The dynamics involved in the phase of “letting go” are very different from the dynamics involved in the phase of “conscious living” (or return of focus). The phase of letting-go, or the phase of release, is only required to reach a place of being free of the hold of the past momentum, of emotional and mental imbalances, created by unconscious/deluded identification or suppression. Once you’ve let go of all the imbalanced momentum (or at-least a good part of it) you have the foundation to start living consciously aligned with reality, free of delusions, with an objective view point. The way I define “being objective” is simply the conscious state of seeing reality as it is, in its light and dark aspects, and making deliberate choices, towards expressions and experiences, from this place of reality-based outlook. The reality of life is that it’s a mix of light and dark (yin/yang), you can’t escape this truth because it’s the very nature of life-energy, yet, a lot of people seem to have a hard time being objective about this truth and hence they constantly keep trying to hold on to delusions (hoping for some purely light-natured experience of life). The phase of letting-go is about releasing the momentum created by past unconsciousness and it prepares the ground to start living “objectively”, which involves making choices deliberately while being fully aware of the light and dark nature aspects of your choice.
One of the most frequent questions that comes in, when you are in the mid-phase of releasing past momentum, is along the lines of – “I can’t seem to hold on to my past desires, passions, motivations, I feel no drive to do anything, everything seems meaningless, I am not able to find what inspires me, I feel stuck, I am not able to feel the zest for life, how do I get out of this state?”. Basically, this is quite a normal state when one has “let go” of the momentum of delusion but is yet to embrace, fully, the deal of conscious living – of making deliberate choices while fully understanding/accepting the light and dark nature consequences of it, of living objectively by aligning with this reality. If I have to translate the essence of the above question, it would go something like this – “I can’t seem to hold on to deluded motivations anymore, nothing gives me deluded joy anymore, I can’t feel the excitement that was instigated by my delusions, I am not driven by the unconscious momentum of my mind/heart anymore where I did not have to make conscious choices (because I was just pulled around by the unconscious momentum), I am yet to learn to start making deliberate/objective choices and hence I feel stuck”.
Though a lot of “spirituality” talks about the phase of letting go, very few teachers seem to talk about the next level once the release of past momentum is done with. The reason why most people feel confused once they are mostly done with the phase of letting-go is because the attitude required for the return of focus (conscious living) is totally different from the attitude that was needed during the phase of letting-go. In fact, people seem to carry forth some misunderstandings based on their “spiritual sojourn” which causes them to not align with objective living – it’s so common for the spiritual mindset to abhor objective mindset, they think that getting back to objective living is like “regressing” back to the egoic/materialistic state or the state of ordinary living (or low level living), and they keep waiting for something extra-ordinary, and high level, to take place. I would simply call this the “spiritual hang-up”, which is just a form of deluded thinking that needs to be gotten rid off before one can start living objectively. The pointer of “get real” is most apt for the attitude you need to incorporate once you are done with the phase of release.
The mindset of making deliberate choices
A baby is very dependent on the parents for everything, it’s hardly in a position to make any deliberate choice because it has no conscious control over its body/mind and it has no real understanding of the reality that it’s born into – the baby is clueless and dependent. Even when the baby, becomes a kid, who has learnt to control his/her body, the kid is still not in a position to make conscious choices because he/she has very little understanding of reality and very little ability to engage with reality at a practical level (like how to make money, how to travel, how to cook etc) – the kid is basically still “clueless” and hence is dependent on the elders to give him/her the guidance/advice/commands on how to live. Eventually the kid has to grow up and embrace the attitude of a “true adult” to stand on his/her own shoes, make deliberate choices and live in an objective/mature/responsible manner – the reason I use the term “true adult” is because there are a lot of adults who are just kids in grown up bodies, still clueless and dependent, on outside conditioning, for being told how to live, not willing to take responsibility for their choices, or simply afraid of making choices.
Though the phase of letting-go/release is challenging (with all the emotional and mental momentum that comes up to be released) the upside is that you don’t have to work on making deliberate choices, you just have to let go – you are mostly required to be passive except in the commitment to really allow what arises, thus you are simply in a state of openness, to everything that arises, so that the past momentum, of imbalanced accumulation, gets released. This is a state of total surrender, of just an open allowing. The dark nature of the phase of release is the unpleasantness of all the suppressed emotions, and imbalanced energy, coming up to be released, whereas the light nature of the phase of release is the fact that you can be in a state of surrender, letting go of the need to control.
The attitude that serves the phase of release is one of just letting it all be, of just being surrendered, relaxed or effortless – it’s a lot like being “passive”, you are just like an open space letting it all arise. You allow the fear of being passive, you allow the fear of letting go of control, you allow fear of uncertainty, you allow yourself (your being) to detach from the unconscious pull of your mind/heart, you allow yourself to be free of the pull of conditioning, you allow all the low feelings that come up, you allow all the high feelings that come up – this is how the phase of release works. But, this phase is not a permanent one, it’s temporary and it’s bound to end sooner or later, it just prepares the foundation for you to move into conscious living. The paradox is that once you’ve found the foundation of openness by surrendering your sense of control, you are required to re-exercise control but this time from a place of awareness, wisdom and conscious choice.
The phase of letting-go can feel “spiritual”, other worldly, temporal, surreal, imbued with beautiful realizations, imbued with a sense of just “floating”, and being free of the requirement to be “deliberate” or objective. When you move through this phase you are bound to get habituated to the attitude of just letting go, of not being objective or deliberate, of being “other wordly”, of being surrendered, of simply “riding it out” – creating a passive mindset. So, even after this phase of release, mostly, gets done with, and it’s time to get back to objective living again, there is a tendency to hold on to the attitude of passivity and not align with attitude of getting back to objectivity. You can either do it the easy way or the hard way, either ways you will be pushed back into living objectively. The phase of release is only a foundation to allow you to develop the inner space to live objectively, it’s not a refuge to stay hidden in. If you resist being objective, you just feel the pressure, more and more, until you start making conscious decisions, making deliberate choices, and getting back into taking action aligned with these choices.
