Does surrender to God actually mean freedom? Most would view the concept of surrender as weakness, giving up control rather than taking it. In the modern world, we value freedom, and often that means mastery over the material. And yet, so many who attain this mastery feel enslaved, bound by worry, anxiety, and the fear of failure. Here is the critical truth: true liberation is not found in greater autonomy over the world, but rather in giving ourselves over to the Divine.
Where will we find liberation? In this episode, we dive deeply into the powerful idea of spiritual surrender. Drawing from her own inner evolution, Eram explores the profound difference between surrendering in fear versus surrendering in love to God. She examines how living fully liberated requires aligning our will to God’s, but out of love, not dread.
Through surrender, we attain liberation from fear, both external and internal. This episode is for seekers of truth, spirituality, and those yearning for real peace.
Reflect on the trans formative distinction between surrendering out of love versus fear in your spiritual life.
Understand how fear and love shape not only your relationship with God but also your daily mindset and behavior.
Gain timeless spiritual wisdom inspired by Islamic teachings to help you live a more liberated, loving, and peaceful life.
What is real liberation?
The challenge we face in the modern era is to look beyond societal definitions of freedom and explore the deeper meaning of spiritual surrender. Fear has often been misrepresented within religious teachings. We see fear of God as cowering from divine punishment rather than acknowledging it as a natural consequence of our actions.
Eram reveals how wrestling with these questions brought her closer to divine understanding. Freedom from the material chains that bind us is not found in fear-based control. We will only find it in love.
At the root of every human behavior lie two fundamental energies: love and fear. But these energies raise a powerful question: why would a loving God instill fear?
Here is the answer: spiritual fear is not about tyranny but about awareness of consequences within divine order. Fear, not hate, is the true opposite of love. When we view our relationship with the Divine through this lens, it reshapes the dynamics of our emotional and spiritual relationship to God.
This was in Islamic teachings. However, the interpretations influenced by human systems of punishment have distorted the divine message of mercy and balance. Now, rather than surrender to God’s love, we fear his retribution.
Human institutions, like parents, schools, and even religious authorities, often use fear as a mechanism of control from an early age. This conditioning creates compliance but not genuine faith. It leads us to a shallow spiritual life disconnected from love-based surrender. Thus, many people’s fear of divine punishment stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of God’s mercy and justice.
Before we can truly surrender to God, we must distinguish between fearing consequences and fearing an unloving deity. Once we separate the two, we can reclaim a relationship with the Divine grounded in love and conscious awareness rather than fear and guilt.
Those who have surrendered to God through love radiate compassion, empathy, resilience, and peace. They do not fear death, seeing it instead as a joyous homecoming to the Divine. As an example, the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is the ultimate model of love-based surrender. He embodies unconditional compassion and living without judgment. Through surrender to God, individuals live in harmony with divine will, free from anxiety or defensiveness.
However, it can be misconstrued that surrender weakens a person. This is untrue. Surrendering oneself unto the divine elevates a person, opening the heart to true peace and divine alignment.
However, we must be wary of conflating surrender due to love with surrender due to fear. A surrender rooted in fear leads to rigidity, control, intolerance, and inner conflict. Those who submit to God out of fear often continue trying to control themselves and others, betraying the instability within their hearts.
Even with outward piety, those who live in fear will still struggle with anxiety, dread of death, and a lack of spiritual joy. There is a crucial distinction between moral conduct motivated by fear of punishment and that driven by love for the Divine. Only the latter nurtures genuine connection and freedom.
We must therefore re frame the traditional notion of “fear of God”. It is instead an awareness of natural consequences within divine law. Understanding this fosters maturity and peace in our hearts and souls rather than anxiety and repression. God’s love remains constant and unconditional; divine consequences simply mirror the choices one makes.
The true fear, then, should arise not from the image of a wrathful deity but from the pain of distancing oneself from God’s love through harmful actions. Recognising this brings consciousness, accountability, and a more intimate relationship with the Divine.
A liberated life is one in which a person aligns their will with God’s, surrendering ego and embracing divine guidance with love and trust. This surrender is neither passive nor self-effacing. Instead, it is dignified, courageous, and rooted in confidence.
Examine your motivations:
Through this self-inquiry, we can redefine a healthier spiritual freedom. A loving surrender integrates emotional and existential wholeness into a trust-based relationship with God.
In closing, Eram contrasts two types of devout practitioners: one motivated by love and the other by fear. Though their outward actions may appear similar, their inner realities differ profoundly.
Love-based surrender yields peace, richness, and intimacy with the Divine. Fear-based devotion traps the soul in doubt and apprehension. We must make a conscious shift from transactional religion, which is often rooted in fear of punishment, to transformational faith, sustained by love. Only through this shift can we experience the true liberation of surrendering wholly to God.
“I was talking to a therapist, a friend of mine, and she asked me in a discussion, she asked me, ‘What do you think is the opposite of love?’ And I immediately said, ‘Fear.’ And she was surprised, because she said, Well, why didn't you say hate? And I said, ‘Because hate is rooted in fear.’ The actual opposite of love is fear.”
“These conditional and fear-based tactics, begin very early in our ages, when we're young. This confused me a lot in the beginning, because I, whenever I read the Quran, I could not understand why God is constantly trying to instill fear, because that is control. Why would God want to control when he is unconditionally loving?”
“It's very important to understand that God is unconditionally loving. Allah is unconditionally loving, always loving, never stops loving us, infinitely loving. The fear that he wants us to have is from the consequences, the severity of the consequences of our actions.”
“A truly liberated life comes from being, from surrender to God…His will is supreme, whatever He wills. That is what I will as well. When you get to that stage, you will find that you are liberated. That's true liberation. So there's a surrender that is based in love, and then there's a surrender that is based in fear.”
“We know that God is loving, we know that he is Rahmanan, and we have time to repent and correct the mistakes that we may have made. These are two very different conditions of surrender. They're both surrendered, but one is surrendered in love and the other one is surrendered in fear.”
A liberated life comes not from exerting as much control as we can over the world around us. Instead, it comes from an enlightened understanding of the forces of love and fear. Once we learn to give ourselves wholly to the embrace of God, we will find that true freedom comes from loving surrender.
Love is the lens with which to view surrender. Surrendering to God is not weakness. Rather, it is the ultimate path to authentic empowerment and spiritual intimacy.
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