Surrender. I have to admit, I am not fond of this word. I have always been quite competitive. Not one to surrender but fight to the death - even if we were just playing capture the flag.
In Raja Yoga we're taught to surrender everything. Out of context, it sounds like a cult directive. But when I consider what it really means, a cult directive would be much easier!
In this day and age, there is a lot of sorrow. All of us are looking for happiness, peace, contentment. We're lumbered with diseased bodies and rising crime rates, financial uncertainty and national unrest, and if we're lucky enough to have kept our job, we're having to work extra hard to keep it. Stress is blamed for many of our illnesses, including those that lead to death. So, what chance do we have at true happiness?
The world is offering a lot of happiness. For example, vacations, parties, drugs (medicinal and recreational) - all of these are promises of happiness, but do they deliver? Vacations last 1-2 weeks or, if you're lucky, a bit more. But they do eventually end and you have to eventually face daily life again. Parties are also short lived. And drugs, well, you have to keep taking more and more to get the same levels of 'happiness'. In reality, these are just traps. We think they will give us happiness, so we buy into them, we invest emotionally into them, and then we're left disappointed and feeling like we've not had enough. How do we break out of these traps? Through surrender.
Surrender of what, exactly? Well, it's the ego* that says I need happiness in the form of food, drink, drugs. I need happiness in the form of vacations, sports, video games. I need happiness in the form of MySpace, YouTube, Facebook. As long as we feed ego with these things, ego will want more and more. Ego is never satisfied. Ego grows bigger with each feeding and hungrier as well. And so we end up spending our whole lives to feed ego.
On the other hand, we can surrender ego. Give up this false identity of the self and stop feeding it. The only way to get rid of ego is to starve it. Let it whither away to nothing. And when we do, it will no longer be our master. Surrender does not mean surrendering our possessions, our wealth, our personalities, but surrendering our ego. In Raja Yoga we are taught to use everything in a worthwhile way. Yet ego cannot be used this way, so it's best to just surrender it. And when we do, we are free to be who we really are and to experience constant bliss.
*By ego, I mean the false indentity of the self - often characterised as arrogant, self-centered, selfish, always right, etc. The ego is vulnerable and so we are always ready to protect it (defend it) and preserve it. And it's this need of preserving ego that keeps us trapped.
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