To surrender in spirituality and religion means that a believer completely gives up their own will and subjects his thoughts, ideas, and deeds to the will and teachings of a higher power.[citation needed] It may also be contrasted with submission.[clarification needed] Surrender is willful acceptance and yielding to a dominating force and their will.
In Christianity, the first main principle of surrender is "Dying to Self", or "The Carrying of Your Cross", allowing Christ to reign and rule in the order of how one's life is carried out, illustrated in the following passages:
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any [man] will come after me let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
Another principle central to the Christian concept of surrender is the concept of surrender to God's Will. Surrendering to God's will entails both the surrender of our will to His, in His sovereignty over all things, in which His ways of operating and thinking prevails over humanity's and Satan's. Secondarily, the surrender of one's will is evidenced by the acknowledgement of God's will for our personal lives in even the smallest decisions. This is done through putting personal desire aside in favor of God's perfect will for our lives. This includes the reality of an acceptance to a calling or purpose. The precipice or essentiality of this personal surrender is obedience, and obedience to God is an indication of bringing about His will. Which, having lasting effects through generations, and in kingdoms/nations, is often associated with earthly and heavenly blessings.
The ultimate surrender; the surrender of Christ, which is a fully submitted will to God's Divine plan, is seen in Christ's birth as well as His final three prayers, in Gethsemane, before His crucifixion. The coming into the world as God incarnate and then the surrender to the Cross/His life in the act of sacrificial atonement, breaking the curse of sin and death from the Fall.
This is evidenced in the following:
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Surrender is also noted in Christian doctrine[where?] as one of the three columns of victorious living, or Christian victory: the Blood of the Lamb [Christ], their Testimony of the Word of God [Scriptures] and their lives, and Loving not their own lives to death; that Christ's life may be shown.
According to the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna said the following to the warrior Arjuna, who became his disciple:
I consider the yogi-devotee—who lovingly contemplates on Me with supreme faith, and whose mind is ever absorbed in Me—to be the best of all the yogis.
—Chapter 6, Verse 47
After attaining Me, the great souls do not incur rebirth in this miserable transitory world, because they have attained the highest perfection.
—Chapter 8, Verse 15
... those who, renouncing all actions in Me, and regarding Me as the Supreme, worship Me... For those whose thoughts have entered into Me, I am soon the deliverer from the ocean of death and transmigration, Arjuna. Keep your mind on Me alone, your intellect on Me. Thus you shall dwell in Me hereafter.
—Chapter 12, Verses 6-8
And he who serves Me with the yoga of unswerving devotion, transcending these qualities [binary opposites, like good and evil, pain and pleasure] is ready for liberation in Brahman.
—Chapter 14, Verse 26
Fix your mind on Me, be devoted to Me, offer service to Me, bow down to Me, and you shall certainly reach Me. I promise you because you are My very dear friend.
—Chapter 18, Verse 65
Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear.[3]
—Chapter 18, Verse 66
Several gurus teach their disciples the importance of surrender to God or to themselves, as part of the guru-disciple relationship. For example, the Sri Sai Satcharita, the biography of Sai Baba of Shirdi says that surrender to the guru is the only sadhana.
Prem Rawat, formerly called Guru Maharaj Ji, was quoted in 1978 "But there is nothing to understand! And if there is something to understand, there is only one thing to understand, and that is to surrender!"[4]
Contrary to the notion of surrendering onto God, Krishna in Bhagavad Gita also advises his followers to question everything in pursuit of absolute truth.
Accepting the importance of self-realization; and philosophical search for the Absolute Truth -- all these I declare to be knowledge, and besides this whatever there may be is ignorance.[5][6]
—Chapter 13, Verse 12
Islam
The concept of surrender is when a person abides by the five main Pillars of Islam.[7] following the faith means surrendering or submitting one's will to God. This means that Muslims in their daily life should strive for excellence under the banner of God's will.[8] Every single action in a Muslim's life, whether marriage or building one's career, should theoretically be for the sake of God.
↑ "The Christian Flag". Prayer Foundation. Retrieved 18 October 2007. The flag's most conspicuous symbol is the Christian cross, the most universal symbol for Christianity. The red color represents the blood of Christ and brings to mind his crucifixion. Christians believe that Jesus Christ's death and resurrection is the means God uses to save believers from their sins. The cross and blood have been used since earliest Christianity to symbolize salvation through Jesus; in the words of the Apostle Paul, "And having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself;" -Colossians 1:20. The white field draws on symbolism throughout the Bible equating white clothes with purity and forgiveness. People who have been "washed white as snow" in the Bible have been cleansed from their sins (Isaiah 1:18; Psalm 51:2). In conventional vexillology (the study of flags, their history and symbolism), a white flag is linked to surrender, a reference to the Biblical description Jesus' non-violence and surrender to God's will. The symbolism behind the blue canton has been interpreted to represent Heaven, truth, or the Christian ritual of Baptism in water.
The Second Coming is the Christian belief that Jesus Christ will return to Earth after his ascension to Heaven. The idea is based on messianic prophecies and is part of most Christian eschatologies. Other faiths have various interpretations of it.
Infallibility refers to an inability to be wrong. It can be applied within a specific domain, or it can be used as a more general adjective. The term has significance in both epistemology and theology, and its meaning and significance in both fields is the subject of continued debate.
