Isvara Pranidhana represents self-surrender.

It’s the idea of deferring to something greater than ourselves.

Whether you believe in God or simply the universe, it’s about letting go of your own ego and acknowledging an outside, guiding force.

I woke up one last morning to the fog surrounding the mountains, and as I practiced yoga looking out over the Himalayas, the fog began to clear.

The sun came out and the day ended up being sunny and warm.

I tend to recognize isvara pranidhana the most when I’m in nature, especially the vast nature I experienced while in Bhutan.

But it was more than just nature that served as constant reminders of isvara.

The peace flags flapping in the breeze.

The sound of gongs and chanting.

The smell of wisteria and incense and burning juniper.

The monks walking clockwise around the monastery, spinning the prayer wheels clockwise, thumbing mala beads.

The murmur rising up from the young monks in training, sitting cross-legged, memorizing their prayers by reciting them again and again while rocking back and forth.

The Bhutanese crossing an old bridge and spinning the prayer wheels at the entrance and exit just as we would enter a code to enter a building.

And the signs everywhere:

• Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
• Don’t litter, it will make your life bitter.
• There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.
• Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

They are all ubiquitous in Bhutan.

You feel the presence of something greater than yourself.

While Bhutan is, without question, a mystical and special place –in the end, I left perhaps with more questions than I came with.

But my takeaway was this:

Even though the way of life seems more simple than in the West, I don’t think it’s necessarily better.

Community and culture were important, but individualism and creativity are not – and those are very important values to me.

What I brought back was a commitment to be more conscious about areas of my life that affect nature and the world around me: consumption, waste, interactions with others, and one of the key teachings of Buddhism: the interconnectedness of everyone and everything on this planet.