What is the difference between effort and surrender?
This week I heard it described like this:
Imagine a fish swimming in a river. When the fish is in the current, she is surrendered. She is letting the flow of water carry her. And if and when she ever loses that current, then (and only then) she uses her effort, to find her way back.
Her effort, her will, is what she calls upon when she's fallen out of the stream. When life starts to get hard, get rocky, when it feels like nothing is moving and certainly nothing is moving her...that is when effort is required.
And then, lucky fish, once she's reunited with the river's current, then she is carried.
And on and on it goes.
I love this description so much (lifted from an interview with Mark Nepo) because we hear so much about surrender. Surrender is the thing we're all told we're looking for--or at least that's what our yoga teachers tell us and our books tell us and our wise friends tell us (they tell us other things, too)--and often they're right. Often letting go is what's needed. Often it's needed because we live in a world where nearly every other influence in our lives is urging us toward the opposite. Towards more, towards faster, towards harder, towards sweat, towards effort. Towards multi-tasking our effort. And so, the encouragement towards, sheesh, softening some of that, is good.
But, what about the times when surrender is not the answer? Are we really just meant to go from splashing wildly, or worse, swimming in panicked circles, certain the current is there somewhere...to just being lazy fishies, letting the water take us where it will?
That doesn't seem right.
That would imply that the human system is flawed. If surrender were the only solution, if the only thing which existed other than surrender was a kind of aggravated repetitive belly flop...that would imply that there is nothing to be done. We either give up, or we suffer. And I just think that the human mind and heart are too complex and too gorgeous (sorry), to write them off simply as the agents of our own destruction.
But if you think of a wise fish...of a little guy who finds himself suddenly out of the flow of water...what is he going to do? I don't think he's going to freak out. I don't think he's going to start slamming his fish body against the rocks along the bottom of the river because he's just so upset that this has happened to him, yet again, and all his other little fishy friends seem to be doing just fine thank you very much and why the heck can't he ever catch a break?! No, he's going to quiet his little fishy mind (remember, he's a wise fish), he's going to stick his little fish nose and little fish ears (do fish have ears?) into the water, and he's going to use his will to start his little tail and fins a flippin', and he's going to swim himself back to that current.
And when he's there, he'll know he's there, whether or not his eyes are open (whether or not he even HAS eyes), because things will suddenly get...easier.
Ahhh. Exhale.
He'll know he's in the current, because he'll be able to fold his little fins against his fat little rainbow-scale sides, and coast. He'll know he's there because he'll be moving with the river. He'll know he's there because he'll suddenly be able just to enjoy the ride.
And if ever the time comes when he falls, one more time, out of the grace of the river, he'll know he has his effort, his will, and his good sense...to guide him back.
