To surrender or fight

To Sur­ren­der or Fight?

Push through or let go? Fight or flight? Deal with it or not? Over­come re­sis­tance or suc­cumb? Rise above or go with the flow?

These are is­sues and states that we deal with every­day. We all have cop­ing mech­anisms, per­son­al­i­ty in­cli­na­tions and con­di­tion­ing kar­ma to con­front or un­wind. On a cer­tain lev­el the play of life is mir­rored in the move­ment of these forces, en­liven­ing, dead­en­ing, and neu­tral­iz­ing.

If we were sim­ple crea­tures, it would be enough to fol­low the flow of en­er­gy, some­times up­lift­ing, in­spir­ing us to ac­tion, some­times qui­et­ing, giv­ing us time for in­tegra­tion and rest. Hope­ful­ly, some peo­ple live like that.

For most of us, con­di­tioned with needs, de­sires, and goals, it can feel as if the pres­sure to do more weighs against the de­sire for peace, lead­ing not to a flow state but to a bat­tle be­tween our be­hav­ior our thoughts of what is nec­es­sary to sur­vive and

pos­si­bly thrive. Con­sid­er the ar­che­type of a com­pet­i­tive ath­lete. What is re­spect­ed is the one who goes the ex­tra mile, push­ing through painful in­juries and mak­ing the goal in spite of ad­ver­si­ty. The per­son re­ceiv­ing the gold medal is not the one choos­ing to sur­ren­der to the lim­i­ta­tions of body and mind, but to the one who push­es with in­hu­man strength and will to the fin­ish line.

The prob­lem with this so­cial con­struct is that it leads to a be­lief that we could be more, we need to prove our­selves, that the es­sen­tial na­ture of life is some­thing to be con­quered. It can be a sub­tle and con­sis­tent feel­ing of not be­ing enough. And worse than our per­son­al self-dep­re­ca­tion, it can lead to a be­lief that the world is an ob­sta­cle to over­come.

So then re­mains the ques­tion, when to push through and when to sur­ren­der? When to take ac­tion and when to wait for the in­vi­ta­tion? If it were only our in­di­vid­ual well-be­ing at stake, the truth is that some would rise to this chal­lenge and some would be thwart­ed by it. This no­tion is sup­port­ed by the ‘sur­vival of the fittest’ slo­gan of the pre­vi­ous cen­tu­ry.

How­ev­er, when you have a few bil­lion peo­ple striv­ing against their own na­tures, prob­lems arise. The peo­ple who slow down to watch the grass grow are of­ten seen as ‘losers’. The peo­ple who are pa­tient enough to wait for the most op­por­tune mo­ment could be

seen as lazy. Un­mo­ti­vat­ed. Lack­ing.

Each of us is go­ing to be forced, or en­ticed, or tempt­ed, to find our own bal­ance be­tween ac­tion and sur­ren­der. There is re­al­ly no one who can make that de­ci­sion for you.

Study­ing nat­ur­al law is a rem­e­dy. When we be­gin to ob­serve the cy­cles of life in our­selves, in na­ture, in the sea­sons, in re­pro­duc­tion, we be­gin to learn how to measure that flow with­in us.

In par­tic­u­lar, by un­der­stand­ing the na­ture of the sus­tain­ing force, the re­main­ing forces of du­al­i­ty can take their place in nat­ur­al or­der.

For ex­am­ple, rather than fo­cus­ing on giv­ing or tak­ing, grasp­ing or giv­ing, we can fo­cus upon the con­text, that be­ing the sit­u­a­tion as it is right now. When we be­gin to FEEL the sus­te­nance of the sus­tain­ing force, there aris­es an emo­tion that is dif­fer­ent from the ex­change of en­er­gy we are so ac­cus­tomed to.

The need to give and re­ceive, to par­tic­i­pate, to win, to ob­tain some­thing, and it’s ac­com­pa­ny­ing anx­i­ety, masks the pow­er and pres­ence of what is al­ready work­ing. What is al­ready work­ing in the ab­sence of our ef­fort. In the ab­sence of our will, of our do­ing.

The spir­i­tu­al mas­ters say that every­thing hap­pens, that we don’t do it any­way. In the big pic­ture, that may be true. How­ev­er we still have to live with our­selves, and that in­cludes liv­ing with the feel­ing that we should be do­ing some­thing. We are not speak­ing about giv­ing up on con­tri­bu­tions, ef­fort, work, re­la­tion­ships.

It’s not a men­tal de­ci­sion. It’s not a po­lar­i­ty. Rather, it speaks to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a perspec­tive shift.

That per­spec­tive shift is an emo­tion­al re­al­iza­tion that there are more than two forces at play. It’s more than good and evil, god and dev­il, right­eous and damned, right or wrong, win­ning or los­ing. What’s on the third side of the coin?

With the knowl­edge of the third sus­tain­ing force, comes the op­por­tu­ni­ty to know when to en­gage, and when to let go. When to fight and when to sur­ren­der. We can have the ex­pe­ri­ence of fight­ing dis­ease. It may not be the ap­pro­pri­ate anal­o­gy, though com­mon enough that peo­ple un­der­stand what you are speak­ing about. Some­times you just re­lax and let the ill­ness run it’s course. And some­times you can feel that your body is fight­ing for sur­vival, fight­ing off for­eign sub­stances, and that is needs the strength. It’s not the same each time.

Some­times we need to strug­gle with what we have been taught, or strug­gle with our be­liefs, in or­der to dis­till the deep­er wis­dom. When we un­der­stand that these strug­gles are part of the mat­u­ra­tion path, then we can be ok with the in­her­ent dis­comfort those mo­ments bring.

Some­times we need to break through, and some­times we need to be bro­ken. With greater un­der­stand­ing, we get to know the dif­fer­ence.