Surrendering to Love

By Peter Shepherd

Surrender is often advocated as a spiritual attribute. In this sense it means surrender to God's will. This sounds defeatist and overly passive, but read on as there's more to it than it seems on the surface.

Surrender also means acceptance of what is, not being in denial. To let go of what was, and to have faith in what will be. Life is a balance, then, between what you can control and what you cannot control - learning to live between effort and surrender.

And surrender means letting go of the fixed ideas that no longer serve you - expectations, doubts, fears, resentment, needing to be right - allowing new energies to enter, letting all that remains buried in your heart come to the surface and be healed.

This is not at all the same as surrender in battle, or giving up if the going gets tough, or passively agreeing with whatever anyone says without discernment, taking the easy way out of your responsibilities, abandoning your hopes.

You can seek information and opinions to obtain different perspectives, and combine that with your own experience and insights. But before you act, recognize that only you know what's best for you. What does your whole being - mind, body and soul - say "Yes!" to?

Your heart has the answers. Your heart-felt inner knowing includes conscience, your sense of right and wrong, which is based on your inherent loving nature. The ego-mind often has other ideas, so it's best to silence the mind when looking for inner guidance, to be quiet within yourself and just know.

Once we give up on being right already, we make ourselves ready to receive. We need only connect, ask, and await divine grace. We can learn to connect to our Source in order to receive solutions. We can develop faith in this Source. We can surrender to the fact that, even though we can't see the solutions ahead, they will come.

This is because our inner knowing is directly connected with universal consciousness, i.e. Source or God. We are both separate from and at one with God. That is why we may talk of surrender to God's will. How do you know if what comes to you is true inner knowing? Because your essence, your spiritual nature, is loving. Its message is therefore founded on unconditional love. This check is helpful, otherwise the mind can easily distract you with egotistical fears and selfish greed - these are neither inner knowing nor God's will.

To determine our path, then, we do well to surrender a choice governed by fear or attachment for the inner knowing of our Higher Self, expressed through our heart. We need only ask: "Is this guided by love?" That always points to the true path ahead.

Inside us, our resources are infinite, because we are connected and essentially at one with the Source of all creation. Jesus said it all: "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you."

Where there is love, oneness naturally exists; where there is fear, understanding and compassion go missing.

Where there is love - when you are heart-centered - do whatever you will… it will be the right action. It will never bring conflict to one's life. In the flame of love, all fear is consumed.

This is the simple truth - making the human heart visible - unifying the body's instincts and feelings, the mind and inner knowing. This is the basis for an evolution of consciousness. Indeed, for a revolution, and the only one that will make the difference this world is so much in need of.