How to Surrender to Divinity Within to Find Peace and Balance
This is the tenth of ten posts teaching the first two limbs of yoga— the yamas and the niyamas— in a manner that relates to contemporary living with real-world anxieties. A key component to a life of integrity is framing it with the yamas and the niyamas as you come to know how you relate with others and love yourself. I will teach these guidelines one at a time with the hopes you, the reader, take the time and care to implement these principles into your daily life. Notice your thoughts, words, and actions and if they are in alignment with the teachings I give.
The tenth principle and last of the niyamas is surrendering to the ebb and flow of life to connect with God’s will. You can also regard it as Surrender to the Divine Within.
We find humility when we do this. We don’t have to meditate for two hours to feel this principle in action.
When you gaze in the eyes of a loved one and he/she lovingly looks back at you, you are in a state of surrender to the divine. It’s an undeniable presence of Divinity between the two of you. You are content, pure inside, and grateful for what you have. You surrender to any imagined shortcomings you have, and you’re fully absorbed—you’re one with the moment.
According to Deborah Adele, the heart of this niyama presupposes a Divine force at work in our lives. We tap into the Divine nature within us through meditation and the healing art of yoga. We create practice causing change to transform ourselves into our best selves, and we use much self-inquiry to get to what is real.
At the center of it all is Divinity. It is both within and surrounding us all the time. Moreover, it is there for us when we need it—all we have to do is breathe and find our grounding to access it. Deborah Adele teaches in The Yamas & Niyamas, “This guideline invites us to surrender our egos, open our hearts, and accept the higher purpose of our being.”
Surrender does not mean giving up and letting go of integrity. Rather, it means finding your inner-felt resources and using them to navigate your journey, knowing the Divine deeply cares about you and supports you along the way.
Heeding this, you can soften your skin and let go when you need to trust in the Higher Power. You can’t white-knuckle your way through life and feel freedom. Instead, you find the balance between effort and relaxation, just as you do in your mindful movement practice.
If we go too hard and rigid through life, we miss out on all of the feelings and sensations waiting for us if we could have accepted them with more vulnerability. Surrender to the Divine invites us to go with the flow, ride out the waves of daily life, and enjoy the freedom of not planning everything along the way. After all, as John Lennon sang in Beautiful Boy, “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.” We can open our eyes, ears, and heart to what’s happening moment to moment and enjoy it as it comes.
Comment below on how you surrender in your daily life. You can opt-in for my email list here to receive a toolkit for practices that set you up for wellness practices.