Once the phase of release gets done with (to a good extent) then the call is towards objective living, and if you continue to exercise the attitude of surrender, instead of getting “deliberate”, you will find yourself stagnating along with feeling the pressure from your life-force towards getting reality oriented again.
The misunderstanding of “being effortless”
Action involves effort. Action involves building the momentum towards creating certain realities, that you choose, and this involves investing energy, and this involves putting in the “work”. However, there is a difference between struggle-based action and aligned action. In some older posts I used to refer to aligned-action as being “effortless action”, or “joyful action”, and, in many ways, I saw that this pointer created a misunderstanding hence I stopped using it; a better pointer is to call it “wisdom-based action”, doing what’s right and what’s required, from a reality-based perspective of your situation, from a place of inner alignment rather than from a place of deluded struggle. Struggle-based action comes from a place of fear-based motivation, resentment, insecurity and from following some blind conditioning without applying conscious thought, thus rooted in low-awareness. Aligned-action comes from the place of inner freedom and awareness of reality – you are free within (not pulled around by misguided motivations like fear-based ones) but you are also aware of the reality of your situation. You are objectively aware of the available choices in your current situation, and you make a calculated choice by understanding its light and dark nature consequences, and then, from this place of conscious choice, you move into action – this action involves effort, it involves work, it involves investing energy, but it’s free of inner conflict, it’s free of resentment, anger, bitterness or deluded excitement.
Conscious living is about making objective choices based on reality. The truth about reality is that everything has a light and dark nature inherent to it, the pros and cons, the advantage and disadvantage, the wanted and the contrast – there is no “perfect” reality in terms of it being purely light-natured. If you have a hard time understanding/realizing this simple truth about life, you will just have to wait till the pressure of “getting real” keeps mounting. What I notice in a lot of people who talk about “being stuck” is that they are unwilling to get real, they are not willing to understand that they have to make choices based on their situation and that it’s usually a “step-by-step” movement towards creating a certain reality of choice, they are not willing to accept that they have to invest energy into action based on their choice. It’s true that in a state of alignment your life-force ensures that “synchronicities” happen towards allowing a smooth experience for you, however you do need to work on your part of the deal of making choices and taking the “objective” action as required. It’s about becoming a true adult willing to stand on his/her own choices based on an objective view of life, no longer a deluded kid rooted in fantasies, no longer the idealist who is disconnected from ground reality, no longer the dreamer who is clueless about aspects of execution and work.
The pointer of “joyful action” can be very misleading because in reality you do need to take certain actions which may not be joyful but required in the name of being objective, wise and responsible, and achieving a certain end that’s important to you. The only deal is that you are now making a conscious choice towards these actions and working at it without any inner conflict, whereas in the past you may be working from the energy of resentment, anger and blame. You understand that life can’t be all light nature and that you have to deal with some dark nature, and having understood this about life you let go of feelings of resentment towards the dark nature aspects, developing an objective view of reality. For example, cleaning up your room may not feel all “joyful” but you realize that in order to experience the light-nature of being in a tidy room you will have to go through the dark-nature of putting in the work of tidying it up – in this phase of the return of focus it’s all about making deliberate choices, you don’t have to wait around for some “divine inspiration” to come in to clean your room.
A few reasons why people avoid making choices and taking the objective action are as below
Feeling a lack of energy – The phase of release causes you to be free of deluded momentum, and hence the “driving force” that was impelling you in the past starts ebbing away. When you are going through the cycles of release, it’s very likely that you truly feel a lack of energy because the body is adapting to the shifts happening within you, and it needs the “recuperation” time. However, once you are mostly done with the release of past momentum, the lack of the past driving-force can get misinterpreted as a lack of energy. The fact is that you are no longer going to be driven by a delusional mindset and you now have to simply work on living objectively based on making choices with respect to your reality. Life can feel “ordinary” when you realize that you have to get back to living in terms of doing work and following some mundane routines. Physical life, or life in general, has its limitations, it can be mundane for a good part – it takes time for realities to get created, it takes organized action, takes a certain dedication and it takes choosing one reality over the other (for example, if you have to get married you have to let go of the light nature available in the reality of being a bachelor – you can’t have it all, you just have to get real about it). The lack of energy could simply be coming from a lack of commitment towards a choice, or waiting for the old feeling of deluded driving-force.
Waiting for the big inspiration – When I talk about moving from inspiration I am not alluding to some supernatural voice letting you know exactly what to do. Even if you did hear such a voice within you, you would still have to make a choice on whether you want to follow it – you can’t simply follow anything blindly anymore, not even what you call “instinct”; everything has to be a conscious choice based on understanding that every choice has its light and dark nature. Use your instincts, use the advice you get from outside, use the knowledge you gain, use your past learning, and make a conscious choice based on these inputs. How can I know if I’ve made the “right” choice? You can’t, you can never know if the choice you made is the “right” choice, simply because the very definition of what’s right is very relative. Stop waiting for the feeling of “total certainty” rather just make a choice from what feels like an objective, and reality-based, view on what you need to do currently. When I say I write from a place of inspiration I don’t mean that I am waiting to be “moved” by some voice within, rather I just mean that I write when I have something to share/express, that I think can add value, and I have the time to write.
