I've always wanted to make another blog called thespiritualme@blogspot.com or sumthing like that. But havent done it yet.
Neways.. heres an article I wrote about complete surrender to God. Wrote it for a news letter that came out as part of a Sai Temple.
REF: http://www.thesaifoundation.org/saiJoomlaProd
/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=131&Itemid=79
True Surrender – The easy way to live life
Almost every religion that exists, that I know of, believes in complete and total surrender to God – the concept of Poorna Sharanagathi as can be said in Sanskrit. So what really is “total surrender”? And what is the purpose of doing it? I just searched for the words “to surrender to God” in Google and I found a good explanation on one of the sites.
“Surrender means to yield ownership, to relinquish control over what we consider ours: our property, our time, our"rights". When we surrender to God, we are simply acknowledging that what we "own" actually belongs to Him. He is the giver of all things. We are responsible to care for what God has given us, as stewards of His property, but by surrendering to God, we admit that He is ultimately in control of everything, including our present circumstances. Surrendering to God helps us to let go of whatever has been holding us back from God's best, for our lives. By surrendering to God, we let go of whatever has kept us from wanting God's ways first.”
http://www.allaboutfollowingjesus.org/surrender-to-god.htm
Complete surrender is one of the most difficult things to do in life. It’s simply impossible for most people to just “give up” everything to God and tell Him that He is the one who’s got to take care of everything; the biggest obstacle in the way being our ego. Ego is a conscious feeling of your self and identity, the knowledge of ‘I’, the thought that ‘I am me’. It is when we start thinking that we are the doers of the action and we are the ones to bear the fruits of the actions. It is one of the root causes for most problems and confusions in life. Very few people actually get the courage to acknowledge the fact that in reality there is someone up there who is actually controlling our reins and executing things according to His will and wish, and we are nothing but mere instruments in the process. So is there any need for all the ego and fights when there is only He?
What does it really take to surrender? To surrender is to simply have 100% faith and confidence in the Divine that He WILL take care of you. He may toss you around through different really difficult situations in life, from which you believe that you just cannot come out. But all you actually need to do is to simply surrender to Him and tell Him that since He is the one that’s putting you through all the problems, its His responsibility to get you out of it as well. And well, believe it or not, He will do it! After all His whole purpose of creating problems in people’s lives (and eventually getting them out of them), is to show that He is there. We just need to believe in His presence firmly, with a lot of faith and trust. Surrendering is like a magic potion. It is the one thing that can keep you stress free, and keep you happy despite the turmoil you may face in life because once you surrender to God, you want His will to be done and not yours. And so you are prepared for anything to happen. You leave aside your opinions of what may be the best or worst in the situation and you start being open hearted and open minded. It silences the confusions in you and keeps you ready to accept anything that may happen. You just learn to accept it without much ado and complaints, and rather happily that, that was how things were meant to be. And so you start looking at things beyond the problem/ confusion and start living up life.
And so, how exactly do we surrender? In my personal experience I have seen that writing to Him is the easiest way to do it. One way is to keep a diary and write letters to Him in it. Make it a habit to jot down all your thoughts, dreams, problems, confusions, prayers whenever time permits. Try and share everything with Him- the wildest dreams to the deepest fears. Usually when you look back at your previous diary entries or your previous letters, you WILL find that He has taken care of most of it. Suppose you reported confusion in your life and didn’t know how to handle it then, after you write a letter of surrender to God, the problem usually will get solved or answered by the time you actually check on it again. Here at Kalpataru Sai Nilayam, Rev. Mira Sai Maa graciously reads out letters of devotees in private to Shri Baba. You can just visit the website at http://www.thesaifoundation.org/ and submit your prayers there. Just write down whatever you will and please, and it will be read out very soon to Baba. And before you even realize, most of your problems will be attended to and taken care of by Him. It is our great fortune to have Baba listening to all our prayers here at Kalpataru Sai Nilayam. So, even if you are in the middle of work and are just completely frustrated with something, don’t let it nag you inside out. Just submit your prayers there, surrender everything to Him and leave it. He will attend to it. Of course, we have to learn to wait patiently for Him to act on it. Don’t let the mind run wild while you are waiting on it. Simply believe that He will look on to it. And once you think that He has solved your problem or confusion, let’s not forget to thank him for it. Thanksgiving to God is extremely important. We should tell him periodically that we are happy for everything He is giving us and especially for taking care of us.
So, just surrender to Him. Leave all your problems aside with Him, asking Him to take care of them, and learn to live life happily and to enjoy even the smallest of His creations. Surrendering is probably the healthiest way to deal with stress and to live life happily and it definitely is the right thing to do.
Sai Ram.
