Ishwar Pranidhana is one of the niyama or rules of yoga such as shauch (cleanliness), santosh (contentment), Tapa and Swadhyay. In absolute terms, Ishwar Pranidhana refers to surrender to the almighty. But this is not about giving up worldly life to the service of the almighty so much as subduing and curbing the ego and the arrogant self. The ultimate aim of Ishwar Pranidhana is not just to subdue the ego which can get in the way of loving relationships and other joys of life, it is about giving in to the will of God and surrendering to His or Her will in the faith that God will do the right thing so long as you do your best to do your duty.
What is the need for Ishwar Pranidhana?
If surrender to the almighty sounds rather extreme and other worldly, bear with me for a while as I clarify what this means in practical terms and why it can be a desirable aim for all of us. This surrender is more about relinquishing some of the control that you try to exert over the people and occurrences around you. It is also about acquiring some amount of humility; about confronting the fact that each of us is an inconsequential little cog in the mighty universe.
It is desirable to recognize that there are many things out of our own control and that we can do little to alter outcomes except to do our duties honestly and to the best of our abilities. This is also about accepting the wisdom and the power of an entity larger than us in every way. This concept is also encapsulated in the sermon that Lord Krishna gave to Arjun.
As an agitated Arjun faced his own kith and kin on the battlefield and told his all knowing charioteer about his great internal struggle, Lord Krishna calmed him down by telling him to relinquish his ego and to do his duty without worrying about the outcome. With so much uncertainty in life, embracing surrender in this way helps soothe the mind and releases tension. Sometimes it is the only thing to do – to do one’s duty and not worry about the consequences simply because they are beyond our control.
How to apply the principles of Ishwar Pranidhana in everyday life
Admittedly, it is a little simplistic and fatalistic to confront every situation with the leave it all to God attitude. Trying to achieve Ishwar Pranidhana is not about abdicating responsibility to the almighty, but about being responsible to the best of our limited abilities and then relinquishing the tension of trying to control the consequences that flow from there.
The western concept that God works in mysterious ways / His miracles to perform is also something that we can imbibe here. We often don’t understand what is going on. We are worried and bewildered by the sequence of events until the end when things seem to fall into place and what was possibly God’s grand design all along reveals itself.
As God has created this beautiful, wonderful world, God also perhaps has some plan about all the small and big creatures She or He created. So when at work we can do our best work possible and leave it to the almighty that the recalcitrant boss will ultimately come around. In our relationships we can be faithful, unreservedly loving and committed and hope that our feelings are reciprocated. We can internalize the ability to let go and stop trying to control things that are beyond the scope of our abilities. In practical terms this keeps us humble, in touch with reality and tension free.