MIRDAD AND PRINCE OF BETHAR

 Surrendering the Self: The Way to Inner Peace

In The Book of Mirdad, its author, Mikhail Naimy, portrays Mirdad as a mystic of the highest order, whose teachings illuminate the way to spiritual freedom and inner peace. The Prince of Bethar seeks his counsel on avoiding war with a neighbouring ruler who covets his wealth. Their encounter reveals the conflict between our longing for peace and our attachment to worldly possessions.

The prince fears that his neighbour will attack him to seize his riches. Mirdad’s counsel challenges the attachment behind that fear: if wealth stands between him and peace, why not surrender it? The prince becomes enraged. He desires peace, yet cannot accept the surrender that peace demands. His reaction reveals that his attachment to wealth is stronger than his longing for peace.

The episode points towards a battle within ourselves. The mind accumulates possessions, builds an identity around them, and then struggles to defend that identity. Wealth, power, reputation and even our opinions become extensions of the self. Whatever threatens them disturbs us because we have bound our sense of being to what we call “mine.”

Yet nothing belongs to anyone in the ultimate sense. We arrive without possessions and depart without them. Even the body we call our own is subject to change, ageing and dissolution. Everything we claim passes through our hands for a time; neither ownership nor effort can make it permanently ours. We are temporary custodians of what life entrusts to us.

Surrendering the self begins with recognising this truth. It means relinquishing the ego’s insistence on possession and control—the demand that life must conform to our wishes and preserve everything we identify with. We can care for our belongings, fulfil our responsibilities and act with discernment, while accepting that neither possessions nor outcomes are entirely ours to command.

Such surrender must arise from inward understanding. Giving away wealth while retaining pride, resentment or the desire for recognition leaves possessiveness intact. The deeper renunciation occurs when the mind loosens its claim of “I” and “mine.” Then we can possess without being possessed, love without claiming ownership, and serve without seeking affirmation.

The prince’s predicament is therefore our own: we ask for peace while defending the attachments that disturb it. As these attachments loosen, the fear of loss diminishes, for outward loss no longer feels like the destruction of our very being.

Inner peace unfolds through this surrender of the possessive self. Recognising that nothing is permanently ours, we receive with gratitude, care with humility and release with acceptance. Life becomes a sacred trust, and the heart finds freedom in surrender.