Feeling meaningless – This can become a classic excuse for not making a choice. The truth is that sometimes we don’t really need a meaning other than the fact that there is a “necessity” to do something. Stop looking for some “big meaning” or big purpose, all of that is for the deluded state of living. Just start doing what’s “required” of you to do; understand that work is not always going to be joyful, it will have mundane aspects. It’s important to let go of the mindset of seeking meanings that were valid in the deluded state; the more aware you become the more you sense that there is an inherent meaninglessness to everything because everything is temporary and there is no end-point to reach either. The motivation to “do” comes purely from a place of “this is what’s needed at the moment” rather than waiting for some divinely extraordinary meaning to come along. The fact is that nothing has a meaning per se except the relative meaning that you want to give it, there is no ideology or goal or work that’s more elevated except that you want to think of it that way. Stop finding a greater meaning and you will no longer hinge on the excuse of “feeling meaningless”, just do what’s needed/required to be done as a part of objective living.
Avoiding the mundane aspects – When I write there’s an interest in sharing/expressing something, and I also enjoy the outlet of writing per se. However, there is also the mundane aspect of re-reading the post a few times, correcting errors, re-structuring/editing etc, which takes a good amount of time and which is something I don’t enjoy but I understand is “needed” in order to provide a readable content. In fact even the process of writing can be highly mundane and is usually just a necessary “work” to be able to convey an idea or insight. The motivation of finding joy is hardly what impels my decision to write, rather it comes from a place of a certain responsibility to convey what I feel can be useful, or what I feel can add value, not because it feels like a “higher calling or meaning or purpose” but because it feels important to me to do this at the moment – it’s a very personal choice, and it’s not a selfless endeavor, I do it because it’s important to me, for now. You can’t avoid the mundane aspects of life, and, many a times, to do what’s important also requires you to do things that are not really “joyful” but are just “required” as a part of accomplishing a certain end that’s needed. Inner wholeness is a state of balance, not just a state of joy – it’s a balance of light and dark, and it gives you the ability to not be motivated by light-nature alone.
Indecision – When there are too many choices, one can feel undecided about what’s the right choice to make. You should, of course, take your time with making choices, but just understand that all choices eventually have a light and dark nature aspect, there are no “perfect” choices with no contrast. It’s true that the grass is not greener on the other side (because everything comes with its pros and cons, light and dark) but it’s also true that you have to do what’s important to you in the moment, you have to explore because desiring growth/change is an aspect of your nature as life-energy; stagnation will never feel good to your being. If you are really undecided, you can simply take up one of the choices and take action towards it, just to get the energy moving – this movement can serve towards giving you a better understanding of the choice you would like to make.
Sometimes “exploring” a reality, in real-time, is the best way to know if it’s the choice you want to continue with. Your life-stream can make things smooth for you but it can’t just keep “spoon feeding” you, don’t expect to be given clear directions all the time, sometimes you just have to explore to know for yourself. If you say “I don’t trust life”, then I would I say, “It doesn’t matter, you don’t have to” – I don’t sit trusting life to make things work smoothly for me, I am perfectly fine dealing with my life the way it comes up, handling whatever that arises. It’s just my observation, from this place of openness, that life seems to enable positive synchronicities, and brings in the required resources and external guidance, as and when needed, more so whenever I am free of inner conflict about what I do.
Inner conflict – Sometimes the inner conflict is simply about not willing to accept that all realities have a light and dark nature, and expecting a purely light-natured condition to be presented to you. Just look around and you will notice that anything and everything about life has an associated dark nature along with light nature, this is reality, just accept it and start living from it – whether you like it or not, you can’t bail out of life; as a being the only option for you is to keep living, even after this current physical body dies you continue forth towards new incarnation or non-physical endeavors; life is eternal, and there is no ending for you, that’s your gift and your curse as life-energy. There is no place to hide, no place to be “static”, no place to just stop, and there is no place/reality to just feel purely light-natured – you either accept life as it is, in its nature of light and dark, or stay in conflict; your conflict is not going to change the nature of life, it’s only going to create unnecessary suffering due to resistance.
Compromising VS Being Objective
Every reality of life has a light and a dark nature, so, when you desire a reality for the light nature aspects that it affords, you also need to contend with the dark nature aspects that will come as a consequence – you can’t have the light nature without the dark nature. In that sense life as a whole seems like a compromise where you contend with a certain dark nature in order to experience the light nature that you desire from a certain reality – from this perspective it’s true that every reality requires a compromise. However, the way I would define “compromise” is a state where you feel resentful and resistive towards what you are doing and continue doing it from this vibe – it’s the vibe that you orient with that defines if you are living a compromise or if you are simply doing what’s important to you and being objective. For example, I may not enjoy re-reading and editing the posts that I write, but I do it because I want to ensure there are less errors, I go through the dark nature aspect of editing in order to fulfill the light nature aspect of delivering something that’s important to me, and I am not resentful of doing the editing, I just do it as an objective requirement.
When you try to settle for something for the wrong reasons (like being fear-based or lack-based) that’s when you are truly compromising. When you are simply aligning with the requirements (light/dark nature requirements) of a certain reality that’s important to you, and your attitude is one of being objective about it, instead of being resentful and conflicted, in that case you are not compromising you are just being reality-based. Sometimes you have to make a choice towards letting go of one reality to explore another reality, you can’t travel with one leg in each boat. Life does not require you to compromise, where you are living from a fear-based attitude, but it does require you to be objective towards making choices by understanding the dark and light nature of a reality.
Consider this example – you enjoy playing the guitar but you don’t enjoy all the aspects of the job that you are in (though you have a capacity to do the job), you just need the job to make money to support yourself. So, you can do the job as an objective choice and enjoy playing guitar as a hobby, or, you can make an objective choice of quitting your job and take up playing guitar full time and look to make money from it while understanding that making money playing the guitar is very different from simply playing it for enjoyment, the commercial aspects can involve the dark nature of packaging your music, honing your skills to match professional standards, marketing and pooling in the resources that can assist in the music production – just because you enjoy something doesn’t mean you would enjoy making money using it. The prudent choice can be to keep the job for the money and play guitar as a hobby, and if you make this choice from a place of being objective (and understanding life) you would not have an inner conflict/resentment towards it, you will accept the dark nature aspect along with the light nature that it affords. However, when you don’t make this inner choice, and simply feel resentful towards your job, you end up creating a vibe of resistance which leads to psychological suffering.
