During a recent course I taught the topic of surrender was a hot one. There were lots of questions about how to surrender including this one that seems to be at top of awareness for many right now:

Q: How do I know when I’ve surrendered?

A: When you accept everything exactly as it is.

Whenever I talk vulnerably about my own journey around surrender I share my challenges around letting go of control.

This can be agitating for some (or perhaps everyone, LOL!). Perhaps this is because we want the spiritual path and consequently our lives, to be free of discomfort. We want the easy way to present itself … and then we want to embrace and live the easy way, rather than continuing with the challenges we face in our lives.

One person asked: Why must surrender be framed as a challenge? Isn’t there a way to surrender that involves everything being easy and full of joy?

It’s a GREAT question!!

The truth is that surrender is the easiest thing you’ll ever do. And it’s also likely the hardest thing you’ll ever do. It is the path of ease and joy. In fact it is the ONLY path of complete resonance.

And it’s very challenging for most people. That’s just being real. As much as I can do to support you in having an experience of your wholeness or of your soul being fully embodied, or any number of other experiences that come from me sharing my gift with you, I cannot surrender for you. Surrender is the exclusive domain of your mind.

When your mind surrenders, you are opening to an experience of full integration. Until then, no matter how much spiritual work you do, at best you have integrated your soul (or spirit) and your body. Powerful no doubt – and the third critical component is the mind. Full integration (enlightenment) – what I refer to as Spiritual Mastery – includes the mind. Not just as the master, but also as the servant.

I see surrender as the final frontier on the next stage of the spiritual journey – not only for each of us individually, but for the entire planet. As we move from controlling and manifesting consciousness (stage two) to conduit consciousness (stage three) the key “lesson” or awareness in this transition is letting go of control. Surrender is the path of liberation and complete freedom.

The flip side of surrender is trust or faith. Surrender is the ultimate act of trust – the ultimate act of faith. Surrender is what follows from the realization that you don’t have the answers – that there must be a plan beyond your comprehension waiting to express. As long as you maintain the tight grip of control on your life, that plan can’t express. But when you surrender, you are swept away in a river of resonance beyond your ability to conceive. And that’s the point: you literally can’t imagine – why keep trying to control when you can stop and immediately be free from the illusion of control and all the pain and suffering that result?

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Faith has been a challenging concept for me. Early in my life faith seemed to be something that was posited without cause. The dogma of religion felt steeped in judgment, confinement, and limitation. I wanted a relationship with God directly, but I didn’t know how to experience that for myself.

Trust has been equally challenging. Trust was something that I was regularly being told I had lost by my parents because of some action I had taken. Earlier in my life trust seemed to be part of a transaction. If I was “good” in the eyes of my parents, I was trusted. But if I made a mistake I could no longer be trusted.

I struggled with trust through my adolescence and early adulthood. If trust was transactional, how could I trust others? How could I trust the Divine? Does trusting others or God involve an ongoing proof of trustworthiness?

When I reflect back on my first significant experience of complete surrender at the end of June of 2011, it wasn’t a proof of trustworthiness that lead me to surrender. It was a clear recognition that I was creating significant dissonance in my life through control. ALL my efforts at control were an attempt to avoid a nightmare I imagined would happen if I let go of control. When I realized the nightmare I imagined wasn’t as horrible as the nightmare I was living, I realized it was time to let go of control.

Even though I’d regularly been having experiences of Divine Resonance, I couldn’t surrender until I got to the end of my rope. And when I did I experienced true freedom for the first time in my life – a resonance that is well beyond words.

When I look at the aspects of my life where I still hold onto control, it seems hilarious and absurd. After all these years of consistently experiencing Divine Resonance exploding into my life every time I let go of control – and witnessing the same in countless others – what is the point of control now?

The invitation is clear in my life: let go of control completely! Step into trust and faith that I will always come immediately to a place of Deep Resonance whatever the apparent details may be. It is my resistance (my control) that creates the nightmare, the stress, and the suffering, and nothing else.

On this day, sitting with you, I surrender completely once again. I renew my awareness of the deep Trust AND Faith that I have in God. The deep recognition that this most essential energy which underlies all others is present in everyone and everything … including me. That we are all vessels through which Divine Resonance expresses in the world. That the pathway to a deeper experience of Divine Resonance involves letting go completely, and stepping into the mystery, into trust, and faith … that my soul has a plan for me beyond my ability to comprehend or imagine … that the Divine in everything supports all aspects of creation equally … that for me to do the work that I was born to do, the only thing required of me is to get out of the way completely.

From a place of exploring deeper resonance, or letting go of the dissonance, I invite you to do the same.

I renew my commitment to an authentic and vulnerable walk with you, and a celebration of our true nature, which may express in unique ways through each of us, but which is universal in all people, and all things.

Everywhere we look we will find the Divine returning our gaze. Let’s begin in the mirror, and then as we move through our days and weeks, let us be present the Divine presence in all those that we touch, and love, and serve.

From My Heart and My Soul, in Surrender, Trust, and Faith …

Ken

Ken W. Stone
The Soul Archaeologist
Experience the Divine Within
www.KenWStone.com