As far as the still unconscious majority of the population is concerned,
only a critical limit-situation has the potential to crack the hard shell
of the ego and force them into surrender and so into the awakened
state. A limit-situation arises when through some disaster, drastic
upheaval, deep loss, or suffering your whole world is shattered and
doesn’t make sense anymore. It is an encounter with death, be it
physical or psychological. The egoic mind, the creator of this world,
collapses. Out of the ashes of the old world, a new world can then
come into being.
There is no guarantee, of course, that even a limit-situation will do it,
but the potential is always there. Some people’s resistance to what is
even intensifies in such a situation, and so it becomes a descent into
hell. In others, there may only be partial surrender, but even that will
give them a certain depth and serenity that were not there before.
Parts of the ego shell break off, and this allows small amounts of the
radiance and peace that lie beyond the mind to shine through.
Limit-situations have produced many miracles. There have been
murderers on death row waiting for execution who, in the last few
hours of their lives, experienced the egoless state and the deep joy
and peace that come with it. The inner resistance to the situation
they found themselves in became so intense as to produce
unbearable suffering, and there was nowhere to run and nothing to do
to escape it, not even a mind-projected future. So they were forced
into complete acceptance of the unacceptable. They were forced into
surrender. In this way, they were able to enter the state of grace with
which comes redemption: complete release from the past. Of course,
it is not really the limit-situation that makes room for the miracle of
grace and redemption, but the act of surrender.
So whenever any kind of disaster strikes, or something goes seriously
“wrong” — illness, disability, loss of home or fortune or of a socially
defined identity, breakup of a close relationship, death or suffering of
a loved one, or your own impending death — know that there is
another side to it, that you are just one step away from something
incredible: a complete alchemical transmutation of the base metal of
pain and suffering into gold. That one step is called surrender.
I do not mean to say that you will become happy in such a situation.
You will not. But fear and pain will become transmuted into an inner
peace and serenity that come from a very deep place — from the
Unmanifested itself. It is “the peace of God, which passes all
understanding.” Compared to that, happiness is quite a shallow thing.
With this radiant peace comes the realization — not on the level of
mind but within the depth of your Being — that you are indestructible,
immortal. This is not a belief. It is absolute certainty that needs no
external evidence or proof from some secondary source.