The man’s great challenge to himself throughout the centuries has been: what can I do and how should I act in order to be the master of my mind, in order that my thinking be uniquely occupied with stimulating memories, positive ideas and plans dear to me, and not with the ones imposed upon me. Unless we progress in this direction, we cannot speak of freedom.
The control of one’s mind is, in fact, one of the most powerful means of liberation, in a way that will extinguish the fires and transform the soul.
When we refer to that power, we will use various terms like to let go, to set free, to free ourselves, to detach ourselves, to forget.
Human suffering is a product of the mind. We hold in our own hands the power to neutralize, alleviate or transform this byproduct of human existence.
We are the ones who generate our griefs reconstructing that heavy chain of mishaps, reviving and reliving them again in our mind, as if they had just happened. At this point, a past event is transformed into grief. Wake up and free yourself from these painful memories. ¡Enough suffering!
Common sense and the most elementary wisdom of life tell us that it is senseless to waste our time in lamenting and beating our heads against the indestructible wall of unalterable facts. The mind must be silenced. This is the secret of liberation.
There is a way to peace called the road of surrender. Surrender is an equivocal word and lends itself to ambiguities. Properly lived, raises a person to his or her maximum level of efficiency and productivity.
Every act of surrender implies a no and a yes. No to what I would like or would have liked. What would you have liked? Revenge against those who did this wrong to me! No to that revenge. Distress because my youth is gone! No to that distress. Resentment because everything went wrong in life! No to that resentment.
Yes to what you, my God, have wanted, allowed or disposed. Yes, Father, I place my life into your hands, I give you a blank check. Thy will be done!
Surrendering consists, therefore, in detaching oneself, in placing oneself entirely into the hands of the one who loves me. One will not find a more rapid and a more secure path to liberation than the “therapy” of surrender.
In short, it consists of accepting the universal mystery of life.
And our abode will be called PEACE.
Extracted from the book “From Suffering to Peace” by fr. Ignacio Larrañaga
