(book) The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer [10/10]

[Sagar Takker]

"If life can manifest the DNA molecule on its own, not to mention create the human brain, how is it that we feel that we have to control everything on our own? There must be another, more sane way to approach life. For example, what would happen if we respected the flow of life and used our free will to participate in what’s unfolding, instead of fighting it? What would be the quality of the life that unfolds? Would it just be random events with no order or meaning, or would the same perfection of order and meaning that manifests in the rest of the universe manifest in the everyday life around us?"

These questions appear in one of the first few pages of the book. The rest of the book does an excellent job at demonstrating what a life looks like if lived in alignment with 'Infinite Intelligence.'

The author had a sort of a spiritual experience when he first identified that the voice in his head was not who he was. He started his journey with wanting to quiet his mind down. At some point, he started ignoring the voice in his head to take directions about what to do and what not to do. And instead started 'surrendering' to the flow of life.

Following this simple way, he ends up buying a land in woods to live alone. Eventually, over some years, it grows into a spiritual community. Ends up in a contract to build a house for someone, which eventually turns into his first and very successful business venture. Ends up writing a program for a medical system, which eventually turns into a big, billion dollar business.

Instead of writing about the book or the story, I would prefer to share my experience with applying its teachings. Here’s one:

My personal experience has been that very major decisions in my life are not made by ‘me.’ Decisions just tend to happen. Mostly they don’t make any logical sense but in the end, everything seems to fall into place. As if there was a higher intelligence, much more intelligent than my conscious mind, orchestrating everything.

Around three years ago, I ended up working in bank. It was not something that I ever imagined I would do. I had hit a sort of dead-end in terms of my career situation; I had no idea what I could do to earn a living. The first thing that appeared in my radar screen was a bank job. I started preparing for the entrance exam, aced it and got in.

All those who cleared the exam were invited for a three weeks pre-induction training. The training happened near the same city I live in - Delhi. Most of the people who were in the training were from Delhi or nearby areas. During the training, a rumour spread around that we were all going to get posted in Mumbai (which is around 1500 km from Delhi and has very different culture, weather conditions, food etc.)
Most of the other participants, almost everyone, got so anxious about the whole thing. Mumbai is far more expensive and way too different from what we all were used to.

I, on the other hand, surrendered to the ‘will’ of life. Turns out that while most others struggled a lot with the transition, I had a really good time. Many others had a difficult time finding a flat to rent; they spent days in order to find a suitable place and mostly ended up in kind of ‘okay’ flats (far away from their workplace, not ventilated or sunlit enough, etc.). I didn’t think much about finding a flat; went with the flow, saw a couple of options and ended up renting a beautiful small flat (well ventilated, abundance of sun light, 30 minutes away from workplace).

Most others struggled with making an arrangement to get their daily meals. One could either learn to cook or settle for a not so satisfying (or healthy) local restaurant food (called tiffin service). I ended up meeting a lady (she lived in the same compound, just a few blocks away) who cooked really nice food. I used to get my meals at a really low price (almost half what others would usually pay) and the food quality was super excellent. Moreover, I developed a deep emotional connection with the lady. I used to call her didi, which means elder sister in Hindi.

It brings tears to my eyes how everything orchestrated in such a Divine way.

At my work, I learnt so many things which would serve me greatly in life. I got valuable technical knowledge about banking, finances, managing and investing money. And I learnt a lot of life lessons about diligence, managing emotions, building connections, dealing with people etc.
What helped me a lot along this whole three year journey was this attitude to surrender to life’s intelligence.

I had many challenges too. By many I mean a lot many - there were many difficulties. But everything used to fall into place sooner or later as I let go and surrendered.

Most of it was not planned by me.
Most of it was Divinely Orchestrated.