The sum total of all our actions equals our life
The concept of Isvara Pranidhana, is heralded time and time again in different texts on yoga as the greatest tool from suffering. It surrenders us to something outside of us, something higher, something we may not individually have a name for or an image but within us there is a deeper knowing somehow that our human minds are not the be all and end all. We simply allow ourselves to trust and we allow ourselves to fall into that trust, knowing that we will be caught, even though it may not always (or even often) look like we had envisaged.
In its more direct - and extremely simplified - translation, isvara pranidhana is ‘surrender to the highest’. Often the potency of this concept is lost in this somewhat esoteric translation. It feels too subtle, too out of reach. Absolutely we should reflect on it in this way, in this meaning, but it is often best to make things more tactile in the beginning and allow the subtle to reveal from there. How this rolls out in relation to this particular concept - surrendering to something higher - is the idea that outcomes are beyond us; we can take an action but the fruit of that action is not within our control. This is something that we all experience time and time again. We have our eyes on a particular result, we take every well thought out action that makes sense in our own minds to achieve that result, through the understanding of our past experiences as well as what we’ve studied but lo and behold, something very different results. This could be no more true than when our action and expectation involves other humans but it is relevant to all actions. For example, just the simple act of taking a walk can present so many unexpected twists and turns. We leave the house thinking we will simply walk from here to there, then along the way we may see someone who says something that changes our direction, we may be stung by a wasp, our hat might blow off into the river, which then initiates a swim, a bird lands near us that triggers a memory, that triggers a different action and all of a sudden our walk has changed the course of our life in ways we may never know to associate back to the walk itself.
The deep gift of Isvara pranidhana is the knowing that all we have control over is the actions themselves. How liberating! The great pressure release of Isvara Pranidhana! In this we can understand the significance of bringing quality to every single action we make - for the actions we choose are our whole life! This is where all of our energy can flow, for any energy invested in the outcome itself, is energy wasted. Life is always in action. There is no moment in life that is not. With this understanding we can see that our life is merely the sum total of all our doings! So where does our control, our grounding, reside in our life?
In the quality we bring to every single one of our actions with no attachment to the result, in knowing that with reverence and humility we did our best and that our best is all that we truly have to give. Handing over the effects of all of our actions to something outside of ourselves.
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