Surrender To Know Pt. 1
We all have this feeling that we need to be in control. Since we view not being in control as bad [that is egoic thinking], we miss the knowing that can be found in surrender. Ego says, “I am an adult.” Remember Jesus said, “Except you become as a little child you shall not enter …”
The art of just letting go of trying to know and surrendering to knowing is a secret key to enlightenment. This is often written off by Christians as some eastern navel contemplation. But it is a Christian principle if they would stop what they already “know” [ego] and surrender to knowing what it says. Consider the passage, “Whoever tries to gain his own life will lose it; whoever loses his life … will gain it”, which is a quote from Jesus recorded in Matthew 10:39.
Here is an idea to turn a trip, maybe a shopping trip or a full vacation, into a spiritual learning and knowing experience. It has to do with putting your ego away for awhile. I got the bases of this idea from Stuart Wilde.
He went to France and rented a car to take a road trip.
He had not set down and mapped out an itinerary.
[That would have been his ego taking charge of his life.] He for this journey put his ego in a box.
When he started out, the car was pointed in a direction. So, he just drove. He observed things without any predetermined intent to do this or go there. Becoming a man being on the open road, he was introduced to many things that he would have never considered and was coming to know things alternatively.
He was investigating, but he did not have blinders on.
At the races they often put blinders on horses so they will not be distracted from their goal by things out of where they are headed. The horse then charges straight down the track.
We run through life toward our goals, and miss knowing what is right beside us. We have on our ego binders. “I got to get there. I got to get there yesterday.” We are not looking to see the flowers along the way, much less smell them, know them.
We will not know the smells that we rush by. We are ego focused on our goal. Figuratively, stop and smell the roses, and you will be surprised at what you will come to know. Drop the ego living life and surrender to what you come across.
Know that. Be aware of that because you will not come to know what you can know if you do not surrender your ego.
I, as a boy, always dreamed about being an Olympic archer.
Of course, that gives me the ego goal of hitting the bullseye at 30, 50, 70, and 90 meters. That was my goal. Ego blinders up.
While I could see, and move toward that goal, I could not see what I was missing along the way. I learned all the scientific technicalities of shooting, psychological and physical. Although I did not go to the olympics, I did become proficient.
But what had I learned. I probably know many things about archery that most do not. Many even who hunt with modern archery equipment are profoundly ignorant about archery. Ah, but I am a toxophily. Most of the modern hunters put on their ego blinders about the goal, which is bringing home the bacon. They lose archery in technology.
I was not much better when focusing on the 90 meter bull’s eye goal, even though I learned a lot of technicalities about the sport. I had the disquietude of ego, the grasping for the goal. I was not involved in alternative knowing.
As I got older, and hopefully a little more mature, I began to love archery and not the hitting of the mark. [Yes, I wanted to hit the target.] I surrendered to archery. It became not the goal of hitting the target but the experience of archery, the prep, draw, release, anchoring, follow through, i.e., becoming one with the experience. My accuracy improved when I stopped and smelled the roses. The shot is an experiential high, whether I hit the bull’s eye or not. It became a meditative experience.
I later learned about Japanese Kyudo, zen archery.
It is a path to spiritual enlightenment. If I can over simplify, when you become one with the bow and target, you come to know oneness.
You become totally relaxed because you have no goal no ego. It is not about hitting the bull’s eye. You are just being in the experience. You are just one in a life process. In the midst of doing archery, you cease being a human doing and become a human being. The ego of goal is gone, and you come to know. You have surrendered to just being. You come to know alternatively.
I am far from perfect with this, but so it can be with your walk through life. Archery here is an allegory for life, a type of Pilgrim’s Progress for life. Dismiss the ego of a human doing and embrace the surrender of a human being. You may be going someplace, but do not be doing that because you are just experiencing the journey. As some put it, “The goal is the journey.” Surrender to the journey.
To Be Continued …