When there is this talk about “follow your joy” it’s important to add “in alignment with objective wisdom”. I am sure you’ve seen enough real life examples of how passion without objective-wisdom leads to unpleasant consequences. It’s important to take a balanced approach towards joy, there is nothing more foolhardy than to allow your passion to blind you to the practical aspects. You can be objective, while being sensitive, while being balanced towards your joy – it’s all about understanding balance. The phase of letting-go, finding inner freedom, releasing past momentum, is all in service to developing the openness towards objective living, free of resentment, free of resistance towards the nature of life.
Thanks Sen, it seems as if you have written this article just for me. Thanks a lot.
Thank you Sen. This article answered most of my questions…
thanks sen for this wonderful post as it relates to my situation so well. I’ve been searching within to understand why i’ve been so undecisive and meaningless and here you go answering it. I do feel like i am past the letting go phase, but am stuck with the same mindset. I have been hesitant on making decisions about what i want to pursue and it is now evident that its my own deluded view of reality.
Thanks for the post,Sen.The state of allowing a thought and getting immersed to its reality makes to waver and get distracted by an another thought which pulls to reduce the momentum of the previous thought sustained.In such a case,reverting back to the earlier job is found to be difficult i.e., is it possible to have 100% focus effectively while performing a job without getting distracted ?sorry for the english
Hey Sen,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
A few things I liked a lot that I wish you do more is when you provided everyday examples after explaining a concept. It made it more vivid and simple. This is awesome for me since my English is not the best.
For example when you wrote this paragraph:
“…You understand that life can’t be all light nature and that you have to deal with some dark nature, and having understood this about life you let go of feelings of resentment towards the dark nature aspects, developing an objective view of reality. For example, cleaning up your room may not feel all “joyful” but you realize that in order to experience the light-nature of being in a tidy room you will have to go through the dark-nature of putting in the work of tidying it up – in this phase of the return of focus it’s all about making deliberate choices, you don’t have to wait around for some “divine inspiration” to come in to clean your room.”
Thanks again, I enjoyed reading 🙂
I feel that Sen writes his articles at the right time and what is needed. I see that most posts around the blog are always summed up in one big article. Every question that i have asked Sen in every post has been answered in some form in a new article since i started asking questions. It truly feels as he understands things very deeply.
Dear Sen,
I like your posts very much. I have a question, in order to persue objective reality from a balanced-state, don’t we need to consider the other peoples (like family members) cooperation, to achieve reality based objectives?!… much appreciated for your inputs.
Hi Sen,
Thank you for your words of wisdom. I’ve read many articles here on your blog and I find them all equally inspiring and helpful. I’ve recently experienced what you would call my “wake-up call.” Basically, I hit rock-bottom and fell into a deep depression and stopped taking care of myself. As a result, my physical life (my home, finances, relationships, health) is in shambles. I’ve recently dedicated myself to the process of letting go and being in a state of total allowing, as I am aware of the light/dark imbalance that led to my depression. I just have one question. With my physical life in such a disarray, how do I handle both the “detox” of letting go and the stress of putting my physical life back together? I feel a little overwhelmed knowing that I have so much to do while at the same time trying to “allow” and go through such a release. Any advice, from you or from other readers, would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Kal,
Its been a while since you write this, so don’t know what is your present life situation. It can be quite tricky to realize that what you have to do at this point is to let go of forced effort to fix your life. During times of changing,shifts, there are new ~constructions~ that have to be built, and for that to happen, all old structures on the same base have to be broken and washed away. It is terrifying to mind, and this fear of uncertainty is also catalyst to inner freedom.
I just want to say thank you Sen, your posts have helped me to change my way of thinking and living, to become a more balanced person. I really appreciate the effort you put into this and hope you’ll keep doing this to help other people on their path to self improvement.
Thanks Sen,
It’s amazing! I Just feel that u are sensing the problems automatically from our life (Who are followers of ur Posts) as the Life is one everywhere. Please clarify this point if it is relevant.
I like the post mostly because i am facing the same thing here. Only the passion is different. I would like to write spiritual Thrillers ( experience based) which would cause atleast little shift within the readers. It is now clear to me that i have to write as a hobby only.
Once again Thanks Sen!
Hi Sen,
I’ve been in the state of allowing for a while now and i seem to be releasing some past mind momentum, but i’m sure i have read in one of your previous articles that you sometimes have to act out your emotions in order to release it. (p.s. i’m not saying that you have but i cant remember)
Now i’m not sure what to do when emotions like anger come up. Say for instance if i was speaking to someone and my anger just randomnly for no reason makes an appearance, i can allow this anger, but do i not express it? or do i? because i can notice that the anger is there, and keep a smile on my face. or i can can notice the anger is there and express it in my facial expressions and actions etc.
I’m really not sure which way to go around it and it’s been bugging me for a while!
So i’d appreciate if you could just let me know the best way to allow situations like this please Sen 🙂
Many Thanks
Jak
Jak,
I struggled with a lot of those same questions and still do occasionally.
I’ve found that anger is merely a mask for sadness. When you sit and distill the emotion, it usually ends with sadness. You’re angry because that person is not fulfilling an insecure void that you have inside of you, which is created out of sadness with your past/present situation.
I think an issue is that we’ve developed such habitual reactions to events that it can become very confusing with how to handle them when awareness comes in. Truly feeling or allowing the emotion is difficult. I don’t think it really has anything to do with what you do – whether you cry, whether you grimace, whether you blow up at someone. Although I think any idea of manipulating the reaction to achieve greater “allowance” is misguided.
