We all want things to happen our way. Sometimes, we even forget whom we’re negotiating with. The Real Boss!

There’s a question I really hate asking myself: Do I really surrender to God, or do I just want God to surrender to my plans?

I like to believe I have faith. I pray, I meditate, and I say, “Whatever God does is for the best.” And I mean it. Until something happens that I really don’t want. Then come the questions. Why me? Why now? Not again.

When things worked out, I was happy to take a little credit. When they didn’t, God somehow became part of the conversation very quickly.

Selective me!

Was my faith only comfortable when God and I wanted the same thing? Quite harsh. But probably true.

When I came to the path of meditation, I started hearing the word surrender quite often. Someone told me that surrender is the first step of bhakti. I liked the thought, but honestly, I didn’t know what to do with it. Did surrender mean I should stop making plans, stop wanting things, or just sit back and say, “God will take care of it”? That didn’t feel right either. I still had responsibilities, ambitions and things I wanted to do. I couldn’t just stop living my life in the name of surrender.

It took me a while to realise that the problem wasn’t with making plans or putting in the effort. It was what happened when the outcome was no longer in my hands. Somewhere, I was still looking for a guarantee. I’d practically made a deal with God:

I’ll have faith. You give me the outcome.

Looking back, it sounds almost funny. Almost.

And that’s when Paramhansa Yogananda’s words began to make much more sense to me:

“I will reason, I will will, and I will act, but guide Thou my reason, will, and activity to the right path in everything”

I’d heard these words before, but perhaps I wasn’t ready to understand them then.

Surrender wasn’t asking me to stop thinking or acting. It was asking me to make room for guidance instead of assuming I already knew what was best. I still had to make plans, make decisions and do the work. It was less about saying, “God, you do everything,” and more about saying, “God, I’ll do my part. Please help me see what I might be missing.”

But that left me with another question. If I was supposed to do my part and let God guide me, what did I do with my attachment to the result? How did I stop making the outcome the only thing that mattered?

Here, Swami Kriyananda’s teachings helped me look at this differently. It wasn’t just about leaving the result to God. It was about offering the work itself to Him.

Think about it. We spend days worrying about whether something will work out, whether our efforts will be appreciated, or whether we’ll get what we hoped for. But how often do we pause to ask whether we’ve done the work sincerely and offered it with the right intention? And these questions changed my perspective. I could take responsibility for my efforts without making myself responsible for controlling every outcome.

Of course, understanding something and actually practising it are two very different things.

I still overthink. I still get attached to outcomes. I still make plans and get irritated when life clearly hasn’t read them. But now, I sometimes catch myself. It’s in the little things: resisting the urge to check my phone ten times, accepting that someone might make a choice I don’t agree with, or going to bed without figuring everything out.

I’m still learning to surrender. But at least now I notice. And perhaps that’s progress too.

So, when things don’t make sense, I try to remind myself:

I don’t understand this. I don’t know where this is going. But I trust God.

I’m still learning not to negotiate with God. Also, when life doesn’t go according to my plan, I try to pause before asking, “Why me?” and ask instead, “What am I still holding on to?”

Maybe surrender begins when I stop asking God to change the situation and start asking Him to change something in me.

– Yashi Goel