All of life is about letting go?
By letting go, we receive;
It doesn’t take long to see that the major faith traditions point to a profound yet often overlooked truth, illuminated by their most notable sages and teachers. This elusive truth, despite its simplicity, remains hidden in plain sight, as we scramble in our rituals and dogma. We go through all of the spiritual practices, the regiment, the prayers, the sacrifices, hours of meditation, years of dedication, and even attempting to do some renunciation to get to the very tip of the spiritual mountain. Sooner or later, and as one grows along the lines of development(Integral Theory), you’d realize that those practices help get you to the point of exhaustion where all these practices and efforting come to an end. At that point, the clarity of who we truly are reveals itself but not before unveiling this simplistic truth. This truth is the essence of all spiritual teachings and it points unequivocally towards a singular transformative concept: letting go. This letting go is not just a practice but the core of all practice.
But let go of what? It’s hard to chew, but it’s this: it’s the letting go of everything! How can I let go of everything? Do you mean to let go of my job, my property, etc? No, I’m not talking about renunciation. I refer to the letting go of anything that reinforces the false self — the self that’s defined by what one possesses. Sometimes, it looks like the letting go of the possession of ideologies, religious or spiritual affiliations, opinions, beliefs, etc, and particularly who you thought yourself to be. It is also the act of releasing our grip on the very practices that we believed were essential to our spiritual progress. By letting go, we are not abandoning our spiritual journey; rather, we are advancing to its actual essence. Yet, it’s not like there are any advances. For advancing connotes a path in which one tredges on. It’s the letting go of any form of going, any form of advancing. We learn that the path to enlightenment, salvation, or any spiritual summit is not marked by the accumulation of spiritual achievements, but by the surrender of them. It is in this surrender that we find freedom — freedom from the constraints of ritual, freedom from the burdens of dogmatic adherence, and, ultimately, freedom to truly experience the divine.
Isn’t it obvious that teachings of the major faith and wisdom traditions converge on this singular point of truth? Isn’t it obvious that the path to self-realization is paved not with more but with less? In the Christian scriptures, a man comes to Jesus and asks how he could ‘enter’ the kingdom of heaven. Jesus said to him “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” When the man heard this, he left sad. In this written story, I’m fairly sure what was holding him back from seeing clearly was his hold on his property. It was a call to break free from the shackles of material attachment that obscured his spiritual clarity. In a way, we can see this not just as physical material but anything that can be held on to. Similarly, Buddha’s teachings on the path to liberation through the letting go of attachments underscore the truth that suffering originates from clinging to transient states and objects. These objects and transient states can also be states of mind, thoughts, beliefs, and desires held in the grip of the mind.
It has been seen here that we’ve never owned anything. It is in recognizing that our grip on things is just the mind’s false assertion of these things.
A few weeks ago, I was invited to teach some pre-school children popular songs from my culture. We were getting ready to start the session, and I was getting comfortable with my handpan while each of the kids was handed maracas. One of the girls would later throw a raging fit, crying because she was given a blue maracas when she wanted a pink one. To the child, it made sense that she wanted what she wanted. In this frame, it does make sense for her to want what she wants. But if she had seen clearly that the colors don’t matter as much as the experience of playing, learning, and singing together with her classmates, she may have enjoyed herself more deeply. The color of the maracas clearly would not have impacted the sound nor would it have made any impact on the song.
But we do this a lot in our own lives. We hold on to these rather flimsy forms. In fact, we fight so much to defend these forms, foaming in the mouth with anger to establish the need for anything. If only we could let go, accepting life as it just is. You know, the illusion is dispelled when we see just that…life appearing spontaneously and of its own accord. When the mind fights against what is, it loses! Every time!
At first, letting go feels like reckless abandonment — an irresponsibility with life. Then we see that it is in this abandon that life moves through us. The weird thing is we have never had any choice. Life just still moves through each and every individual. Life is easier experienced when we reach out to what’s within our grasp, holding on to it loosely, letting go in order to experience even more! Suffering tends to receed drastically. In fact, it seems clear to me that this act of letting go is what then brings psychological ease, which eases the body and, therefore, prolongs life within its own confines.
By letting go, we receive; by emptying, we are filled; and by surrendering, we are liberated.
