Surrender and Being Surrendered

Today’s Agenda:

•Lecture PPT •Break •Movie (The One)

Some Words on Third Inquiry

• The Plan is…

– Make sure complete the reading from Thirst for Wholeness 5,6,7, 11.

– Review today’s lecture and the past 2 lectures

• Complete readings In Spiritual Emergency: Jack Kornfield “Obstacles and Vicissitudes in Spiritual Practice” (pgs 137 – 169) and Paul Rebillot “The Heroes' Journey Ritualizing The Mystery.

 

What do these words mean to you in...

• The context of addiction, mental illness, and spirituality...

– Surrender – Being Surrendered

Looking Into Surrender: A U 2 Beginning

`I tied m

yself with w

ire

To let the horses run free

Playing w

ith the fire until the fire played with m

e

The stone was sem

i-precious

We w

ere barely conscious

Two souls too sm

art to be in the realm of certainty

Even on our w

edding day

We set ourselves on fire

Oh G

od, do not deny her

It's not if I believe in love

But if love believes in m

e

Oh, believe in m

e

At the m

oment of surrender

I folded to my knees

I did not notice the passers-by

And they did not notice m

e

I've been in every black hole

At the altar of the dark star

My body's now

a begging bowl

That's begging to get back, begging to get back

To my heart

To the rhythm of m

y soul

To the rhythm of m

y unconsciousness

To the rhythm that yearns

To be released form control

I was punching in the num

bers at the ATM

machine

I could see in the reflection

A face staring back at m

e

At the m

oment of surrender

Of vision over visibility

I did not notice the passers-by

And they did not notice m

e

I was speeding on the subw

ay

Through the stations of the cross

Every eye looking every other w

ay

Counting dow

n 'til the pain would stop

At the m

oment of surrender

Of vision over visibility

I did not notice the passers-by

And they did not notice m

e

Surrender and Grof

• I did not do it willingly

“I watched and felt myself disappear. All at once, the roles I played in the world, the

work I did, the illusions and the games and the denials... The Shell of who I was, was dying, slipping away. I could no longer hang on. I was totally and unequivocally defeated... I no longer had to pretend”.

Surrender and Grof

• Given a second chance (alcohol should have killed me).

“The loving and available spiritual source I had been blindly looking for all my life broke through my defences and revealed itself to me, not on a mountain top or some shrine, but in a facility for the treatment of chemical dependency. My recovery had begun”.

Many Facets of Surrender

• There are many ways to describe surrender

• Admitting defeat • Becoming powerless • Letting go • Hitting bottom • Dying while I am alive “ego death”

Ego Death as Surrender

• Re-emergence of 6th / 7th Chakra

– Bill Wilson co- founder of AA, describes ego death as shattering of the ego.

– Most profound, difficult, and transformative state their is.

– It is the destruction and metamorphosis of the restricted ego or of limited self-definitions.

Letting God... or the Divine In

• Karlfried Graf Durckheim on letting go:

“This letting-go, go of the ego ... Means much more than relinquishing all those objects to which during a lifetime a man has become attached. It entails the giving up of the entire life pattern that has revolved around the ‘positions’ taken by the ego ... Only when we have let go of those attitudes wherein we rely solely upon what we ‘have, know, and can do,’ will their arise a new consciousness in which the creative dynamism of life is contained”

Egocide, Not Suicide

• Ego-death does not mean the death of life

• What dies is the part of our identity that holds us to the illusion of control – that we are separate from each other.

– Dying to our limitations

• However, when we surrender we might feel as though every vestige of who we where is gone, and when we emerge into our new life, it is like stepping into a fresh world.

Leaving Las Vegas

• When “ego-suicide becomes a slow suicide”

– Here is Nicholas cage embroiled in “his” multitude of addictions.

Depression and Surrender

• What is Depression?

• What are we Depressed about?

– Surrendering into Depression “Jeff Fox”

The Elements of Grace: How Does Surrender Happen?

• Do we surrender or does surrender happen to us?

• The psychiatrist Gerald May calls it “the active expression of God’s Love”

May on Grace

• Returning to Nelson (maybe).

• Flow of the source / spiritual ground as our defences drop and liberation flows into us.

• Grace is not something we can strive toward through the virtue or good works.

• We do not achieve it through virtue or good works, it is not

a cause or effect, but it also does not exist apart from us.

Grace

• Grace like freedom, like our wholeness, are one in the same, but as we grow in the world and develop an ego, and identity, and a mind, we begin to ask questions of the garden of Eden so to speak.

• Along with a egoic mind that always wants more, or strives to have what the neighbour has, and if we are confronted by blocks to develop a sense of security in the world (trauma's, losses, wounds, ect), we then further are tempted to see wholeness outside ourselves and the world.

• Some of us may even turn to addiction, to feel the security, rush, or escape that many objects of desire can offer.

Grace

• However, Grace never leaves us, because it exists inside and outside the mind. It pervades the universe and cannot be tainted, but somewhat forgotten.

• Hence:

• May states: “I think our failure is necessary, for it is in failure and helplessness that we can be most honestly turn to Grace.

Grace

• The question that might be posed then is: “it is possible for grace to be just another object of addiction, something to be collected or hoarded”

• But this kind of grasping can capture only an image of grace. Grace itself cannot be possessed, it is eternally free.

• We can seek it and try to be open to it, but we cannot control it.

Grace and Addiction

• Addiction then, fills up the spaces within us, spaces where grace might flow.

• But again, it is important to remember, however, that it is not the objects of our addictions that are to blame for filling up our hands and hearts; it is our clinging to these objects, grasping for them, becoming obsessed by them.

Grace: A Few Audio Stories...

Begin... Stop at 6:10 ... Skip to 12:20; end at 21:26

Hitting Bottom & Surrender: Just the Beginning

• The process of surrender offers a blueprint for continued recovery and spiritual engagement, but it is only a beginning...

“Not a means to an End”.

• Many deaths and rebirths follow in the course of our lifetime, but if one understands surrender, we realize that control and emersion in the egoic mind is fruitless.

• Life then is lived for life's sakes and problems are not problems, but situations.

Adyashanti on Surrender...