The Dance of Stillness: Surrender Meditation
This gentle yet powerful practice is rooted in the ancient tradition of Surrender Yoga, as taught by Swami Kripalvananda.
My introduction to this form of meditation came through initiation into Surrender Yoga by a Sikh teacher, Bhai Sahib. He used the term "Vibrant Charismatic Meditation," which resonates with the embodied experience of Christian Charismatic Prayer. This practice aligns perfectly with the core principles and dynamics of its yogic counterpart, Surrender Yoga, or Surrender Meditation.
Kim Eng, Eckhart Tolle’s partner, teaches a gentler version of this practice, which she calls Spontaneous Tai Chi. Osho’s Kundalini Dance, a dynamic moving meditation that explores contrasts to open energy flow and release blockages, also shares some similarities. It emphasizes spontaneous movement—a form of surrender—elicited by and in response to music. However, Kundalini Dance is more vigorous and, in my view, contains an element of forcing not present in Surrender Meditation, or the Dance of Stillness.
The core dynamic of the Dance of Stillness is letting go into the flow of feeling, intuition, and sensation within the body. It involves gently dropping the judging mind, expanding awareness, and simply being open to whatever arises, attuned to subtle bodily impulses.
It’s a playful, spontaneous participation in the flow of life arising within and as us. Perhaps you feel like swaying; you simply go with it, not forcing anything, but letting go into the arising sensation. If the swaying evokes an image of an elephant, you allow the image to form, perhaps even finding yourself swinging your arm like a trunk or making an elephant sound. You might feel like sitting, so you sit. The impulse to lie down arises, and you lie down. Then perhaps you begin to roll.
There are varying degrees of this playful, participatory surrender. In this practice, I invite you to explore a gentle, guided letting go—a kind of loose, informal Tai Chi. We will twirl, move gently, and express ourselves in flowing, creative, and playful ways, allowing the dance to arise spontaneously. This involves a dynamic balance between surrender and stillness.
[Here is a short video of Kim Eng, so you can get a sense of this kind of practice.]
And here is a video of Swami Kripalvananda to give you a sense of deeper surrender.
It is astounding and deeply fascinating that even in Swami Kripalvananda’s state of complete self-abandonment, fully surrendered, these beautiful yogic poses and flowing movements arise spontaneously, embodying the Dance of Stillness.
Surrender Yoga is also central to the Shakti Pat tradition (a transmission of spiritual energy). When I met my Guru, Master Charles Cannon, during Darshan (a gathering with a spiritual teacher), I experienced vast waves of love and spontaneous yogic postures. The same occurred when I met Bhai Sahib. Importantly, both teachers instructed me to carry forward this tradition and initiate others into this sacred practice—a command that has profoundly shaped my work.
During my retreats, we explore practices that highlight the contrast between will and surrender, as well as those that combine will and focus with surrender. Zazen, for example, requires both letting go and surrendering to the moment, alongside will, focus, and the determination to sit still. Surfing similarly requires surrendering to the wave while using subtle adjustments of weight to guide the board.
Life sometimes calls for willpower, focus, determination, and grit. At other times, it requires letting go, flowing, and accepting circumstances. We may need to surrender to uncomfortable feelings or accept a cancelled event.
More often, what’s needed is a delicate balance—a dynamic interplay of will and surrender, focus and allowing. By exploring these principles bodily, emotionally, and psychologically through practices like Surrender Meditation, Spontaneous Tai Chi, Zazen, walking meditation, focused breathwork, cooking meditation, and others, we cultivate deeper self-awareness. By utilizing the principle of contrast, we deepen our capacity to both let go and focus, increasing our ability to move between these fundamental modes of being as life unfolds. This work fosters self-mastery at a profound level, enhancing awareness of bodily sensations, emotions, thoughts, and mental states.
