Dear Georgi,

When I meditate, it seems impossible to surrender and to find what you call “emptiness”. I try, but it becomes frustrating. How can I make myself let go?

J. (Switzerland).

When you surrender, the ‘enemy’ vanishes.

Surrender in itself can be a word which makes us fearful.

If we are surrendering, then deep down, we feel we are giving ourselves up to some kind of enemy. In this, our fears of helplessness and lack of control loom forward, charged by survival instincts and all methods and strategies we have used until now in order to function, express and interact as a human.

Yet surrender is at the core of inner-growth.

In surrender, or acceptance, or allowance, we are able to make the critical turn around: from seeking satisfaction or safety “outside” of ourselves, to inquiring who we actually are.

This movement is fundamental to human healing, freedom, and to the mastery of form and transformation.

There are some key points worth contemplating, and I will list them for clarity. One or more of them could be useful!

1. Who is surrendering to who?

The refusal to surrender is based on the survival of the ego. It is formed on a choice not to surrender the ego, a false sense of self, or a compelling idea or belief in that moment. By not being able to release the form in the moment, even for a moment, there is a determination to keep the form as absolute – that is – as the ultimate authority which is even stronger than the one that could surrender it.

When you are THAT one – infinite existence – which allows surrender, then there can be no fear. That same ONE can recreate the form in a moment, according to need.

2. What is it you are surrendering?

When you are able to perceive that to which you cannot surrender, it is already surrendered. Perceive it softly with consciousness, let yourself feel its story with awareness. Continue perceiving, noticing how it changes and transforms. Use curiosity to observe that it is unstable, non-absolute, on the move. ‘It’ is not ‘other’ than you and your manifestation as a human.

3. You surrender every time you sleep.

Every night. You sink out of conscious control, through the REM layers of awareness where unintegrated feelings take form in the shape of dreams and atmospheres, through to a dimension of the unperceivable. When you re-emerge, rejuvenated, you have no idea where you have been, yet there is a magnificent, complacent trust, that all forms that were there before sleep will reform according to need.

Surrender is not something catastrophic or sublime. We do it all the time. As human beings, we are surrendered to human form and all its mysteries.

4. Control and Helplessness

In “trying” to surrender, you become frustrated. There is control and effort in the attempt to release control and effort. It is quite a paradox isn’t it?

The best way forward is to surrender to the trying. Surrender to the energy of effort. If you experience frustration, allow it. Surrender to it. Experience the frustration in all its particles, sense how it moves and evolves through its sentient story.

Control and issues around control, always bring with them issues of helplessness. When we are in a struggle with the experience of helplessness, we will never find strength – which is its polarity. It is is worthwhile to meditate on allowing the feeling and experience of helplessness. In this you will find a door to who you are – the unconditional origin, alpha and omega of it all.

You can post a question to Georgi here.