Raising the white flag.

After many written communications, Robert E. Lee and General Grant decided to meet in Appomattox. It was April 9, 1865. Lee’s men ­– his army – were tired. Exhausted. Weary. Surrounded.

Surrender.

No way out. A last resort.

I hear the word and I feel unease. The defeat in every syllable. The end of the rope. A pair of cards folding on the table. A white flag raising admist chaos.

But what about surrender in grander terms? Does it hold the same negative anxiousness? Surrender, I mean, in regards to, not just every now and then acts, but as a part of our everyday living. The yoga practice of ishvara-pranidhana, one of Patanjali’s niyamas, or internal disciplines. Surrendering to a higher power.

God. The universe. Science. Surrender, ishvara-pranidhana, does not require a single belief point or source. Single-mindedness. Or perfection.

What I find most challenging about this niyama is breaking long-rooted beliefs in how we view control. Control, we say, is positive. It makes us the navigators of our own lives. Our work. Our path. Our love. Our plan. And it provides comfort in a chaotic world.

But control is an illusion. A pretty façade on a building that cannot be entered before it is time; its rooms, its walls, its state all unknown until the day life pushes us inside.

Four and a half years ago, I started to have health problems that rattled everything I thought was in my purview. A healthy lifestyle, exercise, was supposed to save me from becoming sick with anything, including this autoimmune disorder I got. But it did not ­– because the life of our bodies, is, scary as it sounds, largely out of our control.

The first response to illness is to grab tighter to the things we think we can control. We hold our jobs closer. Our family. Plan our days and the rest of our lives with new knowledge and awareness but fiercer grasping. And then we try to find our footing again in the world.

But such a tight grip is not sustainable. We cannot control how our todays or tomorrows unravel. Ishvara-pranidhana is not giving up, but letting go. Allowing some of the anxiousness of life and hardship to fall through our fingertips. It is the acknowledgement that, for the success of all humankind, our will has to take second to the will of the Universe. Trusting it to give abundance, and, yes, sometimes, take it away. 

Surrender. Let it bring ease. 

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