Surrender.
Many of you have heard spiritual people and teachers use this word, offering it as an idea, a suggestion, and/or a statement of reality.
Much of the time, the interpretation of surrender comes back to me as meaning that they don’t do things or that they “let things work out for themselves.”
This is not what surrender is. This is inactivity, passivity, or–in many cases–avoidance.
Surrender is essentially a form of acceptance. While often a pause in action may be part of it, it’s through surrender that we often find ourselves compelled to actions, not deterred from them.
If you’d like to learn more about spiritual surrender and why it is critical to living life, not just walking the spiritual path, you can sign up for my free newsletter. I announce upcoming classes that way. Be sure to add my email to your contacts list after signing up.
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Why Surrender Is Critical Class Description
Surrender is simple.
Surrender is accepting what Is. Whether we like what is going on in ourselves or our lives is something else. Until we really allow ourselves to accept any of it, our ability to respond wisely is impaired.
In states of resistance, we fight things, run from things, try to ignore things, and do other reactions without fully understanding them. Countless conflicts come up between people because they don’t surrender to the reality of the other person. They don’t see the other person. They don’t listen either. This makes relationships with family members, co-workers, employees, employers, friends, and everyone else challenging to say the least. People endlessly struggle with others because they do not allow themselves to see who the other actually is.
In this way, the practice of learning to just accept what Is is powerful in daily life.
On the spiritual path, we practice surrender to notice the resistance in ourselves. Fortunately, since most of our resistance (if not all) is actively generated by us, doing nothing often allows it to run out of energy. This is probably why people confuse spiritual surrender with doing nothing. More often than not, we stop taking actions that feed our ego. If the ego is not fed energy, it gradually runs out of it. Like a spinning fan, the mind stops thinking so much when no longer fed more thoughts.
Also like a spinning fan, it does not run out of energy the minute you turn off the light switch.
But sometimes, we realize that certain actions in our daily lives and on the spiritual path are absolutely necessary. In surrendering to the reality of a situation, we now can take actions based on reality, not the ego fantasy playing out in our minds. This way of interacting with the world tends to yield powerful and sometimes surprising results.
Truly, surrender is a solid foundation for living wisely.
For more resources on this topic, you can check out these posts:
Inaction and Nonaction on the Spiritual Path
Why You Want to Come to the Class
As always, you want to come to my classes because you’re on the path to realizing spiritual freedom.
In addition, you want to come to:
- Better understand what surrender is
- Understand the relationship of surrender to action and inaction
- Understand what nonaction means and how it differs from inaction
- To improve your spiritual practice through the proper use of surrender
- To understand what is surrender and what is avoidance or spiritual bypassing, and more.
Additionally, those people who want to work one-on-one with me need to come to classes first before I’ll consider working directly with them.
Specifics of Why Surrender Is Critical Class
Here are the specifics of how the class works.
- Have two classes–one at 10:30 AM Pacific Time and another at 5:30 PM Pacific Time
- Have each class of around 10 people
- Meet online via Google Meet (this online video service is free)
- Meet for 1 hour and 1/2
- Most of the class will be a lecture style
- There will be around 1/2 hr for people’s questions
The suggested donation is 50 USD for those who can afford it.
For everyone else, it is whatever fits your budget.
Please don’t donate until after we spoken together and you’ve gone through the enrollment process. Signing up for my newsletter is NOT the enrollment process. That comes later.
If you have questions about this class, I’m happy to answer them.
Once again, if you’re interested and aren’t on my free newsletter, you can sign up below. I’ll send out an announcement when I’m enrolling people in the Why Surrender Is Critical Class.
In love and kindness,
Jim Tolles
2 Comments
When you find yourself thrown back into a more limited state of consciousness the trick is to love yourself as that which you are right now.
This overcomes the non-acceptance.
The mind screams 'I can't be this, I know I am more than THIS!!' haha.
In that state, through the limited lens you are unable to comprehend surrender but you are able to love yourself as that which you are right now and this naturally shifts one back into a more expanded state without getting tangled up in the limited state for weeks/months attempting to understand surrender.
Surrender in its purest form is recognising and loving all parts of oneself, the big and the small, is it not?
love
x
I'm not using the words surrender or love in the same way. It sounds like love means to try and like all parts of yourself. When I use surrender, I'm talking about unconditional acceptance that is beyond all feelings. It is inherent in awareness–the place of silent space observation that sees whatever we call limitation or contraction or expansiveness.