Keeping my attention for the moment on our ongoing preparation for Ascension, I saw yesterday that important parts of that journey are not going to be accomplished by attaining, achieving, building, etc. Parts of it are going to be accomplished by letting go.
By way of example, I often experience a yearning for unitive consciousness, unrestricted connectedness, etc., and think that it’ll come about by a process of merging. When I try to force the issue, not knowing how to merge, I end up feeling frustrated.
And then the penny dropped.
In the instance I have in mind, I suddenly let go of a layer of protectiveness and the yearning dissipated. I was left with a glow of satisfaction, in which state I was much more accessible to unitive connection than before.
It wasn’t that unity was created. It was that unity was always already there and I simply let go of a layer of protectiveness that obscured and blocked it.
The Divine Mother said the other day on An Hour with an Angel that the larger purpose of life was for us to realize our true identity (as God) and it was her dearest wish that we do so. (1) Implicit in that statement is the fact that that identity is always already there and the only thing missing is our uncovering it and realizing it.
She found it ironic that we stress progress (2) or moving forward because in the realest sense we’re moving backward, are we not? We’re recovering knowledge that we once had and lost out of our agreement to descend into the experimental circumstances of Third Dimensionality.
So why do I not simply settle the matter once and for all by acknowledging to myself that everything important that I feel is needed, everything desperately sought after, everything pined for is always already there? I’m engaged in a kind of releasing, a kind of unmasking, to uncover a truth that’s always already there.
I don’t have to build my true identity. I don’t have to create unity. I simply have to let go of the layers of protectiveness that I’ve created out of my ignorance. Letting go is the discipline I need to master.
I’m reminded of what Ajahn Sumedho once said, in a passage that has always brought me a chuckle:
“The practice of ‘letting go’ is very effective for minds obsessed with compulsive thinking: you simplify your meditation practice down to just two words—’letting go.’ Rather than trying to develop this practice and then develop that, and achieve this and go into that; … just let go, let go, let go.
“I did nothing but this for about two years—every time I tried to understand or figure things out, I’d just say, ‘let go, let go’ until the desire would fade out. So I’m making it very simple for you, to save you from getting caught in incredible amounts of suffering.
“There’s nothing more sorrowful than having to attend International Buddhist Conferences! Some of you might have the desire to become the Buddha of the age, Maitreya, radiating love throughout the world – but instead, I suggest just being an earthworm … who knows only two words – ‘let go, let go, let go.'” (3)
Everything that stands in my way of uniting and ascending is born of fear and the felt need to protect myself. But if I really look around me, I see that each thing is falling into place, as if by magic. Future colleagues show up in the course of a day. Relationships deepen.
What was it Goethe said?
“[Once one is committed] all sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.” (4)
When was this more true or discernible than at the present time?
Lao Tzu described God as “ultimate emptiness.” (5) Surely emptiness is not attained. Surely it’s always already there. There’s no journey to it. There’s no building it. There’s no finding it. There’s only letting go, as he also told us:
“The Way is gained by daily loss,
Loss upon loss until
At last comes rest.
“By letting go, it all gets done;
The world is won by those who let it go!
But when you try and try,
The world is then beyond the winning.” (6)
How much easier could it be? Falling back into Self. Letting go of the illusion and resulting fears. Loss upon loss until at last comes rest. Definitely not rocket science. Definitely not an art that draws on the mind, except it be the quiet mind.
Footnotes
(1) “You are able to experience that state of who you truly are. … It is my dearest wish that this occur.” (“The Divine Mother: Be Prepared to Move into Measured, Concerted, and Modest Action,” Dec. 6, 2013, at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/12/the-divine-mother-be-prepared-to-move-into-measured-concerted-and-modest-action/.)
(2) “It is my honor to … come to you in this way to speak to you not only of the unfoldment of our plan, but the unfoldment of yours, to speak of the progress — which is an ironic term, but you have a tendency, as a collective, to consider things in forward movement, and that is partly a construct of the time, the dimensional realities which you occupy, and the way in which your reality, as you consider it, has been constructed.” (Loc. cit.)
(3) Ajahn Sumedho, Cittaviveka. Teachings from the Silent Mind. (Great Gaddesden: Amaravati Publications, 1992; c1984, 44.
(4) William Hutchinson Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition (1951.)
(5) Lao Tzu, The Way of Life. The Tao Te Ching. trans. R.B. Blakney. New York, etc.: Avon, 1975, 68.
(6) Ibid., 48, 101.