Sagar gave me this book and asked me to read it. I read Michael Singer's 'Untethered Soul' four years ago and found it a very interesting read. This book is all about how surrender brings forth things that we cannot foresee or control. Singer goes from not wanting anything but peace in meditation, to quieten his mind and to listen to his inner voice, to live his life with zero resistance and finds stuff that he cannot dream of happening - like starting a spiritual commune to building a billion dollar business.
The concept of surrender is something that caught my attention a while ago. I found that there were times when I could do nothing else to change the situation there were a couple of responses I normally had 1) give up and say I never get what I want 2) get attached to the one outcome in my mind and go at it hard. I learned a third one in recent times by trial and error - that we can surrender to the situation. Now the way I understand surrender is to 1) not get attached to only one outcome 2) to be fine with whatever be the outcome 3) to keep the mind completely clear of any attachment and 4) not interfere with the process or try to control it in any way. Let it unfold and you see perfection the way you cannot imagine it.
That's what Singer did with his life. Going off from college into meditation, he found a moment when he saw himself being the witness to what he was thinking. It was a subtle moment with profound implications. Singer gave up everything, took off in his car and few belongings, found peace and clarity in meditation. He kept surrendering to whatever life threw at him - which was his experiment - and found himself returning to teach a course in college, write books, buy a piece of land in a place that would become a spiritual centre and a business hub based on spiritual practices. He finds Paramahansa Yogananda's 'Autobiography of a Yogi', organises a Shaktipat for Swami Muktananda, has his heart chakra opened by Amrit Desai and has several other such deeply profound spiritual experiences. The way the right people would show up to help him build a house, a community, a business shows his openness, his surrender to the process of life.
Singer taught himself to code and became a master coder building applications for companies, taught himself to build houses and built houses later. Whatever he did he did with a mindfulness, with full awareness and love and no transactional element. The people who came into his life showed up at the right time with the right expertise - coders, builders, lawyers. So deep was the surrender experiment that the award winning entrepreneur (who also was a monk) had to face a jail term which was probably his biggest test of 'surrender'. Knowing only one thing, Singer surrendered and was let off by the FBI.
There is one line in the book when Singer says - be open to all outcomes (or something to that effect). I fully subscribed to that. There's so much wisdom in the book and a clear story on how one can also achieve a lot by taking the path of least resistance, by surrendering.
I am reminded of a scene in Apollo 13 when Tom Hanks says how he surrendered on a particular flight and had no way to land or whatever The moment he turns his mind off and fully surrenders to all possibilities is when he sees a green patch of water in the middle of the ocean which is a miracle.
Its a beautiful feeling to experience surrender and its miraculous side effects. I can relate to some small experiences of mine and hope to grow my consciousness deeper into that space.
Thanks Sagar.
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