Surrender

We come to hear a teacher for all kinds of reasons. Many of us think that we have to go some place for enlightenment. Many of us think that, if certain things were to happen to us, our lives would change substantially; and we would become enlightened or very wise, and every day of our life would be most beautiful. Many of us think that a teacher can do these things for us.

These things are possible. But when these things happen, they happen in a way that we don’t even sense at first. Often times we don’t realize they have happened because of our own definitions of the way they should happen or how we are to be when we become so-called enlightened. And our definitions just don’t match up to the way things really are. That’s the irony of the subject. We miss our own enlightenment!

We think that if we want to become enlightened, we have to define what enlightenment is. So the brain defines enlightenment. It says, “For me to be enlightened I have to be a certain way.” We work to become that way, and then the brain says, “That was too easy. My definition must have been wrong. I have to do more and more things.” Then we stop and say, “Who is it that wants to be enlightened? What is it that is asking these questions?” And on and on and onit’s never ending. It becomes a life’s work. It can be a very complicated life’s work.

I know from experience that until a time comes

that this game is given up

it’s one of the most miserable things that we can go after.

There is nothing that I know of that is more difficult and more cruel to somebody who is honest and sincere in trying to define these thingsbecause it is elusive and it doesn’t happen!

We go from place to place, from teacher to teacher, from book to book, trying to find specific answers to questions that by definition do not have answers.

The time must come in all of our lives when we have a private conversation with our selves. There’s no audience involved. There are no grades. There is nobody looking at us. It’s just a conversationme with meto look at this whole thing and to then to say, “I have looked. I have investigated. I have searched. I have studied. I have done all this, and I have arrived at the conclusion by myself that all these things that we try to talk about simply are most mysterious.”

This is a gigantic step to take because we don’t want to say things like that. We want to say, “If I continue to investigate this for the next six months, for the next year, for the next twenty years, if I do this or I do thatI will be successful in defining this mystery.” Nobody wants to be a failure. That’s why it is so difficult to actually face up to this situation that this is a mystery. It’s an awesome mystery. It’s a most magnificent mystery. But it is a mystery!

And then we surrender.

In all these holy books that talk about surrender, this is what is meant.

Once we surrender to this mystery

an incredible thing happens.

We realize that we may not know

what this mystery is

but somehow and in some form

we are a part of this Mystery

and we rest in it.

We rest and we become

naturally peaceful.

We see that this is a mystery. There is no possible way that we cannot be part of this mystery. We cannot escape being part of the mystery. We are satisfied that we belong! And then we see that everything else is just an awesome conversation.