RETURN TO SPIRIT


BOOK V
 
 

SURRENDER
 
 
 
 
 
 

Developed by Hiranya
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


SpiritSong Publisher

© Barbara Stone, 2003

In the usual Yogic tradition, you are requested to take full responsibility for your life.  That means the recognition that whatever may emerge from working with these lessons is part of your life and, therefore, is your responsibility.  We all receive the lessons we need from one source or another, and our only choice is whether we attend to them or not.  So, if you find yourself with this guidebook in hand with the intention to make your way through it, it is because you are meant to do this kind of self-investigation.This material is not intended to be, nor to take the place of, psychotherapy.  It is designed to assist psychologically healthy adults to more fully understand themselves and their spiritual journeys.  These guidebooks do not diagnose or treat psychological disorders.  If you are engaged in psycho-therapy already and have doubts about whether you should work with them, please consult your psychologist and follow his or her advice.If you are not willing to take complete responsibility in these contexts, please do not use the guidebook.


The author, Hiranya Barbara Stone, EdD, is a transpersonal psychologist with specialized training in Yoga psychology, Buddhism, Sufism and Spiritual Guidance.  She taught Developmental, Educational, and Social psychology as well as  the Psychology of women at Drew University for 18 years and is presently a mentor for the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology.  Hiranya has had training and experience in human relations development and group dynamics at the National Training Labs Institute and in the development of high trust community with the late Jack Gibb.  She spent a year at The Naropa Institute, a Buddhist graduate school, teaching and studying in their Contemplative Psychotherapy program.  Hiranya is a Yoga teacher certified by Yasodhara Ashram in Kootenay Bay, B.C. to teach Raja, Jnana, Bhakti, Karma, Kundalini, Hatha and Japa Yogas.  She recently completed a training program in The Art of Spiritual Guidance at the Silver Dove Institute in Burlington, VT under the leadership of Atum O’Kane.  She was the founder and director of House of Spirit Yoga and Retreat Center in Cedaredge, CO and is now residing in Lee, Massachusettes.
"I drained this cup:
    There is nothing, now,     
    but ecstatic annihilation."     
                                                                                  - - - Rumi    

TABLE OF CONTENTS     

Introduction      

Unit I.  Fifth Chakra Themes    
 
Unit II.  Adult Development     
 
Unit III.  Mind as Sixth Sense    
 
Unit IV.  Vibration/Word/Logos
     
Unit V.  Hearing  
    
Unit VI.  Persisting Issues
     
Unit VII.  Spiritual Will/Surrender  
    
Unit VIII.  Dark Night of the Soul     
 
Unit IX.  Acceptance     
 
Unit X.  Integration and the Search for Wholeness
     
Unit XI.  Healing  
    
References      

Appendix A.  Plato's Cave
     
Appendix B. Twilight Imaging
FIGURES    
 
Figure 5-1. Visuddha Chakra
     
Figure 5-2. Projection      

Figure 5-3. Sefiroth Model   
   
Figure 5-4. Triple Sefiroth    
 
Figure 5-5. Ego Transformation   
        
Figure 5-6. Labyrinth at Newgrange  

Book 5  
Surrender
    
I begin this book in fear and trembling.  It has become very apparent to me that I cannot write about spiritual transformation unless I am willing to undergo it myself.  Nor can I hasten that process.     

During the writing of the last guidebook, I was reading about the dark night of the soul and discovered that the only way out of the dark night of the soul is complete ego surrender.  Since I knew myself to be in a dark night, there was no escaping the fact that I had to address all of my remaining ego issues.  So, for the last two years, I have been trying to learn how to surrender.  The process is not yet complete, but there have been significant gains some of which you will hear about as we begin the fifth chakra work.     

Now you may be wondering why surrender is the focus of attention in the fifth chakra which is located in the neck. Most people think that the fifth chakra is about hearing, listening, speech and communication, and this is true.  However, the real spiritual practice that underlies all of those things is surrender.  And it goes infinitely more deeply into the obstacles that still remain to transformation and liberation.  The main blocks to enlightenment are ego, personality and mind as you undoubtedly know by now.  The link between those aspects of personality and the hearing/communication domain is surrender.  In order to really hear, really communicate with another, with the divine One or with one's own unconscious, it is necessary to give up one's own focus of self-interest and open up to whatever is coming across.  If you've ever been in a conversation with someone and were reminded of something exciting that happened to you in connection with whatever that person was saying, you know the compelling urge to interrupt and tell it.  However, if you are truly surrendered, it either will not come up at all because you are so engrossed in understanding the other person, or you will be able to let go of it without any sense of dismay.     

