrender is opening my heart and allowing something in. Surrender is giving me a break and saying that I don’t have to deal with everything myself. There’s help for me if I only allow it. I don’t have to try and sort everything out because it will pretty much sort itself out without any interference from my side.

I’m getting that the more I try and control things the less control I have. It is slowly dawning on me the more I surrender to the benevolence that has made me (and you) the point of existence, my life will unfold in positive ways that I can’t yet imagine. Because I’m part of this universe and because this universe loves me, how can it be any other way?  And, when I get it that this whole experience is for my pleasure, I’ll drop to my knees in awe and gratitude. Of course I’m smart enough to know that I should already be dropping to my knees every day in gratitude because I’ve already been given more than I’ll ever need. Once again, I should be feeling it (gratitude) and not thinking it. That day is coming soon, believe me. But it’s not now because I still have work to do and a long road ahead before I get it … that I’m the point of the universe!