Act of Surrender

I came across this interview with Bede Griffiths (date & source unknown) and found within it many interesting pointers. I'd like to share it with you, as its simplicity and brevity speaks for itself:

"Last January I had an experience of what medically they call a Stroke, and it was a death in the mind; suddenly a terrific force hit me and my mind went like that (waves both hands in an erratic zigzag fashion) and everything went. I was laid out for about a week. Everybody thought I was going to die - and I thought I was going to die, which was very important. Then I slowly began to come back, and as I was coming back I had a premonition that I was going to die. And I was prepared to die. I said the proper prayers and everything, and I waited. But nothing happened. (chuckles) And so I got someone to massage me and came back to normal. Then I felt the need to surrender. It was interesting as I was to surrender to the Mother. It came very clearly - surrender to the Mother. I made this act of surrender, and a kind of love overwhelmed me. There was a friend, a nurse, Julie Walters, who was looking after me, and I called her and said, ‘I’ve been overwhelmed with love, I don’t know whether I can survive it.’ It was such a tremendous (the word here could be fire, but it is unclear). I think it was opening to the…. unconscious… to the feminine… simply opened up. That was a real death of the mind.

From that time onwards I have never really been in the dualistic mind - something is always beyond it. What my experience taught me was when everything goes you discover this love which is in you all the time; it is there all the time - deep down there and you know nothing about it. Let everything go and it comes. I got a tremendous insight into Jesus on the Cross with this. It was very interesting. The words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” That was the climax for Him, and I think at that moment I think he had lost everything. His disciples had fled. The Jews were all against Him. His people had rejected Him. And now he had to let go of his God. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” The moment he let go of God and faced death, darkness, nothingness, he was taken to total love. That is the experience of death. Behind all death is this tremendous power of love, and everybody’s got it in them if they could only find it. The mind is controlling all the time and won’t let it through. Sometimes you have to be hit on the head, you see, to awaken you.

…no longer afraid of death or accidents or illnesses or whatever - they’re all incidence which love can use to reveal itself. And I think when people die they’re all afraid of so many things. What you face is unconditional love. That is the judgement. It is unconditional love, which is very demanding - it doesn’t let you do what you like. Love demands love. You are called. Some people perhaps cannot respond - it’s possible. For most people it’s so powerful, and you just have to give way and surrender."