英文书分享|《臣服实验》的核心其实是“实验”

哇14天的共读又结束了，开心！不知不觉间就把每月共读一本书这个习惯养成了，很想把这种轻松无压力读完一本书的感觉也分享给你们啊！下次遇到感兴趣的书大家一定要来读！

好了好了，我还是先分享《臣服实验》The Surrender Experiment 这本书吧：

1970年，23岁的迈克·A.辛格在和朋友的一次聊天中，突然察觉到脑海里“另一种声音“以喋喋不休的方式扰乱了他内心的平静。为了追求内心的平和，弄清楚这个voice到底是来自于哪里，辛格逐步走上了”臣服“之路。这本书不是一本通俗意义上讲成功学的励志书，作者只不过是在用自己生活的故事来分享自己向生活臣服、允许一切奇迹发生的心路历程。

他就是因为想获得精神的自由于是跑到森林里自己建了个小木屋来做冥想，后来人们都跑到他这儿做冥想，于是他的家就成了到现在还在使用的冥想圣地，同时因为自己小木屋做得好，后来大家都找他盖房子，就开了个建筑公司给人造房子；之后又因为写代码设计出了改变美国医疗管理产业的软件包，建立了市值十亿美元的上市公司。最后因为被人冤枉被迫陷入官司，让它濒临灾难的边缘…

面对生活带给他的一切，辛格都没有选择逃避，而是诚实地面对自己，全身心地投入到生命的安排中。作者对待每一件事的态度仿佛都是命运给他的一样，正是对待生活全然地放手和臣服教会了他渡人渡己，把生活当作灵修实践的一部分。

我以前读Eckhart Tolle和杨定一的书已经了解到了surrender的大致意思，但那时候完全是处于知识层面的理解，没有完全领悟到底什么叫“臣服”。现在读Michael Singer的书，虽然我并不能一下子做到放下和释怀，但慢慢地也能够从自己的生活里体会到臣服的神奇之处了。

首先是因为我自己有了更多的经历理解起来有了更多的层次，其次是我很喜欢Michael Singer的讲解方式。这个老头很可爱，讲起东西来也神采飞扬的。看他在Master Class上讲臣服实验的视频，一共有九节课，虽然每节课都有不同的主题，但九个多小时的课我听完了才发现他讲课是没有一个“知识点”和“主题”的概念的，你会在他的引导下自然而然地感受知识点随着时间流入你的认知当中。

他的文字也是这样，你看这本书的大纲，它不像普通的书，第一章介绍什么是臣服，第二张介绍如何实现臣服blabla 。他不是这样，Michael Singer是完完全全地按照自己的体悟过程完整地再现自己的内心体验和人生经历。虽然他不会给你下个明确的定义告诉你什么是臣服实验，但你能从字里行间感受到臣服的实践意义。

读他的文字也启发我，练习写作其实也是练习臣服，这个时候我们变成了自我的观察者，当我们放下对自我的评判、放下好坏的标准，文字会自然而然地随着笔尖流淌出来。而且，真实的文字是非常外露的，它能够极为精准地反映人当下的情绪和心态。这几天每天晚上休息之前读一下辛格的文字，我整个人似乎立马就能平静下来，好像他在写作时的状态随着他的文字流淌到了我身上。于是我尝试把那些流淌到我身上的体悟总结一下，写在这里。算是这14天的一个小收获吧：

let go of personal preference 

We regularly say things like “Why did it have to rain today? It always rains when I don’t want it to. It had all week to rain; it’s just not fair.” Without realizing it, we do this with everything in our lives —it’s as though we actually believe that the world around us is supposed to manifest in accordance to our own likes and dislikes. When things go our way, we are happy and relaxed; when it doesn’t, we are disturbed and stressed. 

However, the thing is, life rarely unfolds exactly as we want it to. The universe has been taking care of itself for 13.8 billion years and how come that things should be the way we want them instead of being the natural result of all the forces of creation?

At the heart of the surrender experiment is a simple question: Am I better off making up an alternate reality in my mind based on my personal wants and then fighting with reality to make it be my way, or am I better off letting go of what I want and serving the same forces of reality that managed to create the entire perfection of the universe around me? 

It’s not uncommon to understand surrender as “giving up” or “dropping out of life”, but in its essence, it would be about leaping into life to live in a place where we are no longer controlled by our personal fears and desires. Next time, when it rains outside, how about we replace all that complaining voice with: “WOW, look how beautiful; it’s raining!”

Let go of the control

The author Michael A. Singer has devoted more than forty years of his life to letting go of everything and seeing where the flow of life’s events would naturally take him. He realized that as one thing naturally followed the other, the flow of life’s events led him on a journey that would have been beyond his comprehension.

I always like to ask people who are older than me that if the life they are having now is exactly the same as they had imagined 10 or 20 years ago. The answer is always a firm NO. It’s beyond anything they had ever imagined or controlled, and the beauty of life lies where they let go of the control and trust the flow of life. 

When we are not in charge of our life, somehow, we will feel more open and more connected to the movement of the nature. Because our personal self is controlled by our own fears and desires and we want to be in charge of what is going on to dismiss the anxious mind. But when we let go of the control, we will know what life is capable of doing instead of what I want it to be doing. 

Let go of should and shouldn’t

When we hold ourselves and want to be in charge of everything, we tend to control what should and shouldn’t be happening. “Oh I should have done this.” “He shouldn’t have done that.” “It shouldn’t have gone this way!” If we can’t get the world the way we want it, we internally verbalize it, judge it, complain about it, and then decide what to do about it. 

Again, this world is unfolding and really has very little to do with our inner judgement system. In the name of attempting to hold the world together, we’re really just trying to hold ourselves together. There is always next problem. There is always something that doesn’t go our way. If we keep thinking about ourselves and holding on to the problems, we’ll never be freed from them. 

True personal growth is about transcending the part of you that is not okay and needs protection and perfection. I think letting of the hold of the mind is not to passively accept what is happening and do nothing about it. Instead, there is nothing we can’t do when we let go of the should and shouldn’t. We give away too much rights of our inner kingdom to the outside world and let it decide what we can or cannot do. Now we have to take it back and commit ourselves to the inner work of freedom. This is our life—reclaim it. 

读完这本书，我的确感到了一种心境的打开，但我也有不少没有搞明白的地方：就好像我知道一切要顺其自然，可是怎么做呢？怎么样才能放下自己的成见和喜好，放下对生活的控制，放下应该和不应该去全然地接纳呢？带着这些疑惑，我想开启Michael Singer 第二本书 The Untethered Soul 《清醒地活》的阅读，我不期待之后读完这本书就能解答我的疑惑，我始终觉得提出问题、寻找答案的过程对自己来说就是最好的答案。《臣服实验》这本书的重点或许不在于“臣服”，而是在于“实验”二字。实验就是我也不知道结果会怎样，但正是“我所不知道的”赋予了臣服的意义。

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英文书共读招募|《清醒地活》是什么束缚住了你现在的生活？