Surrender

April is a month of transformation, of growth and change. Everything around us is cracking open, growing, blossoming. It is a month of ecstasy in nature.

Next weekend there are two holidays; Passover and Easter. In both are the themes of metamorphosis.
It is a time of year in which we are called to awaken to our best potential, from bondage to liberation.

From a constricted, tight place to the open, vast and expensive field of our hearts. From Dukha to Sukah, suffering to bliss.

The journey of the Israelites took 40 years. Maybe due to the fact that transformation of a mind of a slave to a mind of a free man is not simple. It involves letting go of layers and layers of conditioning. To be willing to trust and step away from the familiar, and go towards the unknown.

There is something typological about the number 4 or 40. It is said in Pirkei Avot that forty is the age of wisdom.
It could be a time in one’s life when pretense is no longer an option. A time to let go of falsehood. A time in which we can no longer hide, conceal or play the game just to be loved, or to fit in. A time comes when we wish to be real, to be seen for what we truly are.
Many of us change paths at the age of 40. It may be the age when we dare to look and reflect on the life we’ve been living and realize that we had very little to do with choosing the path we are on. Realizing how precious life is, we wish to let go of that which no longer serves us and transform to a better, brighter version of ourselves.

It is so appropriate for the theme of transformation to be examined through the lens of the fifth niyama; Ishvara Pranidhana which translates as ‘surrender to God’ or if you wish Ultimate reality or ever the higher Self, the true self.

Ishvara Pranidhana asks us to yield and trust the process….It is to be courageous, to continue the path that our hearts have put us on. To continue to do the work and ask nothing more in return. To stand firm and dare to say ‘HERE I AM’