There is a yearning in the silent parts of the human heart, which is above all other yearnings–the yearning to be free. Not just free, politically or socially, but inner free: free of remorse, free of resentment, free of the obsessive desire to dominate, free of the chains of attachment so imperceptible to us, and which bind our peace to things that we cannot command. The way of letting go is the spiritual way to this inner freedom. It is not passive resignation or indifference. Instead, it is a dynamic conscious disCHARGE of what is no longer beneficial to the soul.
One of the most misconstrued spiritual principles is letting go. People confuse it with surrender or indifference or neglect. But real letting go is a very deep courage. It calls upon consciousness, meekness and faith. It challenges us to give up the illusion of control and enter further into the agreement with life as it presents itself. To relinquish is to renounce not our strength, but our obstinacy.
In its essence, letting go starts with recognition. We are aware that suffering is not always brought about by events, rather, it is our attachment to how we perceive events to occur. We hold on to hopes, identities, connections and results. We create myths about ourselves and the way that life should be. We live with tension when reality does not concur with these internal scripts. The more we hold tightly we feel pain.
Attachment is subtle. It might even masquerade as love, responsibility, ambition, or righteousness. We can cling on to a relationship due to loneliness. We can hold to anger since it provides us with moral superiority. We might be opposed to change due to the fact that our identity is threatened. We have attached to it, it is not merely to an external circumstance, in either case, but to the story which we have woven about it.
The spiritual journey encourages us to analyze these attachments without evaluation. It tells us to be compassionate to the mind tendencies. We start to see the causes of our disquiet when we observe how much we desire someone to act in a particular manner, or how we argue in support of a view. The initial liberation is awareness. What we do not see we cannot free.
The release is not a one-drama situation. Softening is a gradual process that often takes place. Take a tight fist. When we hold on to that tension too long, we get pain. There is a conscious relaxation of muscles that has become accustomed to remain in contraction to open the hand. Likewise, our emotional contractions get used to. We are taught to live in tense states without consciously knowing the amount of energy tensed.
We have to be ready to feel in order to let go. This might appear to be a paradox. A lot of us are not inclined to feel deeply as emotions are overwhelming. We repress sorrow, deaden anger, and distract ourselves in terror. But still we resist what we resist. Unlived emotions are still in us, influencing the way we react and inhibiting our freedom. Releasing involves letting emotions pass through us and not holding on and not identifying with them.
Pure light and infinite love be with us!