YOU CANNOT BARTER WITH SURRENDER

Someone said to me, "I can’t relax. I’m too busy fighting my experience. Too locked into resistance. Too lost in trying to work it all out. If I just accept it all… who would I be?"

That question struck something deep. Because in many ways, it speaks for so much of the human condition.

We build our identity around the struggle.
Around the effort to figure life out.
Around the inner tension of needing to be in control.
It gives us the illusion of order.
Even when it hurts.

To surrender—to really let go—feels like death.
Because it is.
It’s the death of the self that clings, that tries, that bargains.
The self that says, “I’ll let go… but only if it’s safe. Only if I know what’s coming next.”

And yet, this is where the trap lies.
We try to make surrender into a transaction.
We want to sign a contract with life:
“I’ll trust, if you guarantee peace. I’ll fall, if you promise to catch me.”

But freedom doesn’t come with terms and conditions.
It doesn’t negotiate.
It doesn’t soothe the ego.
It doesn’t promise comfort.

It simply asks for everything.
No holding back.
No escape routes.
No deals.

And what it gives in return is not safety,
But truth.
Not certainty,
But authenticity.

There comes a point on the path where we realize:
You cannot barter with surrender.
You can only meet it.
Fully.
Nakedly.
And let whatever comes, come.

Because only in that raw meeting
Can we find the peace we’ve been searching for all along.

_________________________

Go deeper.
Beneath the surface of thought,
beneath the waves of emotion,
there is something untouched—
something vast and quiet.

That’s where peace lives
The peace beyond thought
is the peace of simply being.

-------------------------

If you are looking for comfort
Awakening is not the place to look
It is the undoing of comfort

If you are looking for truth
Awakening is the only place to look
But it may not be that comfortable.

----------------------

If you really want to heal the world
Meet your experience
With an open heart
And a non judgmental mind.

---------------------

The seeker that seeks a state 
Of bliss and freedom
That happened yesterday
Loses the nectar of presence
Of this moment
By falling into imagination and memory.

--------------------

Make a place at the table
For the poet, for the mystic
Make room for the lover
And the fool
For they know secrets
And speak words
Others dare not utter
And they have seen through
The illusion of this world
Into a deeper truth
And are unafraid
To speak of what they have seen.

---------------------

And then one day you just stop
You stop running away from the past
And you stop running into the future
No avoiding and no chasing
Just a silent stop
And in that total cessation
Something happens
A doorway opens
And a recognition dawns
You have always been
Exactly here
And that brings a great silence
That no longer needs to be filled with anything.

----------------------

Most storms are on the inside
We must become skillful sailors 
And seek rest as the ocean 
As the storms play themselves out 
Don’t get lost in the storm, my friend
It is a call to mastery.

----------------------

Whatever it is you want to see in the world
You must be that
If it’s love, you must first be love
If it’s kindness, you must be that kindness
All this waiting for the world before you live your deepest longing
Will never satisfy your soul.

----------------------

A New Dawn.

Let the age of self-serving illusion,
Of ego’s relentless, grasping ambition,
Fall away—devoured by its own reflection,
A mirror shattered by the weight of its own hunger.

And let Love, in her awakened, unconditional grace,
Rise like the sun over weary lands—
Heralding a new age of union,
Where no heart is cast aside, no soul forgotten.

Let harmony be our foundation,
Beauty our language,
Compassion our strength,
And kindness the measure of our humanity.

A recent video: Fall Into Unbounded Awareness.