The challenge in the fifth chakra is will and choice.  Because the ego is making its last ditch stand, it is going to be exceedingly and increasingly difficult to continue to work with it.  Ego is now facing what is often called ego-death, the final extinction of self-will. This is not to say that you would become psychotic, but that the need to control what happens is released.  The need, or should I say drive, to get one's own  way is destroyed.  The defenses against the world and other people are given up because you know you will no longer need them  when you attain a state of grace.  Will comes into play as spiritual Will which is probably the only thing that can confront the now-panicky ego.  It becomes a decision of will not to succumb to ego agendas.  We have a choice as to how we wish to lead our lives.  Do you want to live in the light or continue grubbing around in the world trying to satisfy all of your needs for gratification? If it's any consolation, those desires fade away as surrender is gradually attained.  And, furthermore, it gets easier to surrender, the more you practice it.  Key word is practice.     

The key to union or to unity-consciousness is to create space for the Divine One to come to you, or to come through you into the world.  It is not possible for the Divine Power to force you to open to It, nor to turn your face into the Light.  We have been given free will and so must choose whether to open ourselves to the One or to turn our backs and stand alone in the shadow.     

As near as I can tell, all of the mystical paths focus attention on the seeker making a commitment to obedience in the form of being willing to listen (openminded
-ness), to chastity in the form of purity and clarity, and to renunciation in the form of surrender as it is being defined here.  Each of these has its familiar counterpart on the physical level, but the deeper meanings are what will concern us in this guidebook.   
 
In order to observe these conditions, it becomes necessary to deal with acceptance of what is.  We surrender to whatever is happening in the moment.  That means being present rather than day dreaming or thinking about what we will do tomorrow or what happened last week.  It is called presence because we are here in the NOW moment with all our attention focused on what is happening in this minute and/or on whichever people we are dealing with.  You could call it a kind of awareness that flows out of the soul into the timeless now.  This, too, requires surrender.     

Objectives   
 
  1.  Discriminate between superficial, physical reality and Universal Reality.
  2.  Create space for the Divine One to come into your life.      
  3.  Develop personal integrity and presence.  
  4.  Bridge the gap between adult roles and the Self.  
  5.  Explore the higher levels of mind.
  6.  Explore the relationship between mind and consciousness.
  7.  Quiet mental chatter so intuition can emerge.
  8.  Explore and develop intuition.  9.   Awaken the inner guru or guide.     
 10. Deepen awareness of divine energies.
 11. Understand the role of vibration in creation.     
 12. Discover how mantra protects, clarifies and purifies the mind.  
 13. Develop a mantra practice.  
 14. Develop the third ear.  
 15. Cut off tail ends of ego agendas.  
 16. Learn what is involved in complete surrender of ego agendas.  
 17. Examine parameters of choice to live in the Light and develop the faculty of             choice.  
 18. Develop Spiritual Will.  
 19. Commit to the purpose you were born to.   
 20. Surrender ego to the Higher Self.
 21. Merge with the authentic Self.     
 22. Explore the dark night of the soul and learn how to work with it.  
 23. Learn how to accept what is.
 24. Develop trust in the Higher Power.  
 25. See why wholeness is the gateway to liberation.   
 26. Identify with the authentic Self.  
 27. Learn how to live in the present moment.  
 28. Identify and work toward the ultimate healing practice.        

TEXTS    

BOOK V.  SURRENDER    

     

 The following list of books is arranged by Unit and is cumulative (book is listed only in the first unit in which you will use it), so you can see which ones to secure first.  They are listed in the order you will need them rather than alphabetically.  You may want to leaf through the exercises or outline if you are in doubt about how much each book will be used.  At this writing, most were under $10-15 at amazon.com.  Several were out of print but still available second hand, so I kept them in.  One was available only at Barnes & Noble ( www.barnesandnoble.com ) and is so marked.   If you prefer not to buy all of them or you cannot find an out of print text, it is fine to borrow them through library loan at your local library.  However, if you do this, be sure to give the librarian some lead time to find and get them there.  Several of them you will already have if you have been working right through these guidebooks.  They are marked with an asterisk (*).  There are several Parabola journals you will need, so   you may want to order them all at once.  They may be secured directly from the publisher at:     

Parabola Magazine  
Subscription Department   
656 Broadway  
New York, NY 10012-9824  
or possibly online at: www.parabola.org   


Unit I.  Fifth Chakra Themes

Johari, H.  (1987).  Chakras: Energy centers of transformation.  Rochester, VT: Destiny Books.*  

Unit II.  Adult Development

Vaughan-Lee, L. (1999).  The circle of love.  Inverness, CA: The Golden Sufi Center.

