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Learning
To Surrender and Trust in God
-
Oliver Mbamara
"Let
your faith, your inner trust and confidence stream forth; remove your
inner obstacles and open yourself to truth." - Shariyat-Ki-Sugmad,
Book 1 & 2, pg. 333
Every once in a while, nature would cause its visitation on the people in a character sometimes baffling to the average individual, and sometimes creeping in upon the general populace even before they would prepare for its “blessings.” Even before the meteorologists would sound their predictive alarm, the first blizzard of winter 2003 visited New York City and its inhabitants. Ever as boisterous, many of the city’s inhabitants went about their business riding the snow and driving on it as if daring the slippery and whipping snowstorm to stop them.
I was involved in a send off party and had filled my car with most of the items that would be used at the party. Like the average New Yorker, I was trying to do so many things at the same time. I was driving and talking to someone over the telephone. Lost in my conversation, I followed a couple of Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) into a very dangerous sloppy street, which every other sedan like mine avoided. Before I knew it, the car was sliding down the street uncontrollably. I roughly excused myself from my friend at the other end of the phone by abandoning the headset. My friend was obviously wandering what was happening as I had sharply yelled while grabbing my steering trying to regain control of the car.
 It was too late. The car steadily glided down the slippery hill, and as I tried to veer it off the cars that were already parked on the side of the sloppy road, it actually glided closer to them. I stepped on the brake pedal and pulled the handbrake but none would help. Instinctively, I turned off the engine and the car came to a halt about a foot away from another parked car. I paused for a while and considered my situation. No big deal! I assured myself. That was very close but I am glad to have survived it, I thought. Little did I know that I was yet to face a bigger challenge.
Regaining my control and calmness, I turned on the ignition and the car started running again. I then slowly and carefully stepped on my accelerator pedal while turning the steering away from the closest car on the side of the road but my car glided even closer to the parked car. I was about 2 or 3 inches away from scratching someone else’s car. I did not want to go through that. Not on a day I was organizing a party, and I was just a few blocks away from the venue and a few minutes away from the scheduled start time. I had to do something about the situation. I was faced with either scratching a couple of cars parked on the side or descend a very sloppy hill with oncoming cars struggling to climb or descend a very narrow street corner.
At this point, it had dawned on me that I had a bigger problem on my hand. It was no longer a joke and I had to be careful. I needed God’s intervention. Luckily, I remembered to slide in my “HU Song” tape (a tape that plays a recorded version of people singing the sacred name of God “HU” as a love song). As I played the tape, I briefly sang a note or two of it. Consciously or unconsciously I had acknowledged my inability to handle the situation on my own since all my physical efforts to maneuver the car down the hill and through the narrow traffic junction had been futile. Turning off the ignition again, I stepped out of the car, and looked around to see if there was anyone around who may have a helpful suggestion. There was none. Everyone seemed engrossed in his or her own snowstorm assignment.
I took a moment of silence to ask myself what to do. I could not find a solution, but then, I had remembered to surrender and ask for God’s help. “God, please come and drive this car for me, now.” I found myself saying. Trusting and expecting some form of help from my Inner Guide, I got into the car again, started the engine and slowly began driving it. Gradually, I saw the car move away from the parked cars, but then I ended up in the middle of the road at a spot made upright by a road that crossed the area. I had to act fast or else some other driver might end up using my car as a wedge. I was in the middle of the hill and must either climb up the hill or descend the narrow slope. Any extra second spent at the spot meant that any sliding car would smash into my car at any moment.
The slope down ahead of me ran straight into a narrow junction, continually busy with cars struggling to climb the hill or go down. I waited in vain for the intersection to clear so I could let the car roll through without interruption. At a point I had an urge to just drive down the hill. Trusting Spirit and without hesitation, I got back into the car and simply drove. It all happened smoothly. The cars constantly climbing up the hill were nowhere around. As I glided down the junction with no applicable break and almost about to ram into a car already waiting at the traffic red light ahead of me, I swerved away from behind the car and just then the red lights changed into green, stopping other cars from entering the intersection while enabling me to safely "cruise" through the narrow traffic intersection, down the hill, and safely onto the level grounds of the street at the base of the hill.
Once again, I was saved by God’s hand of help and care perhaps because I remembered to sing His sacred name even for a brief moment at an opportune time. I was fortunate to consciously or unconsciously allow the helping hand of Spirit to take control of my steering, perhaps because I surrendered and absolutely trusted in God.
As the great ECK Adept Rebazar Tarzs said to the seeker in Paul Twitchell’s Stranger by The River, p.149; “There is a law, if you wish to call it a law, but an aspect of God, which reverses itself. The harder man tries to do something with his conscious will, the less he is apt to succeed. Proficiency and the result of proficiency, comes only to those who have learned the paradoxical art of simultaneously doing and not doing, of combining relaxation with activity, of letting go as a person in order that God may take hold.”
©Oliver
O. Mbamara, 2003
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Oliver Mbamara is an Administrative Law Judge
with the State of New York. He is also a filmmaker and a Published Poet
and playwright. For more on Oliver, please visit www.olivermbamara.com
For
background/research reference on this piece, click on this link
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