Letting go is never easy. The desire to have, to hold, to possess and to control is part of our nature. But the more powerful part yearns to learn the lesson of growth and openness; to enter the mystery of secret loving without desiring, to live in emptiness and stillness and therefore in a state of receptivity and readiness so that the quality of our being and "our being present to" are all that matter.
I come from God,
I belong to God,
I return to God.
God's grace cannot be found in the sense that lost property is found ... It can only be found in seeking God and surrendering ourselves in self-abandoning love, unconditionally and forever. We should continue to ask ourselves as we go through life whether we feel that we are being granted this favor of living by dying to ourselves.
Surrender is not an abandonment of ourselves in the face of difficulty, nor is surrender synonymous with submission, we yield ourselves to God freely, not under coercion. Surrender is not resignation. It is an invitation to be ourselves more fully... Surrender is not so much a giving up as it is an OPENING up. It is a dynamic living and striving in the face of the unknown. When we surrender in faith, we enter into the power of God, into the realm of all possibility. We open ourselves to new perspectives, thoughts and dimensions of life yet to be explored. We do not give ourselves in the sense of extinguishing ourselves. Instead, the little lick of light we are joins with the holy flaming that is God. We are brought more fully into ourselves and at the same time brought into that fullness which is greater than all that is.
Direct experience suggests that contemplation and deep self-forgetfulness draw us into God, in whom we have our life and being. This magnetic, purifying silence has healing power: it fuses time -- brings past, present and future to a single still and perfect point. Here healing (what we call a miracle) is automatic. This stillpoint is love, and only love heals.
It is the nature of a word to reveal what is hidden. The word that is hidden still sparkles in the darkness and whispers in the silence. It entices us to pursue it, to yearn and sigh after it. For it wishes to reveal to us something about God.
There is an old story about a famous rabbi living in Europe who was visited one day by a man who had traveled by ship from New York to see him. The man came to the great rabbi's dwelling, a large house, and was directed to the rabbi's room, which was in the attic. He entered to find the master living in a room with a bed, a chair, and a few books. The man had expected more. After greetings, he asked, "Rabbi, where are your things?”
The rabbi asked in return, "Well, where are yours?"
The visitor replied, "But, Rabbi, I"m only passing through."
And the master answered, "So am I, so am I."
You who live within my heart,
Awaken me to the immensity of your spirit,
To the experience of your living presence!
Deliver me from the bonds of desire,
From the slavery of small aims,
From the prison of fear and ignorance,
From the delusion of egohood!
Enlighten me with the light of your wisdom,
Suffuse me with the incandescence of your love,
Which includes and embraces the darkness,
Like the light that surrounds the dark core of the flame,
Like the love of a mother that surrounds
The growing life in the darkness of her womb,
Like the earth protecting the tender germ of the seed.
Let me be the seed of your living light!
Give me the strength to burst the sheath of selfhood,
And like the seed that dies in order to be reborn,
Let me fearlessly go through the portals of death,
So that I may awaken to the greater life:
And I said to the one who stood at the gate of the year: "Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown." The reply: "Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That will be to you better than light, and safer than a known way."