What really, is it? Does the idea of surrender indicate weakness, or is it a sign of strength? Is it control lost, or control gained? Is it being less ambitious or less focused? Is it akin to giving up or giving in? Is it declaring that you are weak and the other, strong or is it true exercise of your power? Is it the vice of a coward or the virtue of a wise one?
There is a very beautiful and popular verse in the Bhagwad Gita, Chapter 2, that most of us have grown up listening to:
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन |
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि || 47 ||
This verse asks us to focus on action (our work, our jobs, our responsibilities) and in the same breath it says that we must not to be attached to the fruits of our action.
Wow! But isn’t contrary to what we usually do? We are generally so fixated on the outcome that we forget to remember, that the results lie in action.
Let us take a bird’s eye view of this. ?
There are two beautiful hatchlings in a nest far up on the tree. The parents have been taking turns guarding the nest and feeding their young ones. And then the day arrives when the babies must leave the nest. So the parents begin teaching them how to fly. But these little ones are scared! They come out to the rim of the nest, look down at the possible fall height, and promptly take cover in the safety of the nest again.
This continues of a couple of days, until finally the parents push these babies out of the nest.
This is a moment of surrender. Surrender to the task at hand – which, in this case, is aimed at the growth and development of their young ones. There are two outcomes possible here. Either they would learn to fly, or they would fall and die. But then, they also say, “What you focus on, E X P A N D S.”
If, the parents had fretted only about the second possibility, the first would never have happened.
The chicks too begin their “free fall” – a fall of surrender. A fall that would make them fly in the sky or they would fall and die. And because they don’t want to die just yet, in that moment, their survival instinct comes into action. They begin to flap. And in that flapping they are able to push against the air and lift themselves up. They learn to fly.
Both the bird parents and the chicks had an outcome in mind. But in order to move towards the outcome, they had to shift focus to action rather than being fixated on and obsessing over the outcome.
We must have goals in life. It is important to be moving towards an outcome. And then we surrender to just taking action detaching ourselves from the outcome. We simply walk the path of our purpose.
Surrender is Trust. Surrender is Faith. Surrender is, knowing that when you take action in the moment called now, you will be divinely guided.
Nidhie Saagar
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