Meaning of Surrender – most commonly misunderstood. Surrender means, to allow life to happen as it is. It means, that you do what’s required for you to do,  follow your heart and not worry about the future. Future is not under your control and will unfold as its meant to be. You can only do what needs to be done in this moment. This moment, is all that you have, so live in this moment and trust that you are taken care, as it’s meant to be.

I will share a personal experience of total surrender, because I feel that through sharing personal stories, it’s easier to understand these difficult concepts.

It was the year 2009, my father was diagnosed with recurrence of Non Hodgkins Lymphoma. It’s a cancer of the lymph nodes. He had already gone through complete chemotherapy and radiotherapy in 2006 when it was first diagnosed. This was a devastating news for us. Being the eldest child and a doctor, the responsibility always fell upon me to take the right medically related decisions. My father had developed so much confidence in me that he would take my decision over the best doctors also. There is a reason for this conviction that he had in me, which is another story. Anyways, so I consulted one of the best oncologists in Bangalore. His advice was to start treatment as soon as possible because with every  delay, the risk of beyond return metastasis (cancer spread all over the body) was looming dangerously. The treatment that he suggested numbed me. It would require extremely aggressive chemotherapy which would force my father to be admitted into total isolation, as along with the cancer cells, all other vital cells also would get destroyed. He would become vulnerable even to a common cold virus.

I left the good doctor’s office with a heavy heart. This was at HCG, Bangalore. I had taken a cab that day. I sat numbed in the cab, with no thoughts, because I didn’t even know what to think. At that moment, I surrendered to a God, I didn’t understand then. I had no religion or faith, but still deep at the core of my Being, I always knew that this entire Creation and I was not a product of accident. There was a Force, even if I didn’t understand it. Tears rolled through my eyes and my mind was blank. Then something happened. I knew what had to be done.

Something, inside me told me to allow this situation to progress naturally on its own and not to opt for chemotherapy this time. I realized that death is eventual, and if not today then someday, my father, my mother and everyone that I know and my self, are going to go, so why resist this truth? Why hold on to something which is transient anyways? If my father was meant to go, then he will go while at home with all of us around him, and not leave from an isolated hospital room.

A Divine Force had taken over my mind at that time. I didn’t know anything about Yoga then as I myself didn’t practice any Yogic practice and yet… Read ahead what unfolded when I reached back home.. So I came home and told dad, that it’s decided that we will not opt for chemotherapy this time. He will do pranayama and consume a totally vegetarian diet, and gave him a powerful visualization meditation practice. He agreed, and didn’t ask a word also. He is someone who is extremely intelligent and  not someone who can be easily convinced. Yet, he just agreed easily and did exactly as I had asked him to do. Let me emphasize here, that I had no idea about Yoga, Ayurveda or meditation back then. I was a very regular person and I was pursuing MD Dermatology then, so logically I should have opted for chemotherapy but I went in a total opposite direction!

The journey of surrender began. I had left it on time and my father also began to follow my advice. My mother played most crucial role in taking care of his health and supporting him. He was so weak to do pranayam, that in the start it was only for 5-10 minutes but with consistent will power, he continued and build it up to 4 hours a day! Yes, you read it right.. 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening! He consumed certain powerful Ayurvedic herbs like giloy, neem, aloe vera, wheatgrass and plenty of green veggies daily. He remained optimistic and had strong faith in God. During this time, he dropped his attachment to his business also completely and focused only on his health.

We would get periodic PET Scan done. Initially there was no change, but the cancer was not showing signs of spread, which itself was a huge positive. Slowly the hot spots began to disappear and in about 20 months, his cancer had totally disappeared. The last scan was done in May 2011. My father is still very much with us today, living a healthy life.

Going back in time, I had no idea what the outcome of that decision would be. It could have gone in either direction but I chose to surrender. For long, I had wondered what made me take such a decision but I didn’t understand that it was not my decision because decisions are taken using the mind. Without being aware, I had gone beyond the mind and in that moment, the Divine took over and the rest just happened. This is the miracle of surrender. Allow yourself to surrender when all doors seem to be closed. Let Divine hold your hand and walk you through darkness. Trust me, there is light always at the end. Also, sometimes what we think should happen may not happen, but we don’t realise that, that is also God’s way of taking care of us.

Always trust that all is well. When you can’t think what to do because mind is so limited and so foolish, meditate and you will be guided to do what needs to be done.