Handling emotions is even more difficult in social situations. I think that’s why Sen says to start with sitting by yourself with no distraction. It’s easiest to tap into what allowing feels like then. After enough “practice”, it will become more and more automatic, and you won’t even need to think about it.
I often got tripped up with the theories of the law of attraction that seem to make us forget that things are still, in fact ‘reality-based’ like you explain. The way I see it now is that the universe will (figuratively) point us to a door, or tell us where a door is – when we’re in tune to those messages. It is the responsibility in our ‘reality’ to get up, find the door and walk through it if we want to follow that message.
This article came to me at just the right time 🙂 Thanks for everything, Sen!
The shift from letting go to objective living, thereturn to focus, brings about the confusion written about in this post. It really is simple, though, is it not? We make choices from imbalance and delusion. Then we let go of the imbalance and momentum. Finally, we make choices with clear understanding.
All that has changed is our willingness to see life as it is, instead of seeing life through our habits or delusions. Good post, Sen.
From the state of just learning to let-go, these next “problems” just seems so far… because it seems the trying to let-go phase will continue endless. However I can already imagine that once (if it will really happen) it will be through, the well-learned mindset of letting-go can truly become an obstacle to return to responsible, active life. Still I don’t understand what is that “pressure of life” which this let-go mindset could not handle anymore 🙂 Because, from the logic of letting-go, a man with this mindset can just continuously let-go also this “life calling/pressure”, maybe even mistakenly thinking of it as another release of mind/emotional momentum, can’t he?
This is one of the most brilliant papers I have ever read. Thank you !!
Hi Sen,
I’m just another fellow admirer. Wanted to know what your ideas are about not only the concept of jinxing or giving yourself the evil eye but how come those dynamics exist in the universe? what is its purpose? What is there evil a battle of the mind at all? I hardly believe in magic anymore…I am much more a believer of the firm ground of understanding and honoring rationality. I have always wondered though, how come these ideas even exist. Would they be there for nothing? I’d ideally like to understand how it fits in the balance of the world. How come so many WANT to fall into it, or do….it seems so counter intuitive but masses of people follow these things (superstition, evil eye, etc…) Your thoughts would be most appreciated.
Honey
honey, a truth/reality of life is that it’s always in a movement towards balance, the balance of light and dark. If the light nature gets into imbalance, dark nature gets introduced to balance it and vice versa. If you look at joy as light nature, over-excitement or a sense of “high” can be an imbalance of light nature, when one is over-excited it’s quite common for them to sense some dark nature coming up out of the blue which dampens their light-natured experience. So when you get over-excited, you naturally attract some dark-nature influence as a result of your imbalanced light-nature – and this dark-nature influence is then called “jinxing”. Over time when people observe that when you are “too happy” usually something “bad” happens, they start fearing that their happiness is getting jinxed – in truth, when you are “too happy” you are actually imbalanced towards light-nature because of some deluded perspective, and this imbalance attract an injection of dark nature as a natural movement of balance – the injection of dark nature is proportional to the intensity of imbalance, the more the imbalance the stronger the injection.
This does not mean that life is “negative” or a “spoil sport”, it just means that balance is an avoidable aspect of life-energy, and it will constantly work towards a balance of light and dark (you can see it in all of nature, the blossoms give way to the withering, the spring gives way to the fall, birth gives way to death, youth gives way to old-age, it’s all a balance, one can’t just have light nature alone – this is the ordinariness of life, you can call it a limitation but it’s just a nature of life, in truth its a gift of it own without balance everything would become a curse of itself. When you are in a state of inner balance, you don’t over-excited about anything, and hence you don’t attract an intense injections of dark nature. It’s also true that when you are over-excited, or imbalanced in joy, you will attract a “dark natured” reaction from outside in the form of envy, resentment or anger, and them holding you in this negative focus also has an impact on your reality, but attract this negative reaction because of the imbalance that you project, so essentially you are the one who’s attracting the consequences of the imbalance – it’s not the outside that’s being negative, the outside is just being “natural”, an imbalance of light-nature will attract a dark-natured response of the same intensity. If you are balanced, the outside reaction to you will also be balanced.
However, a lot of superstitions have no real base in reality except the fact that the belief in that idea causes on to attract some experience related to its content. Fear is a natural dimension of thinking which is present in us as life-energy (you can see fear as the dark nature aspect of life-energy, it’s a part of our nature as beings of life-energy). Hence, different forms of fear-based thinking is bound to exist. Also, thoughts are the basis of creation, creation happens from “focused thought” – focus gives power to a thought, when a thought gains enough power it can attract a reality onto itself and thus take a shape of some form of a manifestation that reflects the content of the thought. When we constantly give focus to a certain thought it gains enough power to manifest in some way. Belief is nothing but a very strong thought, belief means that you take a certain perspective/idea/thinking/concept to be true, and the fact that you take it to be true causes you to imbue it with a lot of attention and hence you imbue it with “power”. If you believe something strongly enough, you will see evidence of its truth in some way in your reality, of course the evidence is also a “perception” that colored by your belief – so it’s a vicious cycle of experiencing something that you believe in. So when you believe in the idea of jinxing, your very belief causes you to attract evidence of it mostly because your belief will color your view of things.
The simple solution to negativity as a whole is to find inner balance of our light and dark aspects, and operate from this state, because in this state you cannot attract an imbalanced experience of dark nature (or light-nature for that matter).
Hi Sen,
Good article, and I feel like I’m currently entering a similar stage. I no longer identify with the old pulls – which, for me, was an obsession with bedding women and receiving reassurance from women. Those old obsessions masked much bigger issues, and eventually resulted in massive panic attacks and OCD.
Now I don’t really feel anxious anymore. The OCD is much less, if non-existent at times. But it’s almost a bizarre scenario, where the things that dictated my life and decision making for so long no matter have the same relevance. It’s almost like, “what do I do now?”
