Surrender · “Let Go to Receive”
Total Acceptance of What Is
To meet each moment exactly as it is — as the impersonal will of God / Consciousness functioning — so that resistance dissolves and the guilt and pride that ride on ‘I did this’ fall away.
Total acceptance in 5 lines: Start from “what is, is” — the moment has already arrived; stop arguing with the fact. Meet it as the impersonal functioning of the whole (“God’s will”), not an affront aimed at you. Drop the inner war, not wise action. Let credit and blame go — there’s no separate self that authored the outcome. Rest in the present, and let the “surge of tranquility, peace and trust” come on its own. (Accept the fact — don’t resign yourself to remediable harm.)
What it is
This is Ramesh Balsekar’s practice of surrender — the direct partner to his teaching of no-doership. Once it is seen that no separate self authors events, the natural consequence is total acceptance of whatever happens as the impersonal functioning of Consciousness (which Balsekar, speaking to all audiences, often phrased as “the will of God”).
Rather than fighting the present moment — wishing it were otherwise, assigning blame, or hoarding credit — you meet what is, as it is. Balsekar held that this is where peace actually lives: “With total acceptance there is a surge of great tranquility, peace and trust.” Because the moment is no longer “mine to have caused,” the guilt, shame, and pride that normally attach to outcomes have nothing to hold to.
It operationalizes release-to-receive / non-resistance (The Inner Creates the Outer), the present moment as the only point of power (Everything Happens in the Now), and the neutrality of events (Only Love Is Real).
The Method
Drawn from Consciousness Speaks and the daily meditations of A Net of Jewels. The faithful practice:
- Begin from “what is, is.” Whatever is happening right now — pleasant or unpleasant — start by acknowledging that it already is the case. The moment has arrived; arguing with it is arguing with a fact.
- See this moment as Consciousness functioning. Balsekar’s reframe: this event is not a random affront aimed at “me,” but the impersonal functioning of the totality — “the will of God,” if you like. As he taught, one “willingly and freely accepts whatever comes his way within the totality of functioning.”
- Drop resistance, not action. Acceptance is an inner yes to the present fact. It does not forbid responding — the working mind still acts. What dissolves is the inner war with reality: the “this shouldn’t be happening.”
- Let go of credit and blame. Because no separate self authored the event, there is no one to blame for a bad outcome and no one to credit for a good one. Watch guilt, shame, and pride lose their grip as you stop owning outcomes personally.
- Stay in the now. Balsekar: “Remaining in the present moment, unconcerned with happiness or unhappiness, is the ‘within.’” Acceptance lives in this moment, not in regret over the past or anxiety about the future (the territory of the thinking mind).
- Notice the felt result. When acceptance is genuine, Balsekar promised a “surge of great tranquility, peace and trust” — not a forced calm, but the relief of ceasing a fight you could never win.
- Use it continuously. Like all real surrender practices, this is applied in real time, all day — to small frustrations and large griefs alike, each met with the same “what is, is.” (Sourcing note: “what is, is,” “the will of God,” “willingly and freely accepts whatever comes,” and the tranquility quote reflect Balsekar’s published teaching, attributed and faithfully described, not reproduced at length.)
Source & Lineage
Ramesh Balsekar (1917–2009) taught daily in his Mumbai home from 1982 after years as Nisargadatta Maharaj’s translator.
For Balsekar, acceptance was the practical face of Advaita — “the ultimate understanding of Advaita is Acceptance,” lived out day to day. A Net of Jewels (1996) distils the teaching into daily meditations; Consciousness Speaks (1992) gives the conversational form.
The lineage runs from Nisargadatta’s nondual surrender back through Advaita Vedanta, and parallels the universal mystical pointing of “thy will be done.”
The Traditions' versions
Tolle’s “say yes to the now” — inner non-resistance to the present moment.
- Christian welcoming / “thy will be done” — consenting to what is as God’s will.
- Sufi tawakkul / Rabia’s contentment — trust in and contentment with what God sends.
- Taoist wu wei — flowing with rather than forcing reality.
- Stoic amor fati / reserve clause — willing what happens; acting “with reservation.”
- Hawkins’ / Sedona letting go — releasing the resistance behind a feeling.
Common refinements
Confusing acceptance with resignation. Accepting that something is the case is not approving of it or refusing to change it going forward. You can fully accept a flat tyre and still change it.
- Using “God’s will” to bypass. “It was meant to be” can become a way to skip grief, dodge boundaries, or excuse mistreatment. Acceptance is of the fact, not a verdict that the harm is fine.
- Faking calm. Forcing a serene face over unfelt resistance is suppression, not acceptance. The tranquility Balsekar describes follows genuine letting-go of the fight.
- Accepting only the pleasant. The practice is total — it meets the unwanted moment with the same “what is, is,” not just the agreeable one.
- Drifting into past/future. Acceptance is of this moment; brooding over what was or fearing what will be is the thinking mind, not acceptance.