The Surrender Experiment: My Journey into Life's Perfection

by Mickey A. Singer

Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda,

In fact, I had lost interest in everything else. I only wanted to meditate my way back beyond myself.

gone beyond their personal self to find their spiritual self.

you have to die to be reborn.

die of the personal to be reborn in the spiritual.

start the willful practice of accepting what the flow of life was presenting me.

Could it really be so hard to just let it rain when it rains and be sunny when it’s sunny without

complaining about it?

replaced all that meaningless noise with:

Look how beautiful; it’s raining.

practices of acceptance

I clearly remember deciding that from now on if life was unfolding in a certain way, and the only reason I was resisting it was because of a personal preference, I would let go of my preference and let life be in charge.

didn’t want to be in charge of my life; I wanted to be free to soar far beyond myself.

What would happen to me if I just inwardly surrendered my resistance and let the flow of life be in charge?

life brought events in front of me, I would treat them as if they came to...

had witnessed firsthand what happened when I let go and followed the subtle events that led me to the hills of Mexico and then to those

wonderful experiences with the Mexican villagers.

had gone through most of my life thinking I knew

what was good for me, but life itself seemed to know better.

I always wore the same clothes:

barefoot.

practice maintaining a meditative state at many points throughout the day.

There is no way I’m going to start pulling down all my old economics textbooks—I’m done with that.

surrender to what life brought before me.

was no longer in charge of my life.

We were quite the pair.

The first culture clash was regarding

was tutoring him as an act of surrender to the flow of life, and I didn’t want to be paid.

began to see my entire relationship with Alan as another one of life’s magical gifts, despite my initial resistance.

I no longer saw the administration’s mistake as a problem.

willingly let a part of my ego die a painful death.

a sign of my willingness to surrender.

In the name of transcending myself, I had surrendered and willingly faced my personal fears. Then at the last moment, instead of certain hell, I was lifted up to heaven.

Driving to the exam, I had felt as though life was asking me to willingly let a part of me die that day.

I was so glad I had been willing to take that risk.

stop trying to be so humble.

through no intention of my own,

practice of Kriya yoga,

My heart dropped to my feet.

let go of my reaction.

But my commitment to letting life be in charge from now

Surrender—what

follow the invisible into the unknown.

But surrender did give me clarity in one essential area:

my personal preferences of like and dislike were not going to guide my life.

I was allowing my life to be guided by a much more powerful ...

the practice of surrender was actually done in two, very distinct steps:

first, you

let go of the personal reactions of like and dislike that form inside...

and second, with the resultant sense of clar...