Nick, it’s now about getting aligned with this “new” mindset and explore its expression. Of course it feels very different from the old mindset of being fear-driven or delusion-driven, in this place you just move from a place of objectivity and wisdom. The “what do I do now” just translates to what’s the requirement, responsibility and need of the current situation – not some extra-ordinary sense of purpose or meaning, just an objective sense of “I need/want to do this” because it feels required. I talk more about this in the post – the light and dark nature of conscious living
Sen,
I am once again in a ‘mode’ of fear or uncertainty that i may be schizophrenic. I was reading some symptoms online about them and they said that an earlier stage of schizophrenia begins with depression and social withdrawal and etc.. along with losing touch with reality.
“Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that makes it hard to:
Tell the difference between what is real and not real
Think clearly
Have normal emotional responses
Act normally in social situations ” quoted from the website. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001925/#adam_000928.disease.signs-and-tests
And here i go again thinking i may be schizophrenic. Its frustrating….what do you suggest? i am willing to accept if i am or not. whatever.
Hello sen –
I have started the release and going into a place of allowing the negative thoughts arise, i usually just relax and let all the negative thoughts arise and try my hardest to not suppress them. the thing is that when i give into my negative thoughts i feel some sort of guilt that im drawing in the negative and people say like the law of attraction what you think will come back does that play a part when your in release cause im trying my best to let the negative arise then i feel like a negative person even thoe my wisdom is kicking in and im getting a deeper sense of what im thinking about it really feels like im still in a unbalanced place in my mind. i take this practice seriously because i feel the dramatic change as i go along, i just want to know when do you really know you lost grip, because once i feel like i lost it, lil pieces jump in my mind, even though im not scared any more i feel like i should let em arise but then again i feel like im putting my self back in the negativity. Even if the fear is gone should you still think this way??
DJ: “…when i give into my negative thoughts i feel some sort of guilt that im drawing in the negative…”
DJ, remember that what comes up while allowing is already in you. If it wasn’t, it would not arise in your mind! Such negative thoughts will draw negativity, even if you suppress or ignore them. So let them go. There is no need to feel guilt about negativity. You say you are already allowing, so you may just need to keep going for some time before a feeling of balance sets in.
Hi Sen,
I have found everything you have written on this site to be incredibly helpful and provided the ‘missing link’ in my journey to achieving wholeness – I haven’t encountered any other websites that explain the process of letting go/allowing and reducing the mind’s momentum as you have! It really has been quite life change, and I am about 3 months into the letting go process. I Have noticed my mind momentum has reduced quite considerably, I am now not drawn in the pull of my mind’s negativity nearly so much as I was, and have actually transitioned from a ‘negative cycle’ to a positive one. At times I think I have reduced the mind momentum completely, but every now and then someone will say something that really winds me up and makes me angry…. Which they then claim I am over reacting to. I knwo that in these moments I AM being drawn in uncontrollably, and although my temper soon dies down, I am left wondering if this means I am not done with the letting go process, and perhaps this another ‘layer’ of negativity that is coming to the surface?
me too, the negative thinking “loop” in my thoughts are pretty much broken free. especially from self sabotaging thoughts. like before i’d react to my behaviors and say “this is why I can’t succeed/this is why ill never get out of depression/this is why I’m a loser/always making mistakes”. those thoughts have quiet down.
but like u, I still have moments of anger/dissatisfaction/hate in me towards people/life/situation that gets triggered out of nowhere (or trivial things). which tells me I have yet to come to balance with these dimensions.
as soon as I notice these triggers, I gladly accept and release it since it doesnt come @ me all the time.
Vanessa, the momentum does get released in layers, and it’s not until you are fully free of the momentum that you truly sense the state of being fully in “control” of your reactions/responses – of course, even if you reach 60% of releasing the momentum, it’s enough to feel a sense of stability, greater balance and inner connection. As you mentioned, currently you find yourself reacting in a manner that’s perceived by you as being “uncontrollable anger” (even though it dies out soon) – this anger could be arising purely at the mind level (or mind momentum) and since it does not get the fuel of your emotional momentum (which you have released over this period of time) it dies away soon. It’s all part of the release process, first you release the physiological/emotional momentum (strong bodily sensations and contractions) and then you release the mind momentum. You seem to released most of your emotional momentum and what remains is some mind momentum (some aspects of it) which will be subjected to unearthing and release currently. It would be useful to look at ur mind, and your thinking, about situations that trigger this form of anger in you – anger is not a problem when it feels like a choice of expression, if it feels uncontrollable it does become a dysfunctional quality arising from a momentum in the mind. Anger can stem from imbalances like a sense of insecurity (trying to protect one’s opinion or fear of criticism), a sense of victimization, a sense of helplessness or a sense of wanting to control others – eventually a “balanced” anger can be used as a required expression depending on the situation, but one has to be aware if one is lost to the pull of imbalanced anger.
Hi Sen, I was wondering if you could help me understand something that is happening to me at the moment.
As I wrote above I feel I have already gone through several ‘layers’ of releasing past momentum, however I feel that something quite huge is being uncovered at the moment. I have always had a slight ‘issue’ with alcohol and drugs. I was more of a party animal type rather than someone who drank every day or woke up needing a drink, however, deep down I knew it was an issue for me. It was something I struggled to address because I enjoyed it, and my social life revolved round it, but also would get carried away and also find it difficult to stop when I planned to. Recently, after a good few months of being quite calm, peaceful and healthy (although not abstaining completely), and also of feeling clear headed and connected, I suddenly started to feel a different force taking over. It was as if I could no longer feel this source connection and I was going back to being ‘unawakened’ but yet I knew not to worry about it and to let the force carry me. It was around this time that I also started drinking very heavily, taking drugs and becoming out of control. This happened repeatedly over a few weekends, getting worse and worse each time. Each week I would vow to have a quiet weekend but each weekend it would happen again and it was like I was powerless to stop it. This culminated in a break-down of sorts on Saturday which had me at a ‘rock bottom’, feeling so desperate that the only thing left for me to do was to call the A.A. (alcoholics anonymous). I talked to someone who was extremely understanding and helpful and who made me feel listened to and understood like never before. I then attended an A.A. meeting which was also very helpful. I am struggling to make sense of this on the one hand, as I never imagined I was this out of control, and it happened so quickly. However, I wonder if the recent events were due to a deeper desire to be rid of my ambivalent feelings towards drinking, and to force me into a situation where it would be addressed, instead of just carrying on as a niggling thing that wasn’t ruining my life too much, but was also keeping me from fulfilling my highest potential, and whether this was a final, deeper part of the ‘phase of release’?
