surrender

My fear of being real, of being seen, paralyzes me into silence. I crave the touch and the connection, but I__ not always brave enough to open my hand and reach out. This is the great challenge: to be seen, accepted, and loved, I must first reveal, offer, and surrender.

You are conditioned to believe that if you let go, if you surrender, you will either be a victim of circumstances and not assertive in your own being, or you will be viewed as being lazy, lacking in willpower, and un-motivated.Yet will and power cannot exist alongside one another. Motivation does not come into question when you surrender fully into the present moment. Motivation to do, to take action, to make moves, comes naturally from this surrender.

Your wisest moments will be those when you say yes to God.

When we embrace the opposites within ourselves and understand that inner harmony arises when they mature, we find the love, joy, silence and freedom that are hidden in every moment. It is my experience that it is through the inner female side that we find the depth within ourselves _ independent of if we are a man or a woman. It is through the female side that we find the inner source of love and truth. It is through the female side that we lit the light of our own consciousness. The more we learn to know the inner man and woman and the more we accept their different visions of life, the more a meeting happens between them that makes us happy and satisfied. Through embracing both these sides in ourselves, we realize that we really lack nothing _ but that we already are love. When both the male and female side is capable of living in trust, a love begins to flow between them _ a love that was always possible, but not realized. The inner woman is the meditative quality within ourselves. The inner woman is the source of love and truth. The inner woman is the capacity to surrender to life. It is through the inner woman that we are in contact with life. It is the inner woman that is the door to belongingness with the Whole.

Eucharisteo, remembering with thanks, this is the bread. We take the moments as bread and give thanks and the thanks itself becomes bread. The thanks itself nourishes. Thanks feeds our trust...Manna with thanks, eat the mystery of the moment with trust, and am nourished another day - or refuse it... and die. Jesus calls us to surrender and there's nothing like releasing fears and falling into peace. This is what I have always wanted and never knew: this utter trust, this enlivening fall of surrender into the safe hands. There is no joy without trust! Page 158

You shall find it greatly mitigates the sorrow of bereavements, if before bereavement you shall have learned to surrender every day all the things which are dearest to you into the keeping of your gracious God.

In order to grow you have to let go of all that you are and all that you know.

Do you trust Arman, Highness?''Yes, but--''No buts. Either you trust Him or you don't.'Achan shifted in his chair. 'Maybe I don't, then.''I agree. you don't trust Him fully or you'd know you did. Arman wants your trust, Highness. When he asks something of you, he's seeking your heart. Your attitude, your disposition, your fears, your strengths, your obedience, your allegiance. All of you. When you trust Arman with your life, you run the risk of exposing your real fears. You run the risk of Arman having total authority and say in your life. Most men don't like that. They like to be in control.

Anything that comes your way by force was not meant for you. Everything that locates you on it's own was yours and will be yours forever.

The best way to handle life, is to put your life in God's hands.

Surrender to the unknown and trust that the universe will lead you home.

To offer our very selves to another in love is to place that sacred trust in their hands; hands that may falter, leaving us rejected, ridiculed, abandoned and ashamed. In that very moment of surrendering to love we become vulnerable, our hearts and needs exposed to someone who may not cherish the gift we offer.

God, the universe, life, whatever name you give to the bigger picture, is experiencing itself through you as a human being. A journey from effortlessness, playfulness, freedom, to human doing, suffering and beyond. You can all return to the effortlessness, playfulness, freedom and being, by allowing your moment-by-moment experience, allowing your feelings of pain, suffering, rage, anger and envy to be felt, observed and tenderly allowed. No more self-beating, no more rushing against the tide, no more trying to steer that canoe, for life knows the way, always has and always will.

Our peace comes from remembering our wholeness and that the end of desire is the beginning of a life filled with Light.

Twilight, the only time of the day when the light and dark meet and become one. The bright powerful light of the day, calmly surrenders before the engulfing duskiness of the night. And the dense whelming darkness of the night yields before the surreal dawning saffron of the morning. The only two moments of the day that absolve the difference between __ark and light_. (Page 71)

I remember sitting and meditating beside a slow flowing river in India, and I got the feeling that this river could teach me all the secrets of the mystery of life. If we learn to surrender to a stone, a flower, to a man, to a woman, or a river, it becomes a door to the Whole.

All things are accomplished by the meditative act of releasing illusions and simply becoming.

Let it all go and enjoy the profound gifts found in your quiet places.