First Key Lesson: Any form of painful demand – whether on others, or upon ourselves – is born of unconscious attachment; it is proof of a level of consciousness that would rather cling to what has been, than allow real Life to help us see our True Self is not only the living incarnation of each new moment, but the eyes that see it take birth.
Second Key Lesson: Unwanted moments in life don’t mark the end of our path through it, let alone what we have yet to discover during our earthly journey; to the contrary, (they are) actually the revelation and realization of an “old” part of us that has outlived its usefulness, and that is being asked by the Divine to give itself up. Why? So that from its seed something new might be born within us, and we within that new life.
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For Further Study
The truth is that letting go is very simple and, above all, natural; as natural for you and I as it is for a tree to shed the heavy, sun-ripened fruit that clings to its branches. Why? Because both man and tree, in fact all living things, are created to drop what is no longer needed. For the tree, the falling fruit carries its matured seed to the ground. No unnatural force is necessary. In a similar fashion – that is to say, under higher but equally exacting laws – these same friendly forces are waiting to do for you what you haven’t been able to do for yourself. You need only learn to cooperate with these powerful and timeless principles to be able to let go of any emotional bitterness, relentless regret, anxious worry, or troubling thought. The rest will be done for you.
This is what the secret of letting go is all about. First must come the understanding that we are still carrying around the accumulated defeats of a lifetime, and that these weary weights have only served to make us someone sorry, not someone special. This initial shock may shake us, but it is really a major breakthrough. It heralds the first in a series of miraculous self-separations in which we begin to see that we have been living from an unseen part of ourselves: a self that thinks clinging to wreckage is the same as being rescued! Now we understand why all of our past efforts to let go have only left us holding a new problem. But now we also know, at last, exactly what it is that must be dropped. We must let go of this sorry self that is certain it is better to suffer and feel like someone than it is to just let go and quietly be no one. Have no concerns how this task will be accomplished. That is reality’s responsibility.
This higher knowledge that is now beginning to reveal you to yourself is not mental. It is coming to you from a lofty, wise, and powerful part of yourself that lives way above everyday thinking and its ceaseless conflict over what may or may not be best. Your newly awakening inner nature knows what is best for you because it sees life without the painful confusion and contradictions that always accompany compulsive self-interest. For instance, this higher intelligence knows that you don’t need to ache, even when you are sure you must. Once you have made contact with the still, secret self within, it does the rest. That’s right. It is this higher part of yourself alone that has the strength and wisdom to gently open your hand so that out of it may drop all that has been making you unhappy.
Believe me, you are on the verge of the single greatest discovery any human being can make. The secret of letting go not only holds the keys for ending what is unwanted, but locked within this same supreme secret is the beginning of your new life – the birth of a new nature that never has to hold on to anything because it is already everything.
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I cannot be any more grateful in re-visiting these insightful Truths.