‘Letting Go’ is the way!

There is no way or method to ‘Let Go’!

In response to my blogpost of yesterday a reader wrote to me wondering if there was a method to letting go: “I find it very, very difficult. The more I try to let go, the more I feel the urge to be in control. I feel that we have been given a human mind only to solve the problems we are faced with. And letting go, without attempting a solution, or in spite of attempting a solution, is counter-intuitive to being human! Is there a progressive approach to letting go?”

Honestly, there is no easy explanation to this conundrum. Because truly the benefits of, the value in, letting go cannot be explained. It has to be experienced.

Even so, let me attempt to share what I have understood from my own experience of learning to let go. When we are confronted with a problem situation, we want to solve it. We believe that either we can solve a problem or at least we believe we can find someone who can solve the problem for us. Well, if we can solve a problem, or if someone can solve a problem for us, surely, there is no problem. But there will be Life situations when no one can solve your problem. Life – and time – alone can solve your problem or heal you. Ask, for instance, those people who lost their dear ones in the MH 370 episode. Or ask the Talwar couple who are in Dasna jail in UP. Or ask me and Vaani – and we will tell you what it means to be living with a problem that refuses to get resolved despite all our efforts.

But that’s not the only way to look at problems of an enduring kind. Look at them another way too: No matter what you do, how hard you work, what you wish, whatever has to happen alone will happen. So, when you realize that something’s not in your control, when you are unable to control the flow of events in your Life, don’t resist it.Just let it happen. You simply learn to go with the flow.

My late grandfather, my father’s father, used to say, in chaste Palaghattan Tamizh: “Nadakarthu ellam nadakarapadi nadakattum.” Meaning, let everything happen in its own way. It also means don’t come in the way of Life. Because in reality, Life has been happening in its own way – whether you liked what happened or not, whether you like what you are getting or not. And if you elevate yourself to see Life from a spiritual plane, there are no problems. There are only events. Mere incidents on your journey called Life. You call something, which really is a simple event, a problem because you don’t like it, you don’t want it in your Life.

Letting go is not a call to inaction. Letting go is wisdom. If you like, you can call it an advisory which says that despite your best efforts, if you don’t see the results that you want, don’t agitate, don’t despair, just go with the flow of your Life. Which is why the spiritual perspective that there are no problems to be solved, there are just events to be experienced, is very valuable. When something is an experience, whether you like it or not, you have to learn to live and deal with it. It is only when you label something as a problem, that you feel you must solve it!

If you observe your Life or that of those around you, apart from all the challenges that Life throws at us, we create a fresh one for ourselves by seeking methods to deal with Life. We have become so method-driven that we now want to know if there is a method to intelligent living, if there is a method to inner peace, if there is a method to happiness and if there is a method to letting go. Life doesn’t work on theories or models or constructs for methods to work for, or in, Life. In my humble opinion, and from my experience of this lifetime, there’s no way to let go. Letting go is the way!

Start living freely, unfettered by fear

Know this for sure: Nothing can derail the Life that’s been designed for you. Most definitely not the lack of money!

Much of our worries come from how much money we have or don’t have. Think about it! When has the lack of money stopped anything in your Life__or mine? Well, if it has denied a want, you probably did not need it. Life always provides everyone with everything they need just now. Let me clarify, money is important. But you don’t need money__especially when it is unavailable__to live happily! Besides, why are we embracing fear worrying over economic indices that feed off human greed? Every stock market operator, watcher and speculator, is responding to (and is in) greed. Every billionaire listing speaks of wealth in the hands of a few people who have the power to change the world and lives of the have-nots, but very few seldom really do or want to do anything. So, why focus on a negative influence__greed?

Another perspective. Our parents earned a fraction of what we do now. Their parents a much lesser fraction of that. And yet Life has been going on. We have all been educated by our less economically privileged parents. And, miraculously, are holding positions of influence in our own small ways. We are, in fact, managing to rear our children with more comfort than we were provided. So, why the fear? In fact, here’s a counter argument. If each of us can stop fearing the lack of money, and stop imagining that the world is coming to an end, we will be more productive than we are just now. And that may just revive and grow the economy faster__if it becomes a global trend.

So, stop thinking of what’s wrong with the world and with your Life. Stop cribbing. Stop wishing things were different. Start living freely, unfettered by fear. Have faith that all that you need will continue to be available to you, just as it always has been. Up until this moment. Think abundance. Think prosperity. Every time you read about the crumbling global economic indices, job losses, falling currencies and begin to wonder how you will survive, think of the most beautiful sunrise you have seen, the most intimate moment you have spent with your companion, or the most joyous vacation you have been on in Life. Define one spot outside your window that is beauty__believe me, you will find beauty everywhere, most definitely in unexpected places. And view that sight each time you feel worry and fear gripping you. The beauty of Life and nature can revive even the most hardened, numbed, human spirit. This is abundance thinking. Realize that it is from abundance that peace is born. It is from peace that prosperity flows. Will you make a new beginning today?