Vanessa, we accumulate a momentum of imbalances as we live in a state of low awareness (or unconsciousness, or phase 1 of a being) over a period of time (mostly many lifetimes) and as we start becoming aware we become keenly aware of our imbalances and look at finding a solution to them (this is the phase 2, where you are aware of the imbalance and now looking for a solution). The usual tendency, as the awareness grows, is to start fighting the imbalances because they don’t feel “right” anymore, we start fighting the imbalances through means of suppression like discipline, affirmations, forced meditation-based techniques etc. Sooner or later this suppression simply causes an “eruption” of imbalances in some way, this is because the suppression also indirectly keeps fueling the momentum of the imbalance (what you “fight” keeps persisting through your indirect focus, and also gains momentum).
This “eruption” eventually causes you to realize that you can’t fight it and that the only option is to “let go” of the fight, this is the direct realization of the state of allowing instead of fighting – the state of allowing is about letting what arises arise fully and freely “within”. Of course, the state of allowing causes the suppressed imbalances to start getting released faster, and they start coming up, to be released, in layers. When they do come up, they can overwhelm you in many ways, depending on their intensity – this can’t be helped, one can simply stay allowing of this sense of being overwhelmed also. However, not everyone can just work on staying allowing without giving in to some “expression” of the imbalance now and then, for example, if you have a lot of suppressed anger, you may continue to allow it but there may be times when you can’t help but give into an expression of anger where you have a tantrum outburst at someone – after all you are human, and it’s easy to deal with so the release without giving in to some expression of it now and then. Of course, as you start working on the state of release you are also connecting with the intelligence of your life-stream (or inner being), so in that sense you are in the influence of “grace”, so you will not actually end up doing any “real harm” through some of your imbalanced expression under the influence of the release. In fact, as an act grace, some events may get orchestrated (like false alarms) to unearth some imbalances in you, so that they can be released. It’s all part of the release. In that sense, it’s actually fine to give in to some “pulls” imbalance as they arise during the release – it’s only human. The deal is that you have enough awareness now that you can’t kid yourself about the imbalances, you can’t just ignore them, so even while you give in to some imbalanced expression there is a strong awareness of you doing so – so you are no longer lost to the imbalance, even while giving in to it during a strong release cycle.
This what’s happening with respect to your drinking. There has been a momentum of imbalanced joy build over a period, and this imbalance found expression in the form of out-of-control drinking as a means to give into the excitement or fun or relief that it offered. During a cycle of release this momentum is bound to come up strongly, and you got taken in by this momentum towards giving into the expression of heavy drinking again while being fully aware of you doing so (which is what prompted you to check into AA, because your awareness of these imbalanced expressions got you worried that it may be some never ending problem). It’s also possible that you may learn something (or gain some understanding) through your association with AA which can assist you towards faster balance. However, the way I see it, in your current awareness, it’s only a matter of time before you feel a sense of balance in you, as the release cycles get done with, on your own.
Hi Sen,
Thank you so much for your reply. It provided me with some much needed reassurance in this confusing time, and it was helpful to get a confirmation of my understanding. My next question is about A.A. I don’t know whether I should keep going because I feel that the whole premise of A.A. goes against my understanding of the nature of life. I feel that having to admit that you are an ‘alcoholic’ and that you have this ‘illness’, and that this means you can never ever touch a drop of alcohol again detracts from the true power of your lifestream. Can this disease exist? Or is it just a form of unconsciousness?! I believe that if this is part of my ‘release’, I will come to a balance where I do not feel the need to drink excessively anymore. The A.A. thinks differently and I think indeed would say that I am ‘in denial’ and not facing up to the problem, and therefore in deadly danger of slipping down the slippery slope and facing certain death or insanity. So part of my mind thinks that this is true, and I am kidding myself. Another part does not believe it. I am trying to be still and patient and not panic and wait for the release to continue. At this time I really do not have a desire to drink. I just do not want to have to admit to the label of being an alcoholic, but am unclear if this unwillingness to ‘admit’ relates to a state of denial, or if it is because I am aware of a greater truth. Many thanks for all your input Sen. Your replies have been spot on, and your website has been the most helpful tool I have ever come across. Thank you for taking the time.
Hi Sen
I do feel a strong resistance to my current profession. I have always been interested in subjects that would mostly fall under the Arts and Humanites field but I did not pursue a career path in it. Now after many years I do feel that I should give it a try although I do have family commitments. I do not have much work pressure as of now in my current profession.The resistance I do have is I think mostly due to my lack of interest in my current job coz I do feel out of place inbthe corporate world. I am however unable to make a smooth transition. Can you throw some light on my current predicament (I have been feeling like this for quite a few years now)
Thanks!
