You can't force it: Cautionary tales
In recent months I've twice had to learn a simple lesson: You can't force this process. Two examples illustrate.
First, one day several months ago, during a session, I decided to see if I could really push the feeling of surrender (for still more prior posts on the topic of surrender scan the post titles under “condensed view”). There are physical feelings associated with surrender to your Friend, or to the act of surrender more generally, and I was determined to generate those feelings as strongly as I could. I really pushed it, focusing on what I felt and trying mentally to intensify it. But following that session I was feeling pretty bad. And I felt that way the rest of the day. I don't recall in precisely what way I was feeling bad, but I suspect it involved the same feelings I'll describe in the next example. In any event, it was clear trying to push the feeling of surrender had been a mistake.
The second example comes from how about a week ago. During a session, while feeling my Friend's arms around me, a thought occurred to me along the lines, “Why don't I really work on getting these feelings to be as vivid as possible?” So just after the session I did another mini session, closing my eyes and trying to accentuate the vividness of the feeling of my Friend's arms around me. I'm not sure I verbalized it this way, but it was as though I were saying, “More vivid, more vivid!” Once again, after the session I was feeling pretty terrible. I think the feeling was based in anxiety pushing through a kind of wooziness. It was pretty clear that, again, it has been a mistake to try to force the feeling.
I think what happens in these instances of forcing is that I'm pushing against psychological resistance. And doing so stirs underlying anxiety. What's the alternative? The answer is in the nature of surrender itself. It's not a forcing; it's a letting go, an allowing. Paradoxically, though it can be difficult to achieve, it is actually effortless. Though the effortless groove can be maddeningly elusive, it is always right there, waiting. So while we can't forcibly push the resistance aside, we may be able to let it go, to stop fighting the process that takes us into surrender (or, e.g., into the vivid feeling of being held). We just have to take care not to try to force the stopping of the fighting. We need to allow our Friend to act on us and through us.
In each of the experiences described above, when I stopped trying to force it and adopted a stance oriented toward allowing the bad feelings soon abated. And I can say that, as a general rule, when you're on track in the JH practice, it produces good feelings.
Those of us from western cultures may have a hard time with this. We're so used to pushing and doing and making things happen rather than being. But embracing the latter should make for an easier recovery journey.
“Surrender is the most difficult thing in the world while you are doing it and the easiest when it is done.” ~ Bhai Sahib