Milestone Three: Surrender of the Will

Once we have mastered the first and second of three milestones, we know that we are squarely on the side of the Light and not the dark, and that we can surrender our ego in favour of the collective; the ecosystem of humans and our planet to which we all belong.

The evolutionary development of our species is similar to the development of the individual. When we are under-evolved, or immature, we behave like children. The child develops a sense of self, and while doing so is relatively self-absorbed. Children are sometimes called ‘healthy narcissists’ for this reason. Sometimes this behaviour can look like selfishness, or unwillingness to share, etc. This is the child learning about boundaries and is normal.

Once the boundaries of ‘self’ are more or less forged, the adolescent tries to make sense of the world through relationships with others, and in so doing, we mature. We learn how to be good friends, neighbours, marriage partners, parents, how to have good business relationships, how to interact with the world in a way that suits our character, our nature and our level of evolution. We learn about heartbreak and loss and death. Loss changes us, but we realise that loss was only possible because first we had love and connection, and without those, we would never have felt that love and connection and we learn that these are central to feeling alive. So, we learn that life and love and loss are interconnected and that they contribute to our understanding of what is ‘meaningful’.

So, too, does this happen in the collective. We find interconnection between all of life meaningful and a driving force in what makes us happy to be alive. This is mastery of ‘Surrender of the Ego’, the second of the three milestones in human consciousness development.

The third of the three milestones, ‘Surrender of the Will’, finds us feeling pulled towards more and more meaning in our life choices. It is where our need for connection is ever more authentic, honest, ethical. It is where we no longer choose to follow what would have been our own individual will, instead, we surrender this in place of whatever higher consciousness would choose for us to do. But what does that mean?

Maslow’s ‘Hierarchy of Needs’

Maslow’s ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ addresses some of this in what he says is a natural progression towards self-actualisation. After catering for the basic needs of food, safety, sleep, belonging, etc., Maslow describes the ultimate need for ’Self-Actualisation’ as the need for us to achieve our full potential in whatever intellectual or creative methods we choose. But, crucially, he later extended his hierarchy to include ‘Transcendence’ above ‘Self-Actualisation’, meaning that our actual ultimate need is to ‘transcend the self’, to have a connection to a ‘higher power’ or ‘the universe’ or to a purpose.

In Maslow’s highest need, that of ‘Transcendence’, we lean into altruism and spiritual connection and in helping others to achieve their potential. We seek experiences that move beyond personal concerns, and instead seek experiences that forge a deep sense of “unity, understanding, and belonging within the vast expanse of existence.” ( SimplyPsychology.org ) Examples of this ‘transcendence need’ include “mystical experiences and certain experiences with nature, aesthetic experiences, service to others, the pursuit of science, religious faith, etc.”

The Third Milestone

And this is where the third of the three evolutionary milestones comes in. Having achieved our potential in whatever line of work, or personal projects we care about, pursuing activities that have ‘meaning’ where we ‘transcend the self’ becomes more and more important. We are less motivated by what we can do for ourselves and more motivated by what we can do for others. We feel called to be ‘in service’.

In particular, we feel called to be in service to a ‘greater plan’ than we could have created ourselves on our own. We feel called to be ‘in alignment’ with whatever higher intelligence we have in our cosmology, whatever or whomever we understand “God” to be, we surrender our will to that of the will of that higher intelligence. If there is a ‘higher plan’ for us, we surrender our will to that.

In Christianity there is a prayer that Jesus is said to have given to his disciples, when they asked him to teach them how to pray. The prayer is addressed to “Our Father, Who art in Heaven” and it includes the line: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven”. This line ‘thy will be done’ is the surrender of one’s own will for the will of God (or whatever you understand God to be). This is the essence of the third milestone.

Similarly, in Judaism, in the book of Pirkei Avot (2:4) of the Talmud, it says: “Make that His will should be your will, so that He should make your will to be as His will.”

In Islam, submission to God is a central tenant of adherence to the Muslim religion.  Every act or intention must be committed with the single aim of living life in the way that Allah wants you to live it. And this idea of surrender or submission to God runs through many religions around the world.

‘Surrender of the Will’ might be more accurately thought of to be ‘surrender of my will to that of whatever God chooses for me’. What does God choose for me? It’s different for everyone, but it will be whatever and however I can be of the greatest assistance in the world. For some it will be a directly spiritual program of however one might help in the deliverance of humanity back to God. For another, it might be being in working in the mental health services. For another, it might be teaching, or nursing, or helping people to connect with themselves so that they can reach their potential.

Examples of what this might look like include the production of works of art, being in service to others in the care industries, maintaining a high frequency spiritual practice in your life, or even by the studying of teachings that resonate with us and then living out those teachings with reverence. The third milestone calls us, however we might be in service, in bringing ‘heaven to earth’ through devotion to the highest spiritual alignment we can attain.

What’s Next?

Now that we have looked at who we are and the evolutionary journey each soul takes, next we will look at the nature of humans and whether or not it can be said that evil is part of who we are.