Sanjay
Sanjay, a balance involves balancing consumption with contribution. Doing something that interests you involves “consumption” in terms of doing what you enjoy (in the sense that what you do “gives you” the enjoyment) but you would also have to find a way for it to provide a useful contribution in some way. Interest is one thing, productivity is another – what you are interested in can also be what allows for your contribution towards life, in terms of productivity, but you will have to channel it that way. There are people who simply do what interests them as a “hobby” (without putting in the packaging required to make it viable for useful contribution), and they work at something that doesn’t really interest fully (may be something that partially interests them, or something they have a capacity for) to make money, that’s one way of balancing consumption and contribution. There are people who take up what interests them “professionally” in terms of putting in the extra work required to make it viable for consumption for the public and getting paid for this work as a natural inflow towards the work expended on creating a viable outflow. For example, lets say this person is interested in tennis, now he can play it as a hobby or he can take it up professionally, when he takes it up professionally the equation is very different from when he is doing it as a hobby. You will have to get a sense of whether your interest is something you would like to take up professionally, or if you would rather have it as a hobby – there is also a middle ground where you do it “half-professionally” (for example, when this person takes up to teaching tennis to kids, part-time, as a means to fulfill his hobby while also making some contribution, thus making some money from it).
When you say – “I am not able to make a smooth transition” – you will have to evaluate what the blocks are in a very objective manner by looking at reality as it stands for you currently. Are you clear in your mind about doing it professionally? Do you feel that you can realistically make a contribution, towards fulfilling a requirement in the public, using your interest? Are you afraid of the risk involved, if so can you work on getting yourself acquainted with the realistic means of making your interest into something that’s viable as a contribution (a contribution people are willing to pay for) by researching the various areas that you can get involved with? If you want to focus on your interest as a hobby, then don’t think about making money from it, however you will then have to make money from your job (your job will serve as the dark nature to balance the light nature to fulfill your hobby). If you want to make your interest into something that gives a professional contribution then you will have to start looking for realistic means of doing the same, for example, you might have to get a “degree” (educational qualification is sometimes a pre-requisite even if you are good at something) to get a job in the field of your interest, which may involve investing time and energy towards it. The deal is that you can’t get away with the dark nature aspects and just look for the light nature alone – life doesn’t work/move that way. Understanding this reality about life is important towards being objective, and being objective can allow you to resolve conflicted thinking (or thinking that’s not aligned with reality of life)
Thanks Sen! Sometimes the problem is that at the end of a work day or even on week-ends, people do not have enough time to pursue their passion. Most people probably just like to wind down in some other manner. And plus their are other commitments (social, etc ) that take up so much our time. This is possibly coz so much of our mental energy is being expended at work. Anyways, I think as you mention the intention should be clear regarding our choice and the light and dark nature consequences of our choice as well.
Hi sen,
I feel that your posts make a lot of sense. I don’t believe in the fact that we have lived many lives but just the
Basic underlying ideas of momentum and of realizing the need to let go make a lot of sense . In the past 3 months I have had a really tough time dealing with things . I am unemployed and looking for a job desperately . For more than a year or two I was a real optimist in this situation. How ever something’s changed and I found that I suddenly became pessimistic about everything . This was 3 months back . I got anxiety and panic attacks once and I knew this wasn’t me right there . I tried every method since of solving the problem until about a month back I realized that letting go is the only solution for giving importance only fuels the mind more .
What I found was that letting go made my feelings far more intense. I thought I was doing something wrong and looked for more solutions . However I stumbled upon this blog a week ago and things really made sense as to what is going on. In the past week I have experienced what I think are really intense releases something that would describe on a drug like ” acid ” . I think I have become really good at watching these thoughts and haven’t really given in to them. Right now I don’t know what I feel many times but I don’t try to analyze it. I don’t know if even writing this post
makes sense since I am still looking for an answer which I guess is natural . I have had profound realizations in terms of what constitutes happiness and how externalities have barely any influence on it . I clearly have changed in the way I think . There was a time when I was absolutely ambivalent to things but now it’s slowly coming back. Although I am lost in thoughts I know that there is nothing wrong so I keep living normally. As of now I just feel that certain vices like drinking which I really enjoyed don’t mean so much fun anymore . Getting high which was a primary contributor to happiness is losing its meaning . I am not sure of what phase I am probably in but I know that I need to focus at the same time be patient in my quest for this job since this is a really important time . I don’t even know if looking for an answer about which phase I am in is right but then I just wanted to know where I am right now . Ideas like ” depersonalization have popped up but I know they don’t make sense . I just feel that things have changed way too fast and it’s been difficult to keep up with change at the same time I know I can’t really do anything about it so its best to let it happen
Also I think I have let go of the past momentum and feel a real weird sense of emptiness . I know it means nothing . In retrospect I think have become really efficient in doing work but I think I am still clinging on to things for inspiration basically things are not really exciting anymore and I think I just have to accept this . However , I genuinely believe the momentum has reduced . I actually wanted to get a deeper understanding of conscious effort and deliberate choice .
Hi Anirud.
It make perfectly sense what you described that you feel presently in your life.1) Something triggered your wake up call; 2) you became aware of your own imbalances, 3) you figured there is a problem and asked for solution, 3) you were directed to this blog to find a solution, 4) you realized that allowing is the key to balance this imbalance in you; 5) you started to be open, allowing, towards release; 6) the detox process started.
How you describe it, it exactly how this process feel like. Try to be as relaxed as possible. Realize that, for now, you don’t have to worry for your beliefs, your existence. You don’t have to figure any of mind questions at the moment, you can just allow them to be. Answers and solutions will come naturally. Sense of emptiness, meaningless, its also common feeling, maybe even phase itself, and also there to allow, embrace without judgment fully, and patiently.
In place of inner freedom, conscious choice is something you will do effortlessly, from your balanced, relaxed state of whole being, not only mind orientated. Trick is that it is absolutely futile to try to sense this place only from mind thinking. Stop to try so hard to figure it by mind only. Place of inner freedom can only be felt, experienced, and is available, once you let go fully.
Hi lander,
Thanks a lot for your comment I guess for now I will totally embrace whatever is going on and like I’ve noticed things will just fall into place on their own .