INTRODUCTION

things "go wrong"quite often. It is precisely at those times
thatsurrenderneedstobepracticedif youwant toeliminate
pain and sorrow from your life. Acceptance of What is
immediately frees you from mind identification and thus
reconnectsyouwithBeing.Resistanceisthemind.
Surrender is a purely inner phenomenon. It does not
mean that on the outer level you cannot take action and
changethesituation.Infact,itisnottheoverallsituationthat
you need to accept when you surrender, but just the tiny
segmentcalledtheNow.
Forexample, ifyouwere stuckinthemudsomewhere,
you wouldn't say. "Okay, I resign myself to being stuck in
the mud." Resignation is not surrender. You don't need to
acceptanundesirableorunpleasantlifesituation.Nordoyou
needtodeceiveyourself andsaythat thereisnothingwrong
with being stuck in the mud. No. You recognize fully that
you want to get out of it. You then narrow your attention
downto the present moment without mentally labeling it in
anyway. Thismeans that thereisnojudgment oftheNow.
Therefore, there is no resistance, no emotional negativity.
You accept the "isness" of this moment. Then you take
action and do all that you can to get out of the mud. Such
action I call positive action. It is far more effective than
negative action, which arises out of anger, despair, or
frustration.Untilyouachievethedesiredresult,youcontinue
topracticesurrenderbyrefrainingfromlabelingtheNow.
Letmegiveyouavisualanalogytoillustratethepoint
I am making. You are walking along a path at night,
surrounded by a thick fog. But you have a powerful
flashlightthatcutsthroughthefogandcreatesanarrow,dear
space in front of you. The fog is your life situation, which
includes past and future; the flashlight is your conscious
presence;thedearspaceistheNow.
Non-surrender hardens your psychological form, the
shelloftheego,andsocreatesastrongsenseofseparateness.
The world around you andpeople in particular come to be
perceived as threatening. The unconscious compulsion to