Perhaps the greatest paradox in the story of spirituality is the mystical insight that we are able to experience release only if we ourselves let go. This is the paradox of surrender. Surrender begins with the acceptance that we are not in control of the matter at hand—in fact, we are not in absolute control of anything. Thus the experience of surrender involves the “letting in” of reality that becomes possible when we are ready to let go of our illusions and pretensions.
If surrender is the act of “letting go,” the experience of conversion can be understood as the hinge on which that act swings—it is the turning point, the turning from “denial” as a way of seeing things to acceptance of the reality revealed in surrender.
The experiencing of release most frequently comes at the point of exhaustion, at the moment when we “give up” our efforts and thus permit ourselves to just be.
What blocks Release more than anything else is the refusal to “let go” that comes from the demand for security, for certainty, for assured results. Release, like spirituality itself, requires risk.
