Surrender – Remembrance of The Source
Surrender is an interesting word that has different meanings depending on your present circumstances. In Russia, the word that is used is подчиненный which means subordination! If we were fighting a war we might capitulate against stronger enemies and surrender. If we have done wrong, we may surrender our freedom, or driving license. In an argument that I cannot win, I may give in, and surrender my idea, thought, paradigm, or intransigence!
Surrender is an element that we have added to the (old) caduceus, and is characterized by a dove. The dove infers peace, the Holy Spirit, and homecoming (Noah’s dove returned with a piece of olive tree in its beak). It beckons toward the human capacity of choice. We can surrender to things lower or to elements Higher. The lower ones are simple to explain. We can surrender to (fall towards or down to) our history, pride, feelings, and emotions–fears and things unknown, a lack of faith, habits, sexuality, and gender, and lack of attentiveness to what takes power over one, and to ideas, thoughts, beliefs and philosophies which take the person away from surrender.
The dove sits above the conventional caduceus, and its position, in rank, is higher than the eagle. This reminds us that when we surrender our vision and our maps, they then take a secondary place to some other (descendant) understanding, separate from our own mind’s eye. When we surrender our vision we can be illumined and informed rather than filtered and biased through our own reflexive thoughts.
Because we have a scavenger-like mind (the eagle), and also obsessive (the claws of the eagle), notwithstanding far-seeing and possessing clarity and ability to scour for detail we can, if we are careless kill the dove, as we allow our reflexive mind to fly too high and forget to tame it, pull it back to earth, feed it other morsels (thoughts) other than the dove of peace (information coming from The Source other than your own cleverness).
In almost every religious and spiritual tradition, surrender is a key element. It behoves us to be humble, to bow our heads, to prostrate in front of a Higher mind.
The following articles relate to the journey: