Surrender, not Submission.

(Video: an overdue update to my youtube channel posted 1.11.11)

I believe that for all of us, there are crossroads and events in our lives that inevitably bring one closer to Spirit.

It's a visitation that's become a little more frequent in the last year and a half of my life. A form however, that's morphed into a way of being face planted in what seems to be an unwanted prostration of sorts, where the knots in the pit of my stomach seem like some sort of Navy Seal torture technique meant to pierce through the heart. The only difference is that it all takes place with a little less longing for whatever it is that I feel I'm lacking or void/empty of in the given moment.

I read something not to long ago I felt strongly connected to about the principal (and a very advanced element in one's yoga practice) referred to in yoga as "Ishvara Pranidhana". The writer expressed her interpretation of this principal as a very deep understanding; a trust, for divine order.

Ishvara Pranidhana ("the final act of surrender") has become an aspect I'm reminding myself to consider; one that I'm developing, as an ongoing practice. In doing this work, I'm seeing fruits in the form of *inner peace during the storms of life* that could never be matched through any position I could possibly condition my body to get into over any extended period of time...certainly not any that I've attained in close to a decade of practice. It's all means to take me deeper into what I am beneath all things tangible I could ever possibly begin to define myself as but even thats' not where I get off the bus. As I deepen this trust; this "knowing", I'm finding myself able to be with my experiences and calmly sit next to any inclination or hint of emptiness. Granted, I still want to feel or taste or smell the thing but i'm consciously committing, every day, to being a student to this deep aspect of my personal and spiritual evolution. I am learning to be with the longing or desire with an undertone of acceptance because I know it all serves a much larger purpose and is a part of the greater, Spirit driven sequence of my life.

This morning I received an email from a student-friend who was so open in sharing with me where he's finding himself in his own experiment with self-study. Much like myself, with a heart wide open, he shared of his going through an awakening in his life finding himself focused on things like kindness, love, health and expanding his capacity to learn. It took me quite some time to get that one. For quite a while my insecurities (and they take SO many forms... even that of outwardly seeming ever so confident for some) held me back from so much learning and so many lessons because somewhere along the way, I decided that if I didn't know something, it meant I lacked intelligence. Instead of walking away with more, I continued forward with less and less for YEARS because every time, I had to fill the space of what would have been LEARNING with nonsense, assumption, being "right", trying to convince...the list goes on.

So brave we have to be to sit in the seat of admitting that we don't know everything and being OK with that not turning it into a bad thing. It's really an "awakened" place to arrive in my opinion, when we can open and listen to our hearts (a feat in and of itself that I'm learning is not an "easy to use", built in "app" for all...although I remain CERTAIN, it is an *innate* one within all...our fear just covers it up) and when we have matured enough, in the spiritual sense, to know that every encounter with every human being is yet another opportunity to uncover our own light. In the spirit of Ishvara Pranidhana, it's about trusting the deepest voice within us, the sixth sense that connects us closer to our Truth than intellect ever could and even in the uncertainty, *trusting that sense. The work is in knowing that it's all a process. Very little in life is black and white and for what is, it's not always the biggest, most profound things.

I'm grateful for the passengers who have been on the same train. I'm grateful for the "passer-byers" even. Mostly, I'm grateful for the experiences and growth that have brought me to a place of having at least a partially open heart and set of eyes to be able to have recognized all of them as teachers of some sort; messengers of the greater sense; always leading me back to search myself.