You can imagine life to be a fast moving stream that is constantly in motion, never ending and eternal. Life, as I define it here, is the physical manifestation, into different forms, of the one formless consciousness. Life is constantly changing, taking new forms and recycling the old ones – nothing is lost or gained except that new expressions keep coming forth. You can give any meaning to life because it’s inherent empty of meaning, it’s just a play of form, a mirror through which the formless consciousness knows itself or sees itself.
When there’s only the movement of life, there’s no resistance and so there’s no suffering, but when there is a force which opposes the movement of life, there arises tremendous resistance and the experience of suffering happens. Your mind has the capacity to create such a force and be in resistance to life’s movement. If you are experiencing suffering, it implies that there’s a movement in you which is in resistance to the natural movement of life. The art of letting go is all about surrendering this “opposing” movement, so that only life’s movement can exist.
Why does the mind create resistance to life?
When you stop following your inner guidance and start being influenced by external conditioning, you deviate from the natural flow of life and start making “effort” using your personal will to fuel your unnatural movement. You don’t trust life to take care of you and hence you start using your personal will to “make” your life happen. When you start trying to move through your “personal will” you start opposing the natural movement of life – this leads to creation of conflict or resistance within you, leading to suffering.
The mind creates resistance to life because it’s in the wrong vision, it’s an innocent mistake on its part. The mind does not trust life, but rather trusts the external conditioning that it has gained from its surroundings, from the upbringing, the culture, the media and other influences. Are you in a job that does not make you happy? Are you in a relationship that is fraught with friction and deeply unsatisfying? Are you in bad state of health? Are you feeling depressed or stressed most of the time? If you answered yes to any of these questions, it’s an indication that you are not going with the flow of life but rather you are moving through fear, and lack, using your personal will to force create a reality for yourself.
Letting go starts with trusting life
Ask yourself – how deeply do I trust life to take care of me? If you are like most people the answer would be that you don’t really trust life to take care of you at all. You don’t believe that life can actually bring you everything, that’s needed for your comfort, without the use of your personal will and effort. You believe that “you” have to take care of your life, rather than life taking care of you. As long you believe this story, you can never really let go into life’s pull.
Sometimes life puts you in a situation where you have no choice but to let go, because you have run out of all strategies. This is grace and a blessing in disguise. But an easier way is to let go voluntarily instead of waiting for your life to become so miserable that you have no choice but to let go.
Continue to Part 2
You know what: I think your on to something about letting go:
I have notice for my parents the best situations always comes out when we all let go of a problem after trying all angles to resolve it with no success but it still does not stop the problem between the bankers and the politicians (as well as alien groups) I mentioned in my oteher comments.
We did a move 15 years ago from Northern California to Silverton Oregon with almost nothing but the clothes on our backs *due to complicated issues where Dad had to leave a bad job behind* and my parents had to pray real hard about it and then when we moved they had to pray real hard for Dad to find a job.
Dad looked and looked. In fact before we moved he took a trip on his own for a week while I had to deal with not having Dad for a short spell which then seemed loong.
We stayed with some people my Mom knew who boarded us while dad continued to look for work and he went thru all the phone books with not any success because tehy all said he was too old even though Dad had a very good record.
Dad was also looking for a school for me that was right because I have Autisum sensory issues which after prayining and Dad letted go.
Dad eventually found short-term work at the local theater for a few months before finding a much better job:
Did I mention that also Dad looked and looked for a rental and he found many but none would take our cat and we just couldn’t leave our cat behind so Dad broke down and prayed long and hard and finnally said to himself that everything is in God’s hands and is letting go.
Then just by magic another friend found a 2 bedroom rental house in pretty good condition and not olny that but for 650$ a month which most homes were going for at a minimum 800$ for a run-down place and I will never forget the joy in having a new old home.
All our furniture was in storage still in California until we knew where we were going to live and the furniture man had a hell of a time getting it up here which is an adventure story all of it’s own.
i undertsand that the momentum build up causes opposition to the natural flow of life hence suffering. Well, for someone who has depression as a result of chemical imbalances in the brain, can this same reason be used as a cause of the condition. Please throw me more insight on this. Thank u.
Ben, chemical imbalances in the brain by itself is just a manifestation of the resistance present owning the momentum of negativity. If this resistance was not present, your brain/body can reach a state of healing/harmony. So it may look like a catch 22, but that’s very reason why it’s important to realize that this process is not about trying to solve the mind with the mind, rather about connecting with your space of being (the space outside the thinking space of mind) and allowing this space to touch your mind. It’s proven scientifically (I think it’s in a book call Brain lock) that when one lets go of their focused attention to their limiting thoughts, and thus relax their attention (what i call relaxed awareness or resting in the space of being) the brain’s chemistry starts changing. This is because the moment you let go of clinging to your mind, you stop fueling its negativity, and hence your resistance reduces, causing your brain cells to freely get connected with the intelligence of life and seek their solution.
wow! That makes so much sense. This is just the answer i wanted. Thank U Sen, u are truly blessed with Wisdom.
Sen,
How does your inner guidance communicate to you? Is it through the mind? How can we distinguish mind chatter as a product of external conditioning versus what your life-stream is “telling” you?
LQ, if you are willing to keep an attitude of “openness” you are bound to feel a constant movement of guidance working in many ways – the guidance can come in the form of an impulse to do something, an external guidance of reading something or hearing something, some external signs, just inner instinct/intuition (which is what I usually call “inner voice”) – however, it’s not really about trying to constantly analyse every moment for signs of guidance, rather just live from a state of openness towards growth, allowing for mistakes (or rather what you perceive as a mistake) if they happen, knowing that you are not here to be a perfectionist, life is a constant movement of balance it’s not a static state of perfection – so it’s important to have this leeway to allow for “perceived mistakes” – sometimes, a so-called mistake can be guidance in a hidden form, in that it can trigger an growth/understanding that eventually brings you to a certain reality (or possibly a maturity) that’s more congruent with you. The pointer is – “don’t get too rigid about wanting the perfect guidance”, such a mindset comes from a place of fear (fear of living, fear of uncertainty, fear of dealing with failures/mistakes).
Also, you can’t always just trust, or believe, your inner voice of guidance (because sometimes it comes with no evidence or proof for your mind to trust it), and thus possibly go against it only to realize that it was a mistake – however, it was the only thing you could’ve done from your place, from your state of awareness. We can sometimes only learn from our experiences, from some hard knocks, from some mistakes/failures, and one has to be open to this way of learning also. In fact, there are no mistakes if you have the attitude of “growth”, everything becomes a growth opportunity and an experience of learning. So don’t get too hung up on waiting for that perfect voice of guidance (in an attitude of meekness), have some amount of openness towards not always being right, towards exploration, towards making mistakes or messing up – sometimes the best guidance is when you are not given a guidance and allowed to explore a turf on your own. A baby would never learn to walk if it was constantly “held”, or supported, by its parents – such a guidance would make you a “dependent” person, without allowing you to grow into an independent/mature being.
Sen – For the past few months, I’ve avoided deleting emails from my first love, due to the thinking “I’ll wait until I’m free of negativity”. Tonight I finally figured out that I was doing that because I was afraid of feeling bad. So I deleted all the emails, cried for about 20 minutes, and sat and reflected.
It’s odd how I cried again, as the breakup was months ago and the girl wasn’t even that great – pretty annoying overall actually. Do you think the awareness of the fear was part of this growing process and the crying was part of the ego getting dissolved?
Hi Sen…
I think that the best thing one can do to another human is inspire them.
You did just that when I read your article on letting go.
Thank you so much…
Be blessed..
Sarah