Active Surrender and the Grace of the Divine Mother
Part 1 of a series on the Divine Mother's presence in our lives.
“Return,” painting by Agnes Pelton.
There is a prayer by Mother Mirra Alfassa , who I consider to be my divine representative, which I have memorized and use often in my midst of my days. She sends this prayer up to God:
“Here I am, a creature of various qualities, good and bad, dark and enlightened. I offer myself as I am to You, take me up with all my ups and downs, conflicting impulses and tendencies — do whatever You like with me.”
This prayer is a wonderful example of the active surrender that is such an important practice in the path of Integral Yoga.
Integral Yoga is a path developed by Sri Aurobindo in the early 20th century; he was later joined by his partner Mother Mirra Alfassa also known to devotees as The Mother. On this particular path, one seeks to unite one’s life with the Divine. In that union, the Divine transforms all of your being, from the mental, vital (emotional) and physical layers, into a more divine life. Hence the title of Sri Aurobindo’s most significant text, The Life Divine.
The path of Integral Yoga begins with the single aspiration to know the Divine in one’s life more intimately. As many who enter various spiritual paths, from Zen to Christianity, may attest to, this aspiration to know God and the Beyond can often arise when one is tired of feeling “soul-sickness,” the limits of a material, consumerist, fear and scarcity-driven life, what our authorities and media tell us is all we deserve, with an emphasis on how our human nature cannot possibly transcend this kind of miserable existence.
For me, my aspiration to unite with the Divine arose not only from living in a culture that provides the conditions for soul sickness, but arrived after a few concentrated years of clearing myself of addictions and trauma. The second half of my life, after these clearings, seemed earmarked to enter into a spiritual path; things naturally fell into place as I learned more about Integral Yoga. Richard Rohr writes in “Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life,”
“Basically, the first half of life is writing the text, and the second half is writing the commentary on that text.”
That commentary, for me, after forty years of writing a text heavy with darkness, not much white space, and seemingly intractable motifs of negative unconscious patterns, has been to deeply engage with a particular spiritual path. Not a hodgepodge of beliefs and rituals that our age often seems to point to as “spiritual,” but a specific path that asks quite centrally, what is the purpose of being here—and what was the purpose of all that difficulty I went through in the first half of my life?
Active Surrender
In Integral Yoga, if one sincerely opens to a process of transformation of all the parts of the being—a process directed by the Divine—one has the potential to undergo an accelerated evolution in which the entire being is transformed, quite rapidly. That is the first surrender: “Okay, let’s do this, God!” But Yoga also includes steep descents, as the being becomes purified and the lower parts are turned upwards for review and either a re-working, or complete elimination. That is the second surrender—to hang on and endure even when it feels impossible: “God, I’m not sure I can do this! Help me!”
Sometimes those lower parts, most notably the egoic parts of the mental and vital (emotional) planes, are not willing to let go, and one can enter into periods of darkness and destabilization in a kind of battle of Light and Dark. This reflects in one’s outer situation, as relationships enter into strangeness, or simply dissolve, as the world stage also seems to expand and contract in turmoil, and there can be the danger of feeling very disconnected from God during such a battle. This is when the act of surrender, or opening to the above and saying, “Look, here I am, and here’s this shit inside of me right now I don’t know how to control or calm down by myself. It actually feels like those parts of me want me to stay put in this misery. Can You rid me of it in this moment so I can keep going with You and not get so derailed/distracted?” This is what is known as active surrender—surrender inside of the moment. And the aspiration to stay closer to the Divine must be sustained throughout the day, so that the active surrender may be deployed at any moment.
As MP Pandit writes,
“It is not that this aspiration is entertained only during prayer time or meditation. It must form the background of the whole day…whatever we are doing or not doing, whether we are occupied or not, it must always burn like a flame behind the external activity.” (from Heart of Sadhana by MP Pandit)
The Psychic Being as a Force in Surrender
The larger goal of Integral Yoga is for the human being to make real and sustained contact with her soul, or “the psychic being,” as Sri Aurobindo named it. The psychic being is the evolving eternal being within us that is constant across lifetimes. It is the exact opposite of the ego construction, which tries to assert its position as the outer frontal personality.
We can locate the presence, or the psychic fire, of the psychic being behind our heart center. If we concentrate, we’ll start to feel a gorgeous little flame. As Sri Aurobindo writes in Letters on Yoga, Book III:
“It [a flame in the heart as big as a man's thumb] is the psychic fire kindled in the heart. The psychic being in the heart is described by the Upanishads as of the size of a thumb, aṅguṣṭhamātraḥ puruṣo'ntarātmā—it may manifest first as this psychic flame.”
Realizing one’s own divine nature in the earthly lifetime can only happen through this contact with the soul/psychic being within. This soul realization within the lifetime contributes to the even larger goal of Integral Yoga, which is to divinize the human being and to spiritualize the Earth as a whole. That is our evolutionary purpose as humans—not just to exist and get through, and rinse and repeat. Even one person who has touched his or her own soul, however fleetingly, contributes to the evolutionary contagion of each soul moving closer to the end goal, which in itself will not be “the end,” but a dynamic and progressive perfection.
