Awakening at Lightning Speed
by Solomon Faber

I have had the joy of being a spiritual teacher and guide for a number of years and have witnessed many paths and attitudes. There are numerous choices we make in our daily life to appreciate ourselves and come to a place of kindness, humility, and awakening. None, in my opinion, creates more transformation at an accelerated rate than to unconditionally lose or surrender. Every major teacher and religion speaks of surrender. At first this sounds spiritually incorrect but in fact it is the most positive space in which one can exist.

Though meditation and all other techniques are wonderful in whatever way you use them, they are a distant second to the actual surrendering. I have known “New-Age” individuals who have spent 20 to 40 years meditating and doing workshops and have been shocked when they became aware they have never surrendered.

When an individual loses, they give up the right to win and to be in control. They allow the other party to be on top, be right, be significant and important, be smug and arrogant, be strong and uncaring, etc. This surrender, or losing, allows an individual to experience themselves as small and helpless, vulnerable, unprotected, open to everything with their entire heart, mind, and body.

True Surrender begins with these qualities:

1. Complete giving up of one’s position as an authority or having control in a form of concept or belief.
2. Realizing that you are like everyone else on this Earth. For instance, if you are blaming George Bush for the awful job he is doing, you must recognize all the places you have failed, hurt others, been mean and uncaring, ignorant of what is needed for you and others, etc. Everything you blame in others is in you. There is no positive or negative blame that is the truth.
3. Giving up complaining about yourself or the other person.
4. An open and unprotected heart. (This assumes the individual has learned that all attempts at protecting oneself are futile and create an environment of blame, victimization, and tyranny.) Putting a wall up never works.
5. Feeling small, helpless, and insignificant in the use of power, manipulation, or covert strategies.
6. Being in utter humility … in a state of being that is like dust under the other’s feet.
7. Realizing that we know nothing about anything. We don’t know who we are and are allowing all our concepts and beliefs about the other to be false and inaccurate. In other words … to un-create separation.
8. To be last or left out of being acknowledged, accepted, approved of, or being heard on any level.
9. Allowing Spirit to be the beloved guest in our heart.
10. Knowing we are going nowhere with nowhere to go. Not trying to be right or on top.
11. Experiencing utter helplessness in our ability to get our way, manoeuver, and escape.
12. Being soft in our heart. Letting go of any meanness, coldness, or stance that creates conflict.
13. Complete responsibility and accountability that we are alone in our creating of the entire situation.
14. A full willingness to sit at the feet of the individual and a complete sense of gratitude for what this individual or situation has brought to your life.
15. Giving up being cool and collected.

Losing can appear in many forms. A person who is usually quiet and shy could become loud and aggressive. This person could then appear as pushy, uncaring, angry, or any other form of feeling or perception. There is no formula. Every individual has their own particular way to surrender, to give up and lose face. This is not a performance.

How you feel as you surrender might seem extremely uncomfortable or peaceful and how you appear on the outside might not fit other people’s expectations or pictures. Surrender is only known within the person surrendering. That is why you never know where an individual is by how they look. It is important to maintain kindness and not use surrender as a way to manipulate, win, or get the upper hand. This is not about getting your ego satisfied.

Fighting is not surrender unless you have been giving up what you need and received being humiliated for so long that even if you got it, it wouldn’t matter. Then fight or be in conflict for the fun of it. There is no way to hurt the other individual when one is coming from this peaceful place. In other words, no attachment to a result exists … only playfulness.

The fastest way to lose is the willingness to be wrong. Eventually though, an individual has lost and been willing to be wrong for so long that it is no longer a challenge and then being right becomes the surrender. These individuals are exploring love.

I have been asked so many times, “Am I surrendered?” If you are asking and there exists the slightest doubt, then you are not surrendered.

Solomon lives in Grass Valley, California and can be contacted at 530-852-7836, sol@atimetoheal-om.net. He is a full time healer and teacher and works long-distance, as well as in person. He will be doing an evening and full-day event at Positive Passions, 1C-1005 Broadway Ave., Saskatoon, Friday, Aug. 15, 6–9 pm and Saturday, Aug. 16, 10 am–6 pm. For information and registration see the colour display ad on page 33 of the 14.2 May/June issue of the WHOLifE Journal.