In Defense of Self-Resignation

In a conversation with a friend over the weekend the topic of self-resignation was raised. The majority of spiritual traditions hold self-resignation, or surrender, as the main goal along the spiritual path. The difference for me, in speaking with my friend, was that I wanted to understand the concept of self-resignation within a practical framework. Meaning, I wanted to know how the practice of self-resignation could improve my life by reducing the amount of suffering I experience and by allowing me to pass through obstacles with the least amount of tension and resistance. Most of the major religions teach self-resignation as the way toward achieving oneness with God or “higher consciousness”, either by submitting one’s will to the will of God or by renouncing the ego. But I ask the question: How does self-resignation allow me to live a life based on serenity and freedom?

First of all, let us define what self-resignation is. We can do this by first understanding what self-resignation is not. Self-resignation is not giving up or giving in. Self-resignation is often misinterpreted as a weak or passive stance toward life. However, self-resignation often takes a great deal of inner strength because it requires one to not give in. This can be illustrated by an example. Last weekend, I entered into a heated discussion on religion with a person I had just met for the first time earlier that evening. As the conversation progressed, I began to feel increasingly uncomfortable, as if the debate were becoming personal to my interlocutor. It appeared that several of the remarks I made on religion deeply vexed this person. Despite the fact that I could clearly see this person was drinking heavily (while I was not), I continued to engage in the bitter debate. The people around the table, including my friend, were listening intently to us “battle it out”. In the end, I had no other choice than to leave the party; I felt assaulted by a perfect stranger and could bear the discussion no more.

This intense argument sat with me for several hours afterwards. I wondered whether I had done something wrong, or if there was something wrong with me to have prompted such ill will from someone I didn’t even know. Later on, I came to the conclusion that the best way to have handled the situation would have been to simply shut up. Just as easily, I could have kept my opinions on religion to myself, but I didn’t. And I could have stopped talking when I observed that my interlocutor was drinking and becoming feverishly upset by my remarks. But I proceeded to argue with her instead. If I would have resigned myself in this situation, I could have possibly avoided the conflict.

Self-resignation is distinguished from “giving in” because self-resignation is not accepting defeat but rather yielding to another’s hard-headedness. When two egos come up against each other, they produce friction and tension like two rocks banging against each other. In contrast, when one ego comes up against a person who has resigned themselves, the self-resigned person flows over the rock-hard ego like water. The power of water lies in its amorphous and fluid capacity, to get wherever it wants to go by flowing over and around objects that stand in its way.

Self-resignation is putting my need to control situations and people aside. And if that implies temporarily suspending my ego, than that is what I need to do. Self-resignation means letting things go. In this way, the practice of self-resignation is linked to the practice of self-forgetfulness. My ego wants me to put myself at the fore: to defend all of my opinions, to prove myself to others, and to be seen and heard above everyone else. In other words, my ego wants me to stand out. In contrast, the practice of self-resignation asks me to put myself aside for the moment, to allow others to speak and to share their opinions, and even if I have something truly great to add to the conversation, I should listen instead. Thus the practice of self-resignation means I become invisible on occasion, and subdue my burning desire to speak and be heard. The practice of self-forgetfulness allows me to achieve this. By continually making an effort to ignore my “greatest thoughts” and my “most trying emotions”, I slowly submit myself to the collective will, thinking of how others feel and what others want besides me. I can intuit an overall rhythm and intensity of the group. Also, in this way, I learn to harmonize with my environment.

It occurs to me that I should let things happen on their own accord more often, without always having my hand in them. When I examine my life from a detached point of view, I find that these fleeting desires to control situations and people are trivial. I find that it is more important to allow the flow of life to surge and the mysterious unfoldment to occur naturally and to not block or plug the energy that moves life forward on its own accord. Oftentimes this means that first I must wait; I must wait especially when I feel my egocentric impulses and self-obsessed urges welling up inside of me. To not respond to self-will is a difficult task but this is what the practice of self-resignation entails. Self-resignation implies non-action. Rushing into action and trying to get my way seems to fail me every time. But when I wait and resign myself to the natural unfoldment of events and energies and mutual influences, then something in me that is not me responds. This is not self-will, for I am not doing the responding. But here is where we say God acts through us, or the Tao, or the Buddha. By waiting and resigning myself, my higher will initiates action from within me. This is perfect action because the release occurs in the moment of highest tension and the release is perfectly natural.

Self-will is always premature. I act on impulse and not by divine inspiration. I act out of a desire to control and manipulate the world around me. I want to impose my way on others. Self-resignation, on the other hand, arises from a genuine willingness to take suggestions from life itself. When I was in college, I had a very specific vision of myself in the future. I held stubbornly to this view of myself and it caused me suffering. But as I grew older I realized that life ran more smoothly, more serenely when I resigned myself to the new discoveries I made about myself along the way. It became a form of resistance to impose my view of myself on reality. It was more natural to follow those suggestions that emerged in the picture of my life and to create myself organically, out of the very fabric of the present. People I met began to contribute to my sense of self. I began to yield to the changes that were taking place in me, and as a result, I was enjoying life on a greater scale.

Self-will returns to me constantly. Whenever I am engaged in an activity of discipline, such as running or meditating, I have the impulse to quit. I know in that moment I can give in or I can resign myself to the task-at-hand. That is, I can complete the task I set out to do. Complete experiences balance and round out my life. On the other hand, self-will produces fragmentation. My impulses lead me into fragmenting experiences. Every time I interrupt the flow of life to chase after my fleeting desires, I break the possibility of a complete experience.

Therefore, self-resignation is not giving up but moving forward. I submit myself temporarily to achieve a higher aim.

7/24/2005