When one can surrender to the Divine in the difficult moment, when one can step back and pause, and call to God in active surrender, one can feel the Soul moving to the front and taking over. In my experience, words are soon flowing off my tongue, words I don’t recall calculating mentally with my ego nimbly pushing the thoughts around so I can feel “right” or “heard.” And the very words that came, were what was needed to navigate the moment. Or, in a moment of private anguish, if I engage in active surrender, a sense of total calm comes over me. This is not only the soul coming forward to quiet the ego, but the Grace of the Divine Mother.
Painting by me.
The Grace of the Divine Mother
A hallmark of Integral Yoga is the practice of surrender to the Divine Mother and Her Grace. The psychic being is a portion of the Divine Mother, so She is already there when the soul comes forward.
When the soul becomes more constantly in the front of our being, namely through rejection of habitual ego responses that can run the gamut from depressive moods to overreactive argumentativeness, the Grace of the Divine Mother arrives even more seamlessly when we call for Her.
And, when we are able to see the Divine Mother in the eyes of everyone around us—for we are all masks of Her, even those who irritate or enrage us—Her Grace also begins to flow with more ease. As this Tibetan Buddhist Lojong saying puts it,
"This body, a child of the mother, is the same as all sentient beings."
The Divine Mother is the feminine principle of God, and is the Creatrix of this universe. She is also termed Prakriti, to the masculine principle Purusha, or the Supreme Lord. She is who loves and guides her children, which is us, humanity, throughout the Divine Lila, or the play of the Supreme. She ushers us towards a reunion with the Divine that will unfold on Earth. She is contained in every cell, leaf, animal, element, and human being. As “matter” derives from the Latin word, “mater,” for Mother, our Divine Mother is the matter, the material, of our Earth. This matter is infused with Her, even when humanity tries to degrade or make ugly our surroundings. She is the Mother of the Earth goddess Gaia, who is our Mother within the Mother.
The seed of the Divine Mother is within all matter; we are all children of the Divine Mother. She is what we can feel when we can quiet our mental agitation and listen to the sweet depths and wise stirrings of a pure, natural setting. There are those of us who have the shamanic gift of seeing eyes, faces, and expressions in trees, leaves, and clouds. These elemental beings are facets of Gaia, who is the expression of the Divine Mother. All beauty is an expression of Her.
When we begin to touch our personal feeling of the Divine Mother—in the beauty of nature, or in the sweetness of our children, or warmth between strangers, or in small acts of Grace, from finding our lost keys, to that unexpectedly authentic conversation at the birthday party with another school parent—we begin our relationship with Her and our potential to be able to call out to Her in difficult moments. She is waiting for our call and has been since the very beginning of human existence and is ready to respond with Grace.
I have found my relationship with the Divine Mother more personal and powerful than what I previously named as God. Why? Because as a mother, She loves so intimately and without judgment, unconditionally, and with an intention to guide and shape us towards our full potential. God, the Supreme One, contains the same qualities as Her, as He is one and the same with Her. But She as the Creatrix and Executor of the Supreme’s Will is who acts within and upon matter; She is who is on intimate terms with us in the Divine Play.
And what is Grace? MP Pandit asks in Heart of Sadhana. “Grace is a spontaneous movement of Love from the Divine toward his creation. It follows no reason. no logic in the human sense. It flows where it chooseth. It does not pause to consider whether the recipient is virtuous or sinful, deserving or non-deserving from the human point of view. The Grace flows according to its own choice….Slowly behind the veil, whether the outer person is aware of it or not. the soul goes on building a condition which invokes the Grace. If this outer being also puts in a conscious effort, so much the better. It seconds the inner effort; things are speeded up.”
The human effort to call upwards to God, and the response of the Divine Grace of the Mother, “are really two ends of one working,” Pandit writes. “Both are necessary. Without effort the action of the Grace can feel barren. Without Grace, human effort may be ineffective. Both are necessary to achieve the end.”
Personal Guidance
I suggest memorizing and using throughout your day in difficult moments the prayer shared at the beginning of this essay.
I also suggest this week, opening yourself to the presence of the Divine Mother in your life through Beauty. Feel where your heart becomes warm—which is your soul/psychic being coming online—at certain moments in your day where you notice beauty and love. Offer out of gratitude the beautiful back to the world and to the Divine Mother, through how you keep your home, the caring for your body, the patience with your children, your artistic creations, your conversations that seek to speak only what is authentic and necessary, not what is idle or gossipy. Build on these moments a protective and nourishing base for Grace, and use this feeling of warmth to meditate how you would like to meet the Mother more and more, so that She will only be a call away during moments of difficulty.
For those new to the concept of Yoga (not physical yoga,) here is also a helpful breakdown of the concept of Yoga in general by Sadhguru.
A beautiful reflection.