Author: Ritu Garg
And then came my satori moment—a sudden awakening and enlightenment. It arrived when I least expected it, amidst the most mundane of activities. In an instant, the truth presented itself in a paradoxical, dialectical way.
Why hadn’t I thought of this before?
As I sat on the neat, crisp, bare, cold chair—the only one I could find—and abstract, transcendental muzak provided a rhythmic backdrop to my jagged thoughts, I felt a fulgent light shine through my tears. A rainbow, perhaps. The rainbow that every tear carries.
The instructor’s balmy voice—a voice tempered by deep pain yet imbued with the residual strength of healing—was both affected and detached.
He said, “Now, I invite you to follow me as I guide you through grief yoga, through chair dance—a dance of your soul with the involvement of your limbs and breath. Here, the body becomes a vessel to surrender and grow. Exhale all that prevents you from feeling joy. Exhale sorrow, sadness, and the heaviness lodged in the minutest cells of your being. Use your breath to scour your inner organs. Feel the joy of dance—sing the poems of grief, sing, and see the collateral beauty of loss and pain. For hell and heaven reside within this five-foot body. Surrender to the universe—feel that things are happening through you, not to you. You are exactly where you are meant to be. Exhale resistance.”
He explained that our bodies are storehouses of myriad emotions—emotions that clog our energy and life force, preventing us from flowing freely. Through conscious breathing, we can cleanse our skeletal, muscular, and physiological energies of everything that no longer serves a purpose.
The hamza gesture—a symbol of surrender raised above my head—revealed that surrender is not merely a mental state but also a physical one. My satori moment, a powerful and transformative realization, emerged from the chaos and mundanity of daily life. It was a eureka moment, an enlightenment that shifted my perspective and created a fresh outlook.
This realization was both seminal and transformative—paradoxical, contrapuntal. “To surrender is to be victorious.” Or perhaps it was a dialectical understanding of truth. We are conditioned by stories of war to believe that surrendering is synonymous with subjugation, defeat, and the erosion of power. Yet, the reality is quite the opposite: in surrender lies true power. Letting go of control grants us ultimate freedom.
Consider this: we often believe that control brings freedom. But in the spiritual realm, the desire to control stems from the ego. True joy and freedom come when we release control and flow with life, dissolving the sting of existential crisis. Surrender gradually softens the egoistic mind, elevating us to a plane where we become instruments of the divine plan.
A humble cauldron exemplifies this beautifully. It spreads itself wide and empty, allowing things to pass through or be transformed within it. It doesn’t resist or identify with the heat and remains ready for the next day’s purpose. It is a living metaphor for things happening through us, not to us.
As a devotee of Shirdi Sai Baba, his Saisatcharitra has been my guiding light toward achieving my holy grail: true surrender. While this moment of awakening was seminal in itself, its transformative power lay in the realization of how to surrender. Embodied experiences are essential to truly understanding surrender, using the body to transcend body consciousness.
For me, involving my body in surrender brought profound release. I finally understood the message of the Saisatcharitra: use your body as a vehicle for surrender. The paradox is striking—the very body consciousness we seek to transcend to achieve Sai consciousness is also the instrument for liberation.
Exhale entitlement and control.
Inhale the divine plan.
One Response
Beautiful….I love the word satori .
I believe it to be true , what you have written . I would not be able to articulate it so well . Good writting this is , for sure