Surrender to Life and be free!

Surrender to Life. This is the only action required of you. When you surrender, you will be free.

When you are free, you are peaceful. When you are peaceful, bliss follows. With bliss comes abundance. With abundance comes all that you need. When you are in that state, you are radiant.

It’s possible for all of us to be resplendent, radiant like the idol at Tirupati. Those who have been to that temple shrine in southern India will agree that they are speechless, they are thoughtless when in front of the main deity. Many confess they have even forgotten how to pray or what to seek when in the sanctum sanctorum for those few nano-seconds. They speak of divinity and they speak of a super power. They are mesmerized by the glow radiating from the idol, their Lord. They believe it is a superior energy that is embracing them when in proximity of that idol. I don’t wish to challenge their beliefs. But I want to say that you too can radiate that kind of energy. Only if you surrender. Only if you submit yourself to Life’s situations.

All your pain comes from fighting, from resisting Life. All suffering comes from expecting your Life to be different from what it is just now. When you give up the fight and when you stop expecting, you will be at peace. In that state you will be bereft of all wants and yet be abundantly endowed with all that you need. In such a moment, you are one with the Universe, with creation. This is where you begin to radiate the energy that created the Universe. This is not just spiritual thinking. This is metaphysics.

Linji Yixuan, a Buddhist Zen monk, went to his Master and said, “Give me freedom!” The Master said, “Bring yourself. If you are, I will make you free. But if you are not, then how can I make you free? You are already free.”  “And freedom,” his Master said, “really is not the freedom you think of. Really, freedom is freedom from ‘you’. So go and find out where this ‘I’ is, where you are, then come to me. This is meditation. Go and meditate.” So the disciple Linji goes and meditates for weeks and months, and then he goes back to his Master. He tells his Master, “I am not the body. Only this much I have found.” So the Master says, “This much you have become free. Go again. Try to find out.” Then he tries, meditates, and he finds that “I am not my mind, because I can observe my thoughts. So the observer is different from the observed – I am not my mind.” He comes and says, “I am not my mind.” So his Master says, “Now you are three-fourths liberated. Now go again and find out who you are.” So Linji went away thinking, “I am not my body. I am not my mind.” He had read, studied, he was well informed, so he was thinking, “I am not my body, not my mind, so I must be my soul, my atman.” But he meditated, and then he found that there is no atman, no soul, because this atman is nothing but your mental information – just doctrines, words, philosophies. So he came running one day to his Master and said, “Now I am no more!” Then his Master said, “Am I now to teach you the methods for freedom?” Linji said, “I am free because I am no more. There is no one to be in bondage. I am just a wide emptiness, a nothingness.” Osho, recounting this story often, concludes: “Only nothingness can be free. If you are something, you will be in bondage. If you are, you will be in bondage. Only a void, a vacant space, can be free. Then you cannot bind it. Linji came running and said, “I am no more. Nowhere am I to be found.” This is true, real freedom.”

And this freedom comes from surrender. Try it. See what you are enslaved by. And break free. When you realize the nothingness of your creation, the emptiness of your ‘self’, you will be filled with abundance, drenched in a radiant energy. Then you don’t need anything….because you have all that you need, you have freedom! You are free! 

In Life, don’t seek permissions, take decisions!

You don’t need anyone’s permission to live your Life. You just need to make the decison – and simply live your Life!

The other night I watched the much acclaimed Hindi movie Highway (2014, Imitiaz Ali, Alia Bhatt, Randeep Hooda) on TV. It’s the story of a girl, Veera Tripathi (Alia Bhatt), who is abducted and begins to love being held hostage. She feels so because she feels free – and secure – in the presence of her captor. Her own Life, until she was abducted, was like the way a bird’s Life is in a golden cage. Her captor takes her on road trip, trying to avoid the cops who are looking for them, up in the mountains. In one memorable scene, the Veera (Bhatt is brilliant here) is awestruck by the sheer power and beauty of a stream rushing down the hills. She is unable to describe how she feels. So she simply wrings her hand and gasps in disbelief. Later on in the film she tells her parents how ironical her Life has turned out to be – that she feels like a hostage, suffocated and buttoned in, in their presence, in her “home”; yet, she feels “free” in her captor’s presence, though she really is a hostage being held to ransom. She finally chooses the other Life and declares her intent to go away from home saying that she needs nobody’s permission, that she really wants to live her Life, her way.

