The truth is if you don’t surrender in life, then life is a continual struggle. The ego thinks that it is in control, but in reality God is in control. The ego has no control. The ego is like a stubborn child, screaming and trying to get its way. The Divine is like a loving parent that waits and observes.
There comes a point where you have suffered enough. When you have suffered enough, usually because you are not living your dharma, then you surrender. Surrendering is a natural process that takes place when you have reached the edge and you can’t suffer any longer. At that point, you let go. That is where faith comes in.
Faith is when you realize there is something higher than the ego, there is something beyond. When you surrender the ego, you realize that the ego is nothing. When you jump off the cliff and wait for life to catch you, you trust. You trust the flow, you trust the process of life. When you come into trust and faith, that is when you merge with the Divine consciousness. You realize that the Divine is absolutely there for you.
There is a law of plenty. Only when you let go completely and you trust, everything can be taken care of, all of your needs can be met. If they are not being met, you haven’t surrendered enough, there is still an aspect of attachment. What I have learned is that you can never surrender enough, you have to keep on surrendering, giving to God, letting go, letting go. That is all healing is. That is the only way you can find your life purpose. That is the kindest thing the universe can do for you. It is hard to understand, isn’t it?
Spiritual aspiration or longing for God is the highest quality to have on the spiritual path. If it is there, it is a very great blessing. People have desire for material things, desire for relationships, success, abundance, all those desires come very naturally. A pure longing for God, or a pure desire for union with God is the rarest quality to have, it is like a gem. It is something that we should cultivate.
We can receive so much suffering, just because we are on the wrong path, because we are not surrendering, because we are not aligning our self with the Divine, with God. That is where the work comes in. The purpose of life is: surrender, let go and experience who you really are, which is happiness. Do whatever it takes to make you happy. Whatever causes you to suffer, drop it, don’t continue. The purpose of life is joy.
Write a list of all the things that you are attached to, all of the attachments that cause you to suffer. Look at what they are and look how you can eradicate them from your life. What are the things that you are attached to that you can let go of? See if you are ready to let go of them. When you are ready to let go of them, you are free and it ends suffering.
Go within everyday and ask your child what it needs. Fulfill your own needs. Create a structure everyday to fulfill your needs, whatever they are. Time for yourself, to meditate, to pray, to be creative, to write.
Write a list of the ways you criticize or judge yourself. All the things about yourself you don’t accept – and practice accepting each one of those things in your life, each quality in yourself. That is the way to fall in love with the self, in total self-acceptance. I once helped a lady who was a great spiritual teacher to make a transition from this world into the next world. She had helped many thousands of souls. When it was time for her to make her transition she couldn’t see the light, she couldn’t go into the light. I asked her to go into the light and her soul refused to go. I realized that she felt like she didn’t deserve the light, as if she didn’t deserve to go into it. I realized it is the last human obstacle.
We believe we don’t deserve God, we don’t deserve that love, we have to release that from within ourselves. We have to realize that we do deserve, and when you realize that you do deserve that means you have to accept everything about yourself, without judgment. That is how it is in the presence of a saint, love is unconditional. That is how we have to be towards ourselves, without any judgment, without any conditions. Then we will merge with the light, merging with the light means accepting God, unity and union with God. That is how we go home.
Why wait for death? Let’s do that while we are alive. Move into that unity, merge with God and release that inadequacy, that separation. That is why we suffer, because we believe we don’t deserve, that we don’t deserve God, we don’t deserve love, we don’t deserve the light. Somewhere inside of the ego we get this belief that we deserve to suffer. That is what needs to be healed, eradicated, the martyr, the victim, everybody has it. It is the nature of the ego.
That is where humility comes in. When things are going well along the path, things are going very easy and we are feeling very much in control and strong. That is when we often forget about the Divine and the ego takes control and we start to think ‘I am so great, so wonderful, I don’t need anything else’ that is when life, nature comes along and gives us a slap and wakes us up. Things then fall apart in our life and we go back on our knees and we remember, ‘I know nothing’. That is why they say on the spiritual path ‘the more that you think you know, the less you know, the less you realise you know, the more you do’. That is moving out of the mind. The mind is associated with doing, the heart is associated with being. We are so busy doing, and doing-ness is associated with the ego, unless it is service work that is dedicated to the Divine and we surrender the fruits of our actions.So how can you practice loving yourself and letting go of all the attachments of all the things that cause you pain and suffering? Drop your drama from your life, let your soul merge with God, let your soul be happy, now. Be free of ego attachments, free of pain, free of suffering. It is very hard to take responsibility, isn’t it, because we create all of it. It is the hardest thing to realise.
What I have presented you with, is your work. That is each one of our work. The inner purpose of every soul is to accept yourself totally, without conditions, and to be happy. To drop anything that causes you to be unhappy, all attachments to suffering.