The Beatitudes are sayings of Jesus, and in particular eight or nine blessings recounted by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, and four in the Sermon on the Plain in the Gospel of Luke, followed by four woes which mirror the blessings. Each is a proverb-like proclamation, without narrative.
Humility is the quality of being humble. Dictionary definitions accentuate humility as low self-regard and sense of unworthiness. In a religious context, humility can mean a recognition of self in relation to a deity, and subsequent submission to that deity as a member of that religion. Outside of a religious context, humility is defined as being "unselved"—liberated from consciousness of self—a form of temperance that is neither having pride nor indulging in self-deprecation.
The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis, is a Christian devotional book first composed in Medieval Latin as De Imitatione Christi. The devotional text is divided into four books of detailed spiritual instructions: (i) "Helpful Counsels of the Spiritual Life", (ii) "Directives for the Interior Life", (iii) "On Interior Consolation", and (iv) "On the Blessed Sacrament". The devotional approach of The Imitation of Christ emphasises the interior life and withdrawal from the mundanities of the world, as opposed to the active imitation of Christ practised by other friars. The devotions of the books emphasize devotion to the Eucharist as the key element of spiritual life.
Kriya Yoga is a yoga system which consists of a number of levels of pranayama, mantra, and mudra, intended to rapidly accelerate spiritual development and engender a profound state of tranquility and God-communion. It is described by its practitioners as an ancient yoga system revived in modern times by Lahiri Mahasaya, who claimed to be initiated by a guru, Mahavatar Babaji, circa 1861 in the Himalayas. Kriya Yoga was brought to international awareness by Paramahansa Yogananda's book Autobiography of a Yogi and through Yogananda's introductions of the practice to the West from 1920.
Jesus walking on the water, or on the sea, is recorded as one of the miracles of Jesus recounted in the New Testament. There are accounts of this event in three Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and John—but it is not included in the Gospel of Luke. This story, following the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, tells how Jesus sent the disciples by ship back to the "other side" of the Sea of Galilee while he remained behind, alone, to pray. Night fell and the sea arose as the ship became caught in a wind storm. After rowing against the wind for most of the night, the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water. They were frightened, thinking that they were seeing a spirit, but when Jesus told them not to be afraid, they were reassured. After Jesus entered the ship, the wind ceased, and they arrived at land.
Religious views on love vary widely between different religions.
In the New Testament, chapters 14–17 of the Gospel of John are known as the Farewell Discourse given by Jesus to eleven of his disciples immediately after the conclusion of the Last Supper in Jerusalem, the night before his crucifixion.
Matthew 8:20 is the 20th verse in the eighth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It reveals the homelessness of Jesus and his followers.
Matthew 10:38 is a verse in the tenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament.
The bride of Christ, or the lamb's wife, is a metaphor used in number of related verses in the Christian Bible, specifically the New Testament – in the Gospels, the Book of Revelation, the Epistles, with related verses in the Old Testament.
"John the Revelator" is a gospel blues call and response song. Music critic Thomas Ward describes it as "one of the most powerful songs in all of pre-war acoustic music ... [which] has been hugely influential to blues performers". American gospel-blues musician Blind Willie Johnson recorded "John the Revelator" in 1930. Subsequently, a variety of artists, including the Golden Gate Quartet, Son House, Depeche Mode, Jerry Garcia Band, The White Stripes, The Forest Rangers, The Sword, have recorded their renditions of the song, often with variations in the verses and music.
Psalm 69 is the 69th psalm of the Book of Psalms, beginning in English in the King James Version: "Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul". It is subtitled: "To the chief musician, upon Shoshannim, a Psalm of David". The Book of Psalms is part of the third section of the Hebrew Bible, and a book of the Christian Old Testament. In the slightly different numbering system used in the Greek Septuagint version of the Bible and in the Latin Vulgate, this psalm is Psalm 68. In Latin, it is known as "Salvum me fac Deus". It has 36 verses.
The New Commandment is a term used in Christianity to describe Jesus's commandment to "love one another" which, according to the Bible, was given as part of the final instructions to his disciples after the Last Supper had ended, and after Judas Iscariot had departed in John 13:30.
Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you. 34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. —John 13:33–35
The Bhagavad Gita, often referred to as the Gita, is a 700-verse Hindu scripture, which is part of the epic Mahabharata. The Bhagavad Gita is dated to the second half of the first millennium BCE. Even though Hinduism includes several denominations, the Gita holds a unique pan-Hindu influence as the most prominent sacred text. It has been noted that if there is any one text that comes near to embodying the totality of Hindu thought, it is the Bhagavad Gita.
John 1:37 is the 37th verse in the first chapter of the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible.
Matthew 11:4-6 is a set of verses in the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament.
The Jnana Karma Sanyasa Yoga, also spelled as the Gnana Karma Sanyasa Yoga, is the fourth of the eighteen chapters of the Bhagavad Gita. The chapter has a total of 42 shlokas (verses). The chapter is the 28th chapter of the Bhishma Parva, the sixth book of the Mahabharata.
The Akshara Brahma Yoga is the eighth of the eighteen chapters of the Bhagavad Gita. The chapter has a total of twenty-eight shlokas. It is the 30th chapter of Bhishma Parva, the sixth book of the Mahabharata.
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