What is surrender? The definition of surrender is to yield to the power, control or possession of another upon compulsion. To surrender is to give up completely, or to agree to forgo, especially in favor of another. The definition is almost inherently negative; it implies defeat or disappointment. But this is only true if surrender follows defeat, and surrender doesn’t have to be defined by this. Surrender, to the yogi, can start as the recognition that a greater life force moves as you. Swami Chidvilasananda, spiritual head of the Siddha Yoga path, says that to surrender is to become aware of God’s energy in oneself, to recognize that energy and accept it.
This idea brings me back to my childhood. My mother dressing me, feeding me, driving me around. The time spent just being a child while my mother kept me alive, clean, fed and happy. I didn’t think of it then, but now I can look back on my childhood as a surrendering time. I had the privilege of sinking into my comforts while someone did my dirty work. I didn’t even have to try to surrender; it was just there, happening. That’s how I know this surrender is inherently within me. Recognizing that sweetness as a child brings me back to recognizing it in real time and in the future.
Surrender on the mat
I experience surrender when I take a yoga class. I walk into a room or open a screen and surrender to the fact that someone else is guiding my practice in that moment. I surrender to the people around me, participating in practice alongside me. Yoga is an intimate, vulnerable practice. I surrender to the fact that I am participating in this intimate, vulnerable thing, as are the people around me. I surrender to the fact that I may have a different experience than expected, because when I show up to surrender, I show up with no expectations.
It’s natural for us to surrender in this way, in these sweet moments. We all surrender peacefully at so many turns, just without total recognition. All it takes is the recognition.
A gift wrapped in a dark cloak
The sweetness of surrender sounds like an oxymoron. How can something defeating be sweet? It’s sweet because it’s a gift wrapped in a dark cloak. When we open up to the idea that the moments when we feel we need to back down can be something we sink into, we start opening that cloak, revealing the gift of the sweetness of surrender.
The same way my mother cared for me as a child, an open being ready for gifts, she will one day face the dark cloak and have to open it in order to be taken care of by me in her old age. Sinking into the surrender of being cared for at that time in life is, I imagine, a difficult and uncomfortable trial for some. Someone might be wearing that dark cloak to their first yoga class. The more that person starts to peek out of that cloak, the more they recognize they have the gift of surrender inside them.
This surrender is simply knowing that we are on our true and honest paths, always in alignment with our truth.
The gift of the sweetness of surrender is inside of us all. We get lost looking for it anywhere but within. We can reminisce on times we now realize were moments of surrender, knowing that surrender lives within us and can be found again at any moment.
