The soul, like the moon
is new and always new again
and I have seen the ocean
continuously creating.
Since I washed my mind
and my body, I too,
am new, each moment new.
My teacher told me one thing:
Live in the soul.
When that was so,
I began to go naked and dance. ~Lalla
Letting go. Not so easy. I don’t think any one of us ever bargains for just how hard it will be.
At some point in our lives, each one of us guards an unresolved “secret,” an issue that we delude ourselves into believing is entirely unique to us, and rather than seek counsel, share or speak aloud even in the privacy of our own consciousness, we bury it, and as a result, it perpetuates, it morphs like a chia pet on miracle grow, it mutates … The “secret,” which more often than not, is really just a construct of the doubting mind, an outward projection of what we ourselves need to “see,” acknowledge and integrate, literally becomes the monster that ate Tokyo. Now as cool as Godzilla is to watch on the big screen, tell me the truth … you really want that dude knocking around in your head?
We wonder to ourselves, how could THIS ever change? In spite of the many wonderful things that outwardly appear to be happening our lives, and in fact, often ARE happening, this thing … it keeps gnawing away at our good spirits, sapping our reserves and sucking us into the unproductive vortex of endless obsessing.
Until you suddenly discover that you do have the power to completely alter your reality– for the better.
For me, just when I thought things couldn’t get much worse, they did. And one day, after having fallen to the ground in a crumpled heap of angst after spending the better part of a half hour there, crying and railing against the universe, I had one of the most powerful awakenings of my life. Something rose up inside me– something I would now call an enlightened energy, and suddenly I rose up, and took a really deep breath. The voice inside said very clearly: “You have come too far, and I care way too much about you to allow this kind of suffering to plague you, to dominate your mind, your time, devour your good energy any more …” I knew that I did not want to suffer this way any more, ever again. “I won’t allow it anymore.” I sad to myself. I was done. I had outgrown the old, because I could no longer tolerate it. It was painfully boring and predictable. And it offered nothing but the same disappointing results.
The countless hours I had spent reading, studying, practicing the texts from ancient wisdom schools suddenly crystalized through my sweaty tears, glistening in the new light of my revelation:
The Four Noble Truths
1. Life means suffering.
2. The origins of suffering is attachment.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.
4. There is a path to the cessation of suffering.
And the path reveals itself when you say these four noble words: “I AM LETTING GO.”
The next moment, it flew into my consciousness with Superman’s velocity when he forms his famous fist, aimed at the sky as he blasts off into the high ethers. I stood up, I looked around, and with deepest conviction, said out loud, “I am letting go of it all.”
And then, just like that—at lightning speed, my soul made its next move– I knew I needed a witness to make sure it was real. I knew that if I said it out loud to someone else, who I believed was part of my suffering, and I experienced no hesitation or regret as the words came out of my mouth, that it meant that this monumental shift was actually happening in real time.
As I got on my feet, wiping the tears from my eyes wide with exhilaration, my mind went to the words from one of my favorite 11th century sages …
The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
The greatest precept is continual awareness.
The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways.
The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.
The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
The greatest patience is humility.
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
The moment I spoke the words to my friend, his heart clearly melted just as mine had moments before when the idea was born. It was visceral. A shared experience. I had chosen self love, and was then able to give that to someone else. In my letting go, my witness was able to do the same, and suffering, as we had known it, ended.
Did it end forever? Forever is a long time. But for now, since that moment, which was 4 months ago, peace reigns, and every day, I let go a little more, and a little more … and I am new, each time, I am new.
When you let go, you give others permission to do the same. Your energy ripples out concentrically, like a stone being dropped into a still pond … everything in that water feels the reverberations, the changes, takes notice and changes with it.
Do you realize, that each moment presents us with this remarkably special, fleeting opportunity to change what we knew the moment before? And each moment, if we greet it as though it were the singular, fleeting portal to a new world, offers us in exchange for our keen and heart-fed attention, the gift of becoming NEW. We are able to create a new reality to explore. Will the trappings of our lives look the same? Maybe. Will the players, our witnesses appear to be the same? Perhaps. But looks can be deceiving, and I promise you, that if you succeed in even the smallest “letting go,” you too will be suddenly made new, by your own choosing, and so will everyone and everything around you.
