The Meaning of Surrender

Eckhart Tolle writes: "To some people surrender may have negative connotations, implying defeat, giving up, failing to rise to challenges, and so on. True surrender, however, is something entirely different. It does not mean to passively put up with whatever situation you find yourself in and to do nothing about it.  Nor does it mean to cease making plans or initiating positive action.

 Surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life."

Surrender means to accept the present moment unconditionally! It means to release inner resistance to what is! It reminds me of Desiderata by Max Ehrmann.

That certainly changes the concept of surrender for me.

How many times have I thought that something was amiss, wrong, unacceptable? I must admit the answer is often. The most recent example is my mother's health. Of course, I don't want my mother to be in pain, but there has been a lot of resistance in me this year to the actuality of my mother's health. It isn't that I fear death. I absolutely believe that we each will experience another dimension to life when we leave this plane of existence. However, there seems to be much more than I had ever conceived between being fully independent and being fully dependent prior to death.

This past winter and spring my mom was hospitalized for high blood pressure and lack of strength. We came to find out that she had likely had a small stroke. Her mind still is quite clear although she sometimes has difficulty articulating what she is thinking. She had no appetite and could not feed herself. She weighed less than 60 pounds! My sister and i thought she would not be able to survive in such a fragile condition.

However, she has survived! I am deeply grateful. She now is ravenous and eats everything that she is fed.  I think she is content. (She has never been great about directly sharing her feelings.) She does snot complain about much. (One day when the outside temperature was 85 degrees, I left the fan on and she complained that "she nearly froze.")

I believe Mom is living as fully in the now as she can. For the most part, she has surrendered to what is. The lack of surrender is in her children , at least this one.  I am working on myself to allow the universe to unfold as it is.

 Mom's 90th Birthday
Left to right top me, Kathy Hoiness
Bottom  Gerry Clark, Lela Clark,John Clark