The Commitment Checklist
The soul’s pain of separation and the longing to be reunited is equally matched by the egoic fear of being dissolved. This is why it is so important that we remain aware of our power to choose, because we must consciously choose Oneness instead of separation. — Swami Khecaranatha
In the image, above, there is a checklist of how we can choose real freedom in our lives. Let’s look at them one by one.
1. I am willing to give up my dubious freedom of following dualistic rationale, knowing that I am in fact losing nothing and gaining the possibility of everything.
This is a bold statement but is perhaps the easiest to mark checked! However, we must remember that any commitment we make is meaningless if we fail to follow through with action. In our search to know the highest in ourself, it is our actual unwillingness to live in the commitment that disqualifies our stated willingness to do so.
There is such extraordinary grasping and holding on to what we think freedom is. We have set ideas of what we think we need or don’t need in life in order to be free, but this only represents our limited understanding. While it is grace that frees us, it is that very same grace that gives us the power to choose freedom in the face of the misunderstanding from which we function.
2. I am willing to give up my ordinary moment-by-moment complicity with my own misunderstanding.
The very intention of surrendering our misunderstanding will trigger the resistance of the ego. What surfaces is our unwillingness to offer ourselves — because that would mean letting go of the part of us that can never understand unity.
Making the first commitment is what brings us face to face with the need for #2! If we are lucky, we acknowledge that our commitment to the possibility of freedom was undercut by the ego. Duality has a strong hold on our mind and emotions, and it requires the recognition of how we, ourselves, perpetuate misunderstanding. Only when we see that can we let go of the part of us that does not want to live in that depth. This brings us to the next item on the checklist.
3. I am committed to finding the freedom available to me in my heart and I am prepared to surrender everything that keeps me from knowing the God who dwells within me as my Self.
Spiritual work is not a fairy tale event. It necessitates a profoundly intense confrontation with our deepest resistance. The longing for freedom comes from the power of God, attempting to free Itself from Its own self-imposed limitation. Yet even that power can be denied by our ego. In every moment in life, the willingness to surrender must be the imperative resonance of our spiritual practice.
This means we will always be faced with dynamics that reveal the limited aspects of ourselves. Our misunderstandings are continually shown to us as we pierce through the veils of duality: I am the doer, I am different, and I am separate. Moving through these veils is the highest possibility of spiritual work, and every small act of letting go is practice for the ultimate surrender of our individual, separated identity.
Surrendering our separation from God is what we are asking for from the very first time we repeat something like, “I wish to grow.” We just don't know that this is what we’re requesting because God is smart enough to understand that if He asked us to make the complete offering of ourself in this moment, we probably wouldn’t do it. So we surrender one step at a time.
The Power of Revelation
Do not be complicit with the part of you that will not grow, change, or surrender. The same force that is the God within expressing you, contains the power to obscure and the power to reveal. In tradition, this is discussed as the Five-Fold Act of the Divine: creation, maintenance, dissolution, concealing, and revealing.
Everything that is expressed into form by God goes through the cycle of creation, maintenance, and dissolution. The operative question for us as spiritual people is this: While we are going through the stages of being born, living, and ultimately letting go of the body, will we be perpetually duplicitous with our own act of concealment or will we surrender that act and allow the highest light and ineffable love to reveal Itself as our Self?
Do not underestimate the power of the ego to reject freedom — to perpetuate concealment by not being willing to surrender in every moment. If that is sometimes difficult, it only means that our moment-by-moment duplicity is being revealed. Nityananda told us, “Surrender everything that keeps you from Śiva.” You don’t have to give up your family or job. All you have to surrender is your misunderstanding and the tension of the ego that seeks to hold on to its separated identity.
Find the joy of freedom in yourself and surrender from that place. And if you cannot find it, surrender the part of you that does not want to find it. Let the ineffable live as you and express itself as you, and as it breaks through the hardened shell it’s encased in, be grateful.