Surrender: By Mourad Rashad

SURRENDER. What are you going to  surrender? What are you going to let go of? What is in your grip that you are going to drop?

I remember Rinzai (Lin Chai) said “Just rid your mind of the principle from which action springs”.

The Principle of Action, your own inner conviction that you can act and do something to change anything or to reach anything. I do not mean action, in the material and physical sense, NO; action is Intention, action is having a Purpose, what is your Intention? What is your Purpose? That is why the Prophet Mohamed said “Actions are based on intentions, and each man will reap what he intends”. Intention, manifests as planning, scheming, devising, calculating and controlling, all these are expressions of intention. What makes you see the world as world, not as a Divine Manifestation, a Divine Existence, God’s Face, and the Kingdom of Heaven or the Garden of Eden?  It is to have a purpose, to have an object in mind.  Without your intention, without your purpose, you are THERE. Without intention the Kingdom of God is at hand.

Surrender your intention to Him, to the Lord, to God. Have no intention, simply be as a child. A child does not know. Intention means that you know what to do and you imagine that this is for your own good. The question is how am I going to live and function without this planning, scheming, controlling…etc.? Start with simple things; say to yourself, I am not going to plan -about any simple item in your life. Then observe carefully how this item will turn out. You experiment with life; you experiment with your world. It will be seen, that what you had left without any planning, scheming, controlling, turns up beautiful, better than what you have hoped for, if you planned it yourself. It cannot be better. That is how you start, cultivating your faith; from small things, going up to larger things, more important issues in life and so forth. Faith – in not having an intention, in not having a purpose, faith in abstinence from planning – will increase, till one day; you will say to yourself “What a burden to plan and scheme”. The Lord plans for me, devises for me and schemes for me. All I have to do is to stop planning and be attentive; Guidance will come, doors will open and opportunities will offer themselves to you.

Lao Tzu said:

As to the roaming of the sages,
They move in utter emptiness,
Let their minds meander in the great nothingness;
They run beyond convention
And go through where there is no gateway.
They listen to the soundless
And look at the formless,
They are not constrained by society
And not bound to its customs.

The sages roam; they have no self generated purposeful activities. Purpose for their actions is imposed on them from without, from the Kingdom of Heaven. Their rein is not in their own hands.

There is a great Sufi Master called Ibn Atta Allah the Alexanderian. This Sufi master composed a book called ” Become Enlightened; Just Stop Planning”. Another great Sufi Master called Ahmed Al Refaaie said:” When I was in Mecca during pilgrimage, I took an oath that I will have no purpose again as long as I live”

Planning for man constitutes his whole life, his whole existence; without planning, there is no man. Without a purpose, you do not exist.  You become egoless. You drop your ego. You drop any purpose. Planning is what makes you an ego, an individual and a mortal. Stop planning, stop having a purpose and re-discover what you used to call your life, re-examine your world without  planning.  Secrets will become no secrets; the world will be transformed into the Kingdom of Heaven, into the Garden of Eden.