Isvara Pranidhana - Surrender to a Higher Power
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras is a Yogic philosophy text written in roughly 400 C.E, and is viewed as the foundational text for the path of Yoga. It contains verses that serve as a guide to follow for self-realization.
Within Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, we learn about Isvara Pranidhana - surrendering to a higher power. Isvara Pranidhana is one of Patanjali’s Niyamas. Niyamas are ‘observances’, a set of practices that apply the ethics of Yoga to a practicioner’s own mind, body and spirit, purifying and sculpting an inner environment to create a fertile ground for awakening. Practicing the niyamas is said to give the student the resilience, purity, and discipline that they need in order to progress on their spiritual journey.
Isvara Pranidhana is the ultimate Niyama.
A yogi practice’s Isvara Pranidhana when there is intense emotions. Weither going through a breakup, loosing a job, illness, or even the greatest of joys, it is recommended to offer it up to the divine. When facing uncomfortable emotions, sometimes the only thing we can do is let go of our hold on the energy, find acceptance, and surrender it up to a higher power. When we can let go of the intensity of emotions, we release their hold on us, and restore our unshakeable faith in Spirit - no matter what the circumstance is.
Not only do we practice this when their is emotional intensity, we can even apply this when we experience joy. Instead of grasping at emotional states such as happiness, we can offer it back to the Divine, as a way of releasing attachment, and still practicing devotion to the divine. Offering up our emotional states is like offering flowers to a deity - it is all material that can take us deeper to uniting with Truth.
All energies that move through us can be transmuted into spiritual energy, fuel to bring us closer to Self. In Yoga, adopt a practice of witnessing these energies move through you. Instead of adopting them as your own, explore how it would feel to use them as your own energetic flowers to offer to your practice. They are not YOU, they are aspects of the Universe visiting you, and that recognition in your offering will only bring you deeper to a higher power.