Surrender: To Bow Down

The subject of surrender is tricky and paradoxical. On one hand, the divine is so immense and vast, so powerful and encompassing, so sacred and brilliant, when we are immersed in its presence, there are no words adequate, no senses strong enough, no thoughts capable of expressing the experience. The experience of God can only be met by surrender, by bowing down and completely giving in to it. Scriptures will go on for chapter after chapter with Om namo namaha: Om I Bow, I Give Homage, I Bow. The only way for the individual soul to merge with consciousness is by surrendering our sense of limited self; only by surrender does the ego give way to the heart. On the other hand, the danger of blind faith and relinquishing our agency, our sovereignty, is obvious. In human society, we are surrounded by others motivated by ego, wounds, neediness and fear, and to abandon our responsibility for self-protection can only lead to abuse. It is imperative that we surrender our independence to no one.

This same paradox exists in marriage: the call of love draws us to enter the space of our shared heart, to merge with our beloved, yet a healthy marriage requires that we set boundaries for ourselves so that we give ourselves the space to think and feel for ourselves, so that we can nourish ourselves, so that we ultimately preserve a safe space for ourselves. No matter how deeply we love our partner, like all humans they retain flaws and wounds, and are capable of harming us.

This is a question that goes far beyond the quandary of all couples who navigate the strange new world of having to consider two perspectives in all matters, who relinquish the freedoms they formerly took for granted. These require tremendous communication, negotiation, and practice over years and years, whereby our unique personalities and needs become known, navigated and accommodated. Through this process we will go through numerous crises as a couple, coming to respect and love one another, not in spite of our bewildering differences, but by lovingly embracing them. Surrender comes into play when we consider marriage as a path to merging with God, using the vessel of our commitment and sadhana to magnify love so powerfully we cannot contain it with our senses and bodies. The prospect of marriage as a practice of Yoga inevitably leads us to the proposition of surrender: we surrender, not to our partner’s ego but rather to the sacred space that we share, to the love that we hold, to the transcendent power of union. It sounds like some far-off idealism, but after we have weathered enough crises and navigated enough life together and have been tested by sickness and brushes with death, we develop a deeper trust in one another and this mysterious kind of union becomes more real and tangible. We come to perceive the divinity in our partner and to that divinity we surrender. In doing so, the power and wisdom and consciousness of God becomes part of our experience of life.