Letting Go
People are often advised to ‘just let go’ of any emotional pain or anxiety as though it’s something that can be done without first confronting the source of negativity. If it were a case of simply letting go, then everyone would be free and able to detach at will from the demands of self. It’s the emotional pain of the past that refuses to let go.
The past is an effect of intelligence operating below the speed of light. Unless the substance of the past is continually let go in the moment through being present in the senses, the flow of life becomes impeded and creates emotional blockages in the psyche. The past obviously has no place in the present. This substantive energy needs to be continually eliminated through being conscious in the body; otherwise the emotional content hardens as attached matter to the flesh.
The flesh is not the sensory appearance of the body but the inner sensation which resonates to the frequency of love. Love is the swiftest intelligence which is beyond the speed of light and enters existence as the speed of now. What happens in most people is that love degenerates to emotion, which is the slowest frequency of intelligence that’s possible for life to exist. Love is not an emotion since all emotion is an effect of the past.
The past is kept emotionally alive through ruminating on the events and circumstances of yesterday or the last moment. This creates a dull vibration of self, often registered as a dark and depressive shadow. The impulse is then to find something to elevate the negative feelings through some form of stimulation. Sexual excitement, thinking about good times in the past or projecting numerous possible scenarios in the future all speed up the dull vibration to a faster rate. Although this temporally lifts the cloud of depression, once the excitement peaks, the person plunges back to a low and the cycle repeats itself.
There’s no chance of letting go when the emotional force of self is rampant. Once activated in the mind and compounded by the thinking process, the energy must complete its cycle. The best that can be done in these times is to contain the inner pressure and the impulse to react. The challenges of life must come, but increasing stillness and sensitivity to the inner state creates a spiritual centre of purified space.
The key to it all is that whatever I the individual acknowledge then returns as the circumstances and quality of the life. To effectively let go of the past as any emotional suffering is to practise letting go in the good times, not the bad. Acknowledge pain and it returns, only magnified with the psychic force of other unresolved emotions in the body. Acknowledge with gratitude any good in the life, such as being able to perceive the wonder of the sensory world, and something is retained as consciousness which is accessible at any time. This is the spiritual essence of the being, which transforms the past into the presence of love.
Dear, Lance: I believe you have exposed, for me, what is perhaps the main challenge in my life. Everything you say here resonates with my struggle to forgive others – and myself – for the “painful past”. And, even though much of it was authored by others and/or co-created, it’s becoming clear to me that my attachment to the imaginary ‘proper resolution’ is a huge impediment to letting go. I long to find some techniques to address my “activated mind compounded by the thinking process” and you have provided some useful insights, as always.
I get that the things I acknowledge are what appears in my life, and there are a lot of positives that receive that awareness and serve me well, but the “dull vibration of self” can be unrelenting and incredibly destructive. I tell myself that once the truth is established, apologies and restitution achieved, that the “dark and depressive shadow” will be expunged, but it never comes. And so, I’m reduced to the half-accomplishment of “containing the inner pressure and the impulse to react”.
I really want to escape this delusion and not be a captive of the past, but when I try to sever the connection, it feels like I’m cutting into my own flesh. My mind insists that I should learn from the past, avoid what’s improper and unbalanced. That I should pay attention to danger and the fear that arises when I feel the previous trauma will repeat itself. It’s the same impulse that causes me to put on my seatbelt – an autonomic response to the threat of danger or harm. But I don’t want to engage all life encumbered by a safety harness, because I also know the rewards of taking a chance.
I hope I will reach that still center where I sense that opportune moment and seize it passionately. As you advise, being present and grateful is the best way to sustain what is good and wonderful, and the idea to pursue that in the ‘good times’ is both sensible and inspiring for me. Thank you.
Thank you, Lance – there are so many gems here. I’ve been re-reading this every day and I keep finding more. Sometimes I’m a little mystified by your verbiage, the curious way your wonderful ideas semantically unfold, but when I persist the veil lifts! The essential thing I get here is what I tend to see, in a limiting way, as past trauma, is exacerbated by the indulgence of emotion and the delusion that it’s personal. And, that the elusive “right action” to overcome the “resistance of self” is the key to create the necessary spiritual inertia to re-establish the love that uplifts me and and makes the world more tender. I’m consciously pursuing people, places and states that encourage and nurture that, even though my skill set is sometimes limiting.
You’re right about my accident; it was a double-edged sword. Even as I prepare for my first rehab session for neck and back pain, the hidden blessings have been apparent. I’m sure that just as healing massage and realignment will assist my bruised body, those same principles, applied in a metaphysical context, will help ease my inner struggle. To benefit from either therapy – physical or spiritual – will require effort, time and concentrated focus on the transcendent power of love. Thank you for illuminating that so graciously and the caring and personalized support that you offer to the world.
I’ll endeavour to throw some light on the main points you’ve mentioned, Richard.
Firstly, this ‘forgiveness’ business is a real bugbear for many people. What have you got to forgive anyway? When I realise I’m responsible for all the circumstances in my life, there is nothing to forgive. Didn’t the difficulties and hard lessons of life serve to get me to the point where I now know what causes emotional pain? It’s possible to reach a point where I realise that everyone in my life, even those who apparently ‘wronged’ me, served to disabuse me of my former ignorance. We make ourselves special or exclusive through elevating emotional suffering to a virtue.
The ‘proper resolution’ is accepting my life as it appears now and taking appropriate action to rectify any problem areas. So the question to examine is where in my present circumstances am I being held captive and not able to be what I am? It’s the unresolved areas of the life which create the movement of the mind in front of the stillness. Taking right action shatters the resistance of self, and what remains is space purified of emotional distortion.
The ‘cutting into the flesh’ you mention is the pain of the past being transformed from emotion to love. I must be able to bear the pain without flinching. This is the justice or integrity of life which requires me to face all that I’ve been as unconscious living in the past. And this can only be done effectively without self-judgement – for what have I done that hasn’t been repeated billions of times by the human race?
It seems to me, Richard, that you’ve truly realised the idea behind the words. The next phase of the life is beckoning but can only come at the behest of your own authentic being and the power of consciousness. Your recent accident was symbolic of the change which shattered some areas of resistant past that were previously inaccessible. The resulting fragments released from the matter can externalise as confusion and a feeling that you may be going backwards over old ground. This is a trick of the self struggling to reclaim it lost territory. But it’s to stand firm and resolute in your undertaking to be the master of your kingdom. Unbeknown to the self, these old fragments are now more able to be transformed back to the original state of love.
The still centre never varies and is unwavering as the spiritual being behind the form. However, any anticipation or trying will delay the right solution and circumstances to instigate the new. Everything unfolds in its right sequence. In the meantime, it’s sufficient to do as you do but with the increasing clarity and self-knowledge that will reveal whatever needs to be done to take you deeper into the mystery of life.