What role does surrender play in your practice, if at all? If you are a magic user, where is the balance between accepting the will of the Divine and asserting your own will?
What is your relationship with the Divine and Reality? Is it a relationship of submission? Are you friends with a much more powerful being? Or are you their tool? What of your power and your agency, and what does that deity think about that? In a religion where one chooses to be submissive to a deity, and accept the fate and reality of life by that faith, that is your last of act of will. Or are you looking for an excuse for not making decisions or taking ownership of your life, your decisions and the consequences?
What is up with all the questions? That is part of my practice. Free will, implies an active and engaged consciousness. Taking a knee to survive is not the same as rolling on your back and say do as you will even my death. Deities, good, bad and indifferent each have a personality, agendas, and where do you fit in that?
I had accepted the boon of one God. It was trials and ordeals for 32 years. No negotiations, no consensual interactions, it is what it was. Would I ever do that again, never. And I hope I am not that stupid the next life and hope that there is a support system for me then. Surrender, as in wanting to die, no not enough. Death is only temporary. Oblivion is forever. My soul like many others are adamantine, not a god nor the universe can hurt it. Only ourselves. Was that surrender nope. It was a will, yet the universe showed me the truth of it. Accept truth and reality is always a magical act. It is a spiritual and evolutionary act. So that is what I choose.
My will inspite of a god wanting to destroy me. My will inspite of another god wanting to manipulate me. The answer is no. Living according to the project path, true or no, prevarication or no, with honest relationship with me, no.
Will I work with a deity? Certainly, as long as, they are honest and forthright with what they want and need, and if it works for me as well. How many will do that? The only beings who are not gods but cultural ancestors, are about as honest and forthright with what they need to work with you for whatever X is. Yet you own it the decison and repercussions. That is magic.
Magic always require an understanding of what it takes to achieve the goal. Do you rely on gods for your magic? Great, is it an honest interaction? You do magic without gods? Great, what is your relationship to the world around you as you are altering it? It is all about honest relationship with everything. Can you do magic without a fully disclosed of the hows and whys? With deities that happens often, as often as you buy a product today with out knowing the ethics and sourcing of materials and labor. Did you surrender your attention and responsibility so that you can take for granted that exchange? Many do. AT what cost? Is it free will or is it a surrendering to the Zietgiest of reality, Sitting quietly on the wheel of Samsara, being the plaything of Maya, et all?
Magic is a tool and process, as much as, filling up your gas tank, honing your art, or construction or whatever work life craft you have. To get better you discipline yourself to the techniques and practices, is not a surrender. Acting through what comes naturally is taking for granted all that you have done, to be that competent, as it is any relationship, active or passive with human, place, deity or things. Magic doesn’t have to be a spiritual act. For many they think it is, when it is a religious act. Taking for granted your behaviors is surrendering your awareness and spirituality. Many do it without thinking, context or pretext. I won’t.
Even great Yogis warn even with all the siddhis, one should still pursue that spiritual development, enlightenment to an ever higher state. Even Gods are trapped on the wheel of Samsara. I choose not to be trapped.
No surrender for me. Now learning that the human body, memory, faculties and ego are a temporary construct is it surrendering it, or more to the point it is a fact of temporary physical existence. It is my disciplines, temperament and relationship to the truth that gets imprinted on my soul. Seeing and accepting the truth as it is, is not a surrender. It is the starting place of having an honest relationship with what is so you can make choices of what will be. Be it your will or the will of the world around you. You have to play to make any change whatsoever. No will, accepting the will of everything else, is that surrendering to fate, or the actions of others and the gods. So many people do so even those who do magic, because they are not in full control of the mind, emotion and body, the very tool that we use interact with reality, which can be programmed by everything except your self. Feeling good about our ego’s acceptance of playing the programmed beliefs, may feel like free will, but it isn’t. They fight to keep that programming. The ego is not you but one acts like a slave to keep it alive as long as possible even without personal control of programming it for ones own spiritual benefits.
I may be buffeted by the storm, but I choose to steer, how much sail to loose and catch what wind. I choose the shore and havens I sail to. I refuse to be flotsam and jetsum, they carry no cargo. I do. I carry my future, the keys to other’s freedom and empowerment, the means to improve my boat, which is just a tool. I will be friends with sea and wind, in all of its faces. I will not lay down and surrender to its whims. And yet it will remember me, and embrace me, when I return.
Waxed poetical in the last here. I hope it makes sense.
Archonstone