Real Power

Real power: 

it's the last niyama, Isvara Pranidhana, and it urges our surrender, asking us to recognize that we belong fully to something larger than ourselves alone, allowing the deep intimacy of reality to take over the true function of our lives. That's a lot to ask for, placing our trust in mystery, giving away the only sense of real power that we seem to have - and all for the sake of yoga? Most of us balk at this idea, I certainly did, especially as I dove into yoga with a passion to discover for myself what real power I might have, not to be controlled by any concept of a god, but to be liberated from all concepts once and for all. Yet what I've discovered since is the real power of surrender, that only by giving everything away, all of my beliefs and concepts of  power, do I gain any measure of liberation, the true freedom of knowing I control absolutely nothing at all...

that I'm already surrendered. 

and have no power of my own. 

of course this flies in the face of all we're ever taught to believe in, even the Judeo-Christian sense of God is one that grants us free-will and the ability to control our lives. From early on we're indoctrinated with the belief that we're in charge of every aspect of life, from health to career, marriage and children, all of it, gaining praise and taking fault for every success and failures. 

there's no place for surrender here. 

and that's why Isvara Pranidhana is the last of the niyamas, waiting until there's a glimpse of larger power, a force of life that we're intimately involved in. That's what we surrender to, and in truth it's nothing other than ourselves revealed in real form - reality. 

we surrender to reality. 

this isn't an action that we take on, it's nothing that we do - it's more of an acceptance of what already is, a relaxed sigh that our quest to control every aspect of our lives is truly over, smiling, if not outright laughing at the the notion that we once believed we had real power. Isvara Pranidhana waits until we're ready, working with the previous suggestions of the yamas and niyamas yoga ethics, loosening the mental grip of our illusion of control. We catch a glimpse of true power through them all, a hint of our surrender, and then we finally reach the point of seeing...

there is nothing to control, no one with any true sense of control - there's just life, reality, happening completely on its own, and we're intimately involved with its flow, our real power is of belonging, and this is all that we surrender to...

only what we already and always are. 

life.

~

Peace, Eric