Surrender: May You Know the Right Questions to Ask by Michael Karlin Co-President - Mythic Imagination Institute

We go through life thinking we have it all figured out, or at least that we should. Certainly everyone else has it figured out, so why shouldn't I? This common and simplistic notion is reinforced thousands of times every day in the media and other forms of popular culture where life is portrayed as easy, success and happiness an entitlement. We are supposed to have all of the answers, and to ask for help, to ask questions is a sign of weakness.

The irony is that all of the major spiritual traditions teach that the farther along the spiritual path you travel, the more humility you attain, and the greater your ability to surrender to God. There are two stories about Moses, the Biblical leader of the Jews, that portray this humility. The first is from the Passover Haggada, the story of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt that is read every year during the festival of Passover. The primary Biblical commandment regarding Passover is that parents must teach the story of the Exodus to their children every year. At the time this commandment was issued, all of the Jewish children had lived in Egypt and actually experienced the Exodus first hand. All, that is, except for Moses' children who were still back in Midian with Tzipporah, Moses' wife. So, Moses was the first parent who actually had to teach his children about the Exodus. According to tradition, the story he told them became the basis for the Passover Haggada, which is used to tell this story even today. The remarkable thing about the Haggada is that Moses' name is not mentioned even once. This sages attribute this glaring omission to the incredible humility that Moses possessed. According to this tradition, Moses attributes the Exodus to God, and not to himself. He will not take any credit for his role in the events.

The second story is from the Torah itself. The opening word of the book of Leviticus is vayikra, "and He called." The strange thing about this word is that in the actual written Hebrew in the Torah scrolls the final letter, an aleph, is written much smaller than the other letters. When the Rabbis of the Talmud (the Jewish Oral Tradition) were debating why this letter was written this way, they attributed it to the humility of the Torah's draftsman, Moses. Vayikra means "and He called," but its connotation is loving and intimate. You would use this term when calling to someone beloved to you. The term vayikar, spelled the same as vayikra, but without the final aleph, means "and He called" also, but the connotation is of distance and apathy. Almost as if you just bumped into someone. The way the story goes, as Moses was transcribing the Torah as God was dictating it, they came upon this section where God told Moses to write vayikra. Feeling as if this would overstate the level of intimacy and respect that God had for Moses, he pleaded with God to let him write vayikar instead. Moses would not give in, and ultimately, they settled on a compromise: Moses would write the aleph very small, so someone who is reading through the text quickly would read it vayikar, and only those who were studying it carefully would actually read it as it was intended, vayikra. This was the extent to which he practiced his humility and surrender.

These two stories, from just one tradition, illustrate the point that the ultimate examples of piety and spiritual enlightenment in all traditions display the greatest level of humility and surrender.

I am continually trying to learn and re-learn this lesson in my own life, and it is no different as I have been on my path towards this year's Mythic Journeys. I often felt like we had all of the answers. We could see our path unfolding in front of us, and we knew just what to do to get there. Fortunately and unfortunately, depending upon your perspective, we have been reminded time and time again that we do not know what is intended of us, where we are going, or what the answers are. And that is okay, because what is actually unfolding is much more beautiful, meaningful, and impactful than anything we could have imagined going into it. It has not been an easy journey, nor will it be going forward. And we certainly do not have all of the answers. We are trying to learn that it might be enough to try and figure out what the right questions are.

In many ways the spiritual path is about surrender, and surrendering is about not knowing the right path, not knowing the right answers. Not knowing means we have to have the humility and the wisdom to ask questions. Even then, we too often do not even know the right questions to ask. Perhaps the ultimate prayer is to pray for the wisdom to know the right questions.

This year's Mythic Journeys will focus on asking questions in community. Sharing guidance and wisdom with each other, in humility, to find the right questions, and then perhaps, to begin to uncover some of the answers, or at least a few more bread crumbs along the path. This is my prayer for our attendees this year. I hope you can join us.

Peace,

Michael

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