Veera in Ali’s Highway personifies each one of us – you, me, every one. If you examine your Life closely, you will realize that you are living much of it for others. And not for yourself. You are very subconsciously trapped in family, social and professional commitments. You want to be living a different Life, doing what you love doing, but you can’t peel off from the Life you have chosen because of the responsibilities that have been dumped on you. Now if you were content with that Life it is fine. But like Veera, you too are suffering. Not everyone will be lucky in encountering a captor who will pry your soul open and help you touch and feel Life. You have to decide for yourself. And the sooner you do that, the longer you will enjoy your Life! Simple. So, if you are not enjoying the Life that you have, go live the one you want to. Don’t sit there and complain. Remember: if you grieve, complain and suffer, you have only yourself to blame.  Because, you need no one’s permission to live your Life! 

Drop all disappointments. Live free!

Live Life without regrets, without disappointments. When you live this way, you will see how magical and beautiful your Life is.

A friend invited me for a drink a few days ago. Along with him, at the bar, was his boss, Hemant. After the introductions were made, Hemant was keen to know what my Book, ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content without money’ (Westland, August 2014), was all about. So, I gave him a background and said that my Book’s message was really about accepting Life for what it is and learning to be happy despite the circumstances.

Hemant heard me out. He looked away for a while as we three sat silently at the table. He then picked up his glass, drank from it, leaned forward and asked me, “What is your biggest disappointment?”

I replied, instantaneously: “I have no disappointments.”

“But how can that be,” protested Hemant, “when you are in such a terrible financial state, when you have no money to cover even your living expenses, when you owe so much to so many people. How can you say you are not disappointed with Life?”

I smiled, and explained my perspective to Hemant and my friend. It is not that I had not felt disappointed before. It is not as though I don’t feel disappointed when our efforts to put our business back on track fail every single time that we try. But you learn, I told them, to not carry a disappointment in you when you realize its futility. What is a disappointment? Simple – an unfulfilled expectation is a disappointment. A lost opportunity is a disappointment. But Life does not bother whether you have an expectation or not. If you have an expectation from Life, and it goes unfulfilled, it is your problem. Life just goes on. Similarly, you got an opportunity, and if you blew it, it’s your problem. Life gave you that opportunity, you did not make use of it. Who is to blame? And what is the point in holding on to the blame, the guilt, the disappointment – the lost moment, the lost opportunity is never going to come back. So, why feel disappointed? In my case, there’s a lot of scope for disappointment – I need not have taken some business decisions that led to our Firm’s bankruptcy and to my family being pushed to the brink of penury; I ought to have saved money for our children’s future, when our business was doing very well, and when my wife used to implore me to do so. That time’s gone. Those questionable decisions were made. The opportunities were lost. Events happened and we are in the state we are in. What has happened is irreversible. What’s the point in being disappointed now about whatever has happened in the past?

Understanding and avoiding disappointments helps in any context in Life. A disappointment always brings grief and depression along with it. Together they make a debilitating cocktail of emotions that can hold you hostage forever. Instead of being a slave to these emotions, be free. Learn from your mistakes, your choices, your decisions and let go of all disappointments and guilt. Forgive yourself for what you did. Forgive others for what they have done. When you do this, you will feel phenomenally peaceful. When you anchor in this inner peace, you will experience the beauty and magic of each moment.

Free yourself to find your Self!

To be free comes FREE!

You don't have to make any effort. This is one truth about Life which, when you get it, will be liberating! You came with nothing. No expectations. No worries. No demands. You just lay there and stared at the world. Smiled when you wanted. Bawled when you felt like. Peed at will. Puked as you pleased. All expectations were for and from people around you__that you must be fed, you must be safe, you must sleep and so on. You had no expectations. So there was no agony in your Life. You were absolutely free. As you grew older and as the burden of expectations were set on you__you must speak, you must crawl, walk, run, go to school, behave properly and so on__you became restricted. And conditioned. It is this conditioning that's crippled you, that's nailed your feet to the ground. In reality there is NO nail, there's nothing that's keeping you from flying high, soaring. It is just your conditioning that makes you think so. Living in this world and yet being above it, as the Bhagavad Gita teaches us, is to be able to know that there is nothing holding us back.

When you know you are free, you don't have to make any special effort to unshackle yourself. You just have to start Living. So, grab this Lifetime FREE Offer! Free yourself, find your Self!