The second limb of the eight-faceted path of yoga consists of the five Niyamas which are reflections that take us more toward internal observances, an interior resting place. The fifth and final of these Niyamas is called Isvara Pranidhana and can be translated as surrender or merging with the Divine.
When I began to study the sutras more deeply, Nischala Joy Devi described the Yamas and Niyamas as being two pyramids, with the Yamas an inverted pyramid, standing on the pointy apex and the Niyamas as being the mirror image of that, standing on its base. The two apex points come together much like the shape of an hourglass or bowtie turned on its side.
The top pyramid of the Yamas has Ahimsa taking up the broadest aspect (the inverted base) as it overarches and influences all else through the practice of compassion and reverence for all beings. The lower pyramids broad base is occupied by Isvara Pranidhana, in that we surrender to the consciousness that permeates all. Ahimsa and Isvara Pranidhana are the bookends that carry a heavy importance in our practices that of compassion and letting go. If we only focused on those two elements, we would begin to make big shifts in how we relate to ourselves and all other beings.
Part of Isvara Pranidhana invites us to stay completely present and let go of the desire to see the results of our actions. When we undertake something, we often do so to achieve a particular goal. We exercise to lose weight; We complete college to get a good job; We marry to find happiness; We give a gift and want a thank you card; We meditate to be spiritual and on it goes. Yet, what Isvara Pranidhana is about is letting go of the outcome, releasing the expectation of what might happen when we do “X”. When acting from the place of our highest intentions, we put it out to the Universe and let go of the expectation that we will get a particular result.
Part of the reason this is a challenging practice is because it requires us to trust the process of unfolding. We surrender to the current of the Universe rather than trying to influence it in a certain direction. It is understood that whatever we are doing, we are doing so with our best effort in that moment and we have little else to do once we are finished.
This surrender isn’t an act of giving up but rather an act of relinquishing the need to feel control of the outcome. Feeling that we can control the outcome is an illusion and can be the seed that causes us great suffering.
I’m certain that most everyone reading this has had a similar experience of saying something like, “it is, what it is” which loosens our grip on a thought for things to be different to what they are. When we soften this need it opens us to connect to the bigger picture. We let ourselves be cradled in the arms of divine energy-Isvara-which can be translated as ‘Supreme Being’, ‘God’, ‘Brahman’, ‘Ultimate Reality’, ‘Collective Consciousness’ or ‘True Self’. It’s that which is bigger than all of us. It can be thought of offering up the results of one’s actions to the divine, or perhaps to all of humanity. And to quote Emma Newlyn:
“Surrendering to what is requires trust in our deepest Self, our intuition and the courage to express ourselves for who we are, as we are, with all of our perfect imperfections, which ultimately leads to freedom.”
