The Surrender Experiment: My Journey into Life's Perfection

by Michael A. Singer

I was gradually learning that life was not as fragile as that voice in my head would have me believe.

I had to learn to surrender more, instead of struggling so much. I had already determined to surrender to life’s flow, even if I couldn’t understand where it was taking me. I had to do the same thing inwardly. I needed to learn to just relax inside instead of fighting with my mind so much. Just because the voice talks doesn’t mean I have to listen to it or let it affect the direction of my life. It has nothing to do with me—I can just relax regardless of what it’s saying. I was back to the basics: I am the one who notices the voice talking.

I had been true to my commitment of not allowing a single thought to enter my mind about what I was going to teach. How would I ever know what life was capable of doing if I was always in control? I walked into my first class at Santa Fe completely open to whatever would unfold. As the students filed in, I simply quieted my mind and asked myself, Do you have something worthwhile to teach these students? In my heart I knew that I had a wealth of knowledge that would be both interesting and beneficial to their lives. So I took a breath, stood up, and just started speaking. I couldn’t have known it at the time, but that exact moment was laying the groundwork for the next phase of my spiritual journey: becoming a teacher.

What is important from all this is that if I had listened to my own mind, none of this would have happened. By following the flow of life, instead of my own preferences, I was now a carpenter, a teacher, and a published author. Inwardly, I had grown as well. The sharp line I had drawn between spiritual and nonspiritual had begun to fade. The energy I experienced while teaching my classes at Santa Fe was the same energy I was dealing with in my yoga and meditations.

For years I had thought that a spiritual life was about spending every day in silence and solitude. I was now running around getting all this work done. Yet somehow I felt more open and more connected to the energy flow than ever before. I kept my morning and evening meditations, but the hours in between were devoted to my classes and bringing Baba to Gainesville. I had surrendered just enough to where the flow of life was no longer something I chose to give in to—the flow had taken over my life. It had gone from subtly guiding me to running me. My mind kept telling me that after this was over I would go back to my solitary lifestyle. As usual, my mind was wrong.

My formula for success was very simple: Do whatever is put in front of you with all your heart and soul without regard for personal results. Do the work as though it were given to you by the universe itself—because it was.

I wrote and wrote with a fervor and passion that was almost frightening, first the patient record, then the medical procedures that needed to be billed. Everything I did, I did to the absolute best of my ability. I was not only writing a program for these two clients; I was writing the best program I possibly could as my gift to the universe.

Challenging situations create the force needed to bring about change. The problem is that we generally use all the stirred-up energy intended to bring about change, to resist change. I was learning to sit quietly in the midst of the howling winds and wait to see what constructive action was being asked of me.

All I could do was keep letting go at the deepest possible level. My mantra was: This Is Reality—Deal with It.

At some point there’s no more struggle, just the deep peace that comes from surrendering to a perfection that is beyond your comprehension. Eventually, even the mind stops resisting, and the heart loses the tendency to close. The joy, excitement, and freedom are simply too beautiful to give up. Once you are ready to let go of yourself, life becomes your friend, your teacher, your secret lover.