One that contains the ox-herding pictures from Zen Buddhism; e.g., Walsh, R. &  Vaughan, F. (Eds.). (1993).  Paths beyond ego: The transpersonal vision. Los Angeles: Tarcher   or

Suzuki, D. (1991).  Introduction to Zen Buddhism.  New York: Grove Press.

III.  Mind

Blake, W.  (1978).  The book of Urizen.  Boulder: Shambhala.

Cornell, J.  (1990).  Drawing the light from within: Keys to awaken your creative power.  New York: Prentice Hall. Two audio tapes for visualizations can be obtained at: Manifesting Inner Light, P. O. Box 517, Saussaalito, CA 94966. Send your phone number.

Wilber, K. (1983).  Eye to eye: The quest for the new paradigm.  Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.  

Washburn, N. (1995).  The ego and the dynamic ground: A transpersonal theory of human development (2nd ed.).  Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Unit IV.  Vibration/Word/Logos

Wolf, F.  (1996).  The spiritual universe:; How quantum physics proves the existence of the soul.  New York: Simon & Schuster. (Optional)

Unit V. Hearing

Draper, E. & Baron, V. (Eds.). (1995).  "Language and Meaning,"  Parabola: The Magazine of Myth and Tradition, 20 (3).

Phillips, R.  (1996).  Healing communication: A psychospiritual approach. Glorieta, NM: Deva Publishing.  

Kinkade, A.  (2001).  Straight from the horse's mouth: How to talk to animals and get answers.  New York: Crown Publishers.  

Unit VI.  Persisting Issues

Brown, B.  (1999).  Soul without shame: A guide to liberating yourself from the judge within.  Boston: Shambhala.

Unit VII.  Spiritual Will/Intention

Appelbaum, D. (Ed.) (2002). "The Ego and the 'I."  Parabola: Myth. Tradition.and the Search for Meaning, 22 (1), whole issue.

Draper, E. & Baron, V. (Eds.). (1995). "The Stranger." Parabola: The Magazine of Myth and Tradition,  20 (2), whole issue.

Simmons, P. (2002). Learning to fall: The blessings of an imperfect life. New York: Bantam Books.

Chodron, P. (1997). When things fall apart: Heart advice for difficult times. Boston: Shambhala.

Vaughan-Lee, L. (1996). The paradoxes of love.  Inverness, CA: The Golden Sufi Center.

Unit VIII.  Dark Night of the Soul

Peers, E. (Tr. & Ed.). (1959).  Dark night of the soul by Saint John of the Cross, 3rd revised ed.  New York: Doubleday.

O'Donohue, J.  (1999).  Eternal echoes: Exploring our yearning to belong.  New York: Cliff Street Books.*

Nouwen, H.  (1975).  Reaching out: The three movements of the spiritual life. New York: Doubleday. (optional)

Vaughan-Lee, L. (1993).  The bond with the Beloved: The mystical relationship of the lover and the Beloved.  Inverness, CA: The Golden Sufi Center.

__________.  The Holy Bible.*

MacLeish, A.  (1958).  J. B.: A play in verse.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin.   Or

Moore, T.  (1998).  The book of Job: With commentary.  New York: Riverhead Books. [Barnes & Noble or order from The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016]

Unit IX.  Acceptance

Hanh, T.  (2002).  No death, no fear: Comforting wisdom for life.  New York: Riverhead Books.

Bair, P.  (1998).  Living from the heart: Heart rhythm meditation for energy, clarity, peace, joy, and inner power.  New York: Three Rivers Press.*

Heinberg, R.  (1985).  Memories and visions of Paradise: The spiritual heritage and destiny of mankind.  Loveland, CO: Emissaries of Divine Light. [out of print, limited availibility]

Unit X. Integration and the Search for Wholeness

Dass, Baba H. & Karuna, K. (Ed.). (1981), Ashtanga Yoga Primer: The eight-limbed Yoga as taught by Baba Hari Dass.  Santa Cruz, CA: Sri Rama Publishing.*

Draper, E.  (1992).  "Labyrinth."  Parabola: the Magazine of Myth and Tradition, 17 (2).    or

Purce, J.  (1974).  The mystic spiral: Journey of the soul.  New York: Thames and Hudson.

Matthews, J.  (1981).  The Grail: Quest for the eternal.  New York: Thames and Hudson.

Unit XI.  Healing

The Institute of Noetic Sciences & Poole, W. (Eds.). (1993).  The heart of  healing. Atlanta: Turner Publishing. [out of print, if no luck finding online, try ordering directly from The Institute of Noetic Sciences ( www.noetic.org ).

Matthews, J.  (1997).   Healing the wounded king: Soul work and the quest for the grail.  Rockport, MA: Element Books. [out of print, limited availability]    

Book V. Surrender follows.