Action and Contemplation

 

I find myself returning again and again to the puzzle of action and surrender as spiritual practice.  These seemingly contradictory stances are foundational to yoga philosophy (Abhaysa and Vairagya) and also contemplative Christian practices (Action and Contemplation or prayer). 

How are we to both act in the world and surrender?

To understand this paradox, we first need to consider the different part of our selves.  There is the egoic small self which is ever focused on self-preservation through accomplishment, achievement, belonging, love.  We need to build up this part of the self in the first stage of life as we learn about who we are, what we are about, how we want to live in the world. We can’t help to become overidentified with these outer parts of our lives, what we have accomplish, what we own, what we seem to have power over.  And this leads to the suffering when these parts of us embedded in material things inevitably change through loss, failure, betrayals, injustice, or neglect. We face an existential egoic death when we cling in this way to things that are changing. In our spiritual teachings, what we are being asked to surrender is this egoic part of the self.  To let our identify enter in a kind of free fall that is not attached to the outcomes of things.

Without the ego, though, how do we act in the world?

Without the ego in the driver’s seat, our actions in world will naturally steer towards harmony, trust, love, and care.  The energy for these action come welling up from the depths our being. Action undertaken with this stance of giving, participation, and solidarity for the greater good of ourselves and others cannot fail because this kind engagement with the world is supported by and rooted in the deeper reality of existence.  It aligns with what is already happening.

In practice, what this feels like to me, is the difference between rowing a boat across the ocean and opening up a sail to catch the wind.  On my own egoic steam, I don’t get very far. But when I surrender control and open up to divine wind, I begin to move and act towards the direction of growth, clarity, wisdom beyond what my smaller self could have ever manifested.