SPIRITUAL/ JOURNAL: LET GO........IN A FLASH

I was out walking the other night, Chopin playing in my headphones and a crisp sort of winter stillness in the air. I feel the sense of peaceful ambiance.The sort of thought trajectory that starts out when something great happens and opens up a flood of positive thinking; a thought stream that then gathers momentum and ultimately turns negative, as all unattended thought does eventually when left to proliferate.

When this happens I usually find it helpful to go for a long walk, to quiet down and regain consciousness. I had been walking for about an hour or so that night, feeling gradually more peaceful as the time went by, and then suddenly, almost in a flash, I had an insight. And the insight was that "my life is not mine." After realizing this, it was as if a fog had lifted and I was immediately at peace. Deep peace. The unease I had felt before the sudden realization wasn't all that deep or unbearable; compared to what the world terms normal, it was a relatively peaceful state. But when you have once glimpsed the state of absolute peace, you will know whenever it is missing. And that shift from being relatively peaceful to the state of deep inner peace was quite significant.

The pointer

Now, what was it about this simple statement that put me so completely at ease? If we look at the words, they make no sense whatsoever because to say that my life is not mine is clearly a paradox. What's mine is mine, and if my life is not mine then whose is it?

These are the questions the mind wants answered before it will allow the words to come in any further, and very active and negative mind patterns would dismiss them immediately and simply stop reading. So, looking past the paradox for a moment, let's investigate what the statement is actually saying. Which is, put simply, that life is not owned by the ego. It is the life of God (or simply life itself), and you are given an opportunity to enjoy the experience, to sit along for the ride so to speak. The ego has all sorts of ideas about what it wants for itself, ambitions, goals, and plans; and it will always seek to gain absolute control over the life it claims to own. It will attempt to figure everything out for itself, arrange things according to what it thinks it needs in order to be happy, and all it ever does is lead you down a path of futile effort and suffering. This you know from experience, and if you don't then you only need to look harder to discover that this is the case.
Enter the ego

And at this point the ego will come in and say, that if you do this, if you give up control and accept that life is not yours, you will, at best, end up in a ditch somewhere, destitute and in misery, having failed to take control of your life when you had the chance. It will tell you that in order for you to be at peace, you first need to make it, need to arrive somewhere. And then when you've finally arrived, you can allow life to do what it will from thereon. But until that happens, giving up control would be to accept defeat and failure. It is fearful and perplexed by all of this nonsense about surrendering, and will probably attempt to pull you back into unconsciousness with whatever trickery it has available.

But that's just the ego. And all the advice the ego will ever give you is sure to keep bringing you more frustration and suffering: this is inevitable, and the sooner you realize it the better. But to make it easier for you to let go, it is helpful to know that to surrender does not mean that you cannot do things of your own initiative anymore; what the pointer does is trigger an awareness inside of you, an awareness that gives you a higher perspective. You still do what you do, make music, go for a walk, start a business, but what happens is no longer of any real concern to you. It is not your life anyway, and so it would seem almost arrogant to demand that something in particular has to happen. The result of whatever it is you do then becomes relatively unimportant compared to the act of doing itself. You will keep doing things, but instead of it being stressful or an effort, you will find that doing becomes playful and enjoyable.

Yeah, but...

This pointer, like any words having to do with spiritual realization, is not meant to make sense to the mind. I'm repeating myself here of course, but it's worth reminding yourself of this whenever you are working with pointers, or indeed any words or ideas that have to do with that which is beyond form. Words and concepts are form, and thus cannot possibly explain with accuracy anything beyond the level of form.

If you find the paradox overly distracting however, try removing the "my" at the beginning so that it says simply: "life is not mine." It is a recognition that you are not in control, and indeed are not even meant to be. And so you become quiet, put hands behind your back and allow life to do what it will. It is an act of surrendering, of aligning yourself to the will of God. And then you will rightly recognize your personal ambitions and demands as frivolous, thus becoming able to lay them aside without feeling any sense of loss whatsoever.

A particular area of conflict and doubt with regards to this pointer, as mentioned earlier, is that it doesn't seem to be aligned with the outwardly focused goals or plans you may have made for yourself. If you need to let go of personal ambition, then what about personal development? Am I just to surrender and then sit around doing nothing?

Not at all. When you give up the need for control, you are still free to pursue whatever it is you want to achieve on the level of form. Which can be really difficult to understand at first, and to trust enough to be able to let go. All talk about relinquishing control and surrendering to God does not suggest that you should stop everything you're doing and give in to inertia. In fact, surrendering usually has the opposite effect: when you let go of the need to be in full control, being productive and achieving goals becomes effortless and enjoyable. When the ego is no longer distorting your perception, you will cease to have a fear of failure when attempting to achieve things. And as you know, the fear of failure is what usually keeps people from doing all of those things that are worth doing. Making a big career change or starting your own business, asking someone out on a date, or even just approaching a stranger on the street.

What would your life be like if you didn't experience fear of failure? Let go of the illusion that life is yours, and then see what happens.