What is the difference
Between your Existence
And that of a Saint?
The Saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game
with God
And that the Beloved
Has just made such a
Fantastic Move
That the Saint is now
continually Tripping over joy
And Bursting out in Laughter
And saying, “I Surrender!”
Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves.~Hafez
Citation: Ladinsky, Daniel. I heard God laughing. Poems of hope and joy. Penguin, 2006.
If we take a step back for a moment and reflect on the beautiful wisdom of Hafiz, we may be able to see more clearly that God has always had us in checkmate. For our whole life. From its beginning, to the present moment. When we see this more clearly and understand this more deeply, there is no need to fear or grieve. We can simply Be, in checkmate with God. This will bring God’s Love into all things: the events of our life, our difficult and easy decisions, our emotions, our thoughts, and our relationships.
The checkmate is that God is already the very secret of our existence. He is our truest and inmost Being. We can not escape this Reality. We can not reach it. We can not overcome it. We can not even fail it. Hence checkmate. Pure loving surrender. Beyond any fear or grief, it is a knowing surrender of what is, as it exactly is.
The surrender is effortless when we are certain of this. Even if we have to come back to this, again and again. Life has its ways of bringing us back to humble and loving surrender. The Spiritual Path as our life journey is simply about letting our egoic resistance to this understanding, fall away. One breath, one emotion, one thought, one action, and one relating, at a time.
From this standpoint, it could be said that all the methods, tools, insights, and grace transmitted along the Spiritual Way are all about this recognition and surrender. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Try living in a manner in which God has already won the day of your existence. Of your life. Of your very being. To God’s Loving Checkmate, respond with open, welcoming, loving, and beautiful surrender.
-Hasan Awan
