Letting Go of Limitation, Judgment and Resistance

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be."   -Lao Tzu

Letting Go Leaves You Empty

Letting go is a valuable spiritual practice but to me, it also implies comparison, limitation and differentiation. Whenever I feel resistant, tight or constricted, my first thought is to let go of whatever I am resisting. But then I start wondering whether letting go is a bit like resisting resistance. Letting something go can be misleading if I am really just pushing something away and obsessing about wanting it's opposite. A better question to ask would be: "If I let something go, where will that take me?"

My practice lately has been to use the mantra: Open, open, open. My background thoughts compare it to other mantras I have used in the past like "Give love here." In doing so, even though loving is a wonderful thing, there is a differentiation being made. I am the one doing the loving to "some other" (often someone in need) who is the recipient of my love. Differentiation implies a limitation of some sort.

The Limitation of Letting Go

For example, "I am letting go of my need to control this situation" can also be seen as a limiting phrase. When I am letting go of control as in this example, I simply end up without control. Sure, I may feel better because I'm not harboring resentment or negative, manipulative energy. Sure, it may give me the motivation to move on to better things. But it is more limiting than simply saying "I am open" again and again. When being "open", I find that there is no "loss" of anything because I am open to anything.

Letting Go of Judgment

But being open to "anything" is a scary concept for me and many others because it includes, well... everything. Even things like pain, fear, hatred, or shame. Things I normally try to avoid in my life. But a strange and seemingly miraculous change occurs when opening my heart - cracking it open in some cases. It all seems miraculous because when I am truly open to everything, then fear loses its fearfulness; pain loses its painfulness etc. A spiritual awakening occurs as suffering loses its hold on me.

Too many of the thoughts spinning around in my head are about differentiating things. This thing is good that thing is bad - oh and that thing too, and so is she etc. Or I want that, so I am letting go of some other thing. If I let my brain wander as I write these words, it quickly gravitates toward some form of differentiation. I'd rather be standing up, I'd rather have that bit of pain in my back go away. "I'd rather..." implies dissatisfaction or a lack of inner peace.

But I'm not saying that having preferences is wrong - that would be both ironic and practically impossible. Nor am I saying that we should see everything as equal. I am letting go of the need to label and categorize everything - and then staying open to whatever else might show up. I am letting go of the idea that there are good and bad forces acting in or on our lives (hopefully with a bit more good force). It surely must be slightly imbalanced in the favor of goodness, or we would never have survived this long as a species. I am assuming here that the survival of our species represents some ultimate good!

When I practice my heart opening mantra, I make a shift away from the paradigm of good vs. evil. Letting go of that paradigm is what makes this so powerful for me. I catch glimpses of the world as simply the world without my judgment - as only that of God/Spirit/Life/Love in all things. For example, if I fear losing something or someone in my life, the focus shifts from loss to something like: "As I open to this fear of loss; how will I be transformed and changed for the better in my life?"

Even as I write that, I am struggling for words because it is not just one kind of thought replacing another. This isn't about re-training my brain toward more positive thinking. It is a deep, inner knowing. I am open yet hoping for the inspiration of the divine. It is what I might describe as the manifestation of trust. It is the acceptance of the unknown dark void that we all face at some points in our lives (some not until the moment of death perhaps.)

"By letting it go, it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try, the world is beyond the winning." - Lao Tzu

Letting Go of Acceptance

But even the word acceptance is misleading. If I accept something, I have to have a concept of what I am accepting. Openness, on the other hand, is unlimited in its scope or range of acceptability. With Openness, I literally have no concept or guarantee of how my physical reality will work out.

It's a little odd then that when I experience this Openness, I am actually opening to the same thing every time - a crazy little thing called Love. There is nothing other than Love in this ultimate reality that I see from the doorway of Openness. I feel pretty certain while in that doorway that this Love can be nothing but wonderful in the big picture of things. In my everyday experience of love that I feel for my family for instance, it is merely a metaphysical reflection of this ultimate reality of Love. The Love I glimpse in the void through the doorway of Openness is all in all. It is the recognition that all is One.

Letting Go of Evil

What about all the awful things in the world? We humans create all kinds of things with our minds and bodies that are far, far from where this unconditional Love would have taken us had we chosen to trust and follow that uncertain path. We humans also impose our chosen path of pain, shame or fear etc. on others in ways that aren't always predictable even to the perpetrators. Things like starvation and war are a part of our world. These kinds of things are born out of our individual reactions to pain, fear, loss etc. that, in some cases, have grown into massive global problems. Yes, these things are REAL! But that is not the whole story.

The Transformative Nature of Love

When I go back into my Open, Open, Open mantra, I find a different reality of spiritual awakening. I find a reality where everything is exactly what it has the highest potential to be in that moment. And one where all things are in a constant state of transformative redemption - of becoming Love incarnate. It is as if we are all inexorably marching toward this ultimate reality of Love and there is nothing to stop it. As I mentioned above - we've certainly tried with our wars and greed and hatred. But Love is impossible to overcome in the end. I can see this so clearly when I practice letting go and embracing Openness from within my innermost being.

All things are in the process of transforming into unconditional Love. When I see the world through those lenses, it all becomes a miracle. It all becomes one amazing possibility after another. Letting go of my old fears is not enough - I will only find the end of fear (and that's one looong road.) When I am Open, it breaks my judgmental attachments away so that I see everything as an opportunity to join in this massive redemption that is constantly moving each of us toward the Essence of Love.

How Can Love and Suffering Exist Together?

I am moved to tears because of the gap between the reality of Love and the reality of suffering I see so much more often. I feel far from that redemptive reality of love too much of the time. I know I'm not the only one. I see the same struggle with that reality gap in others as well. And just the fact that I see that in myself and others is a sure sign that I am not realizing that presence of Love within me. What I focus on is what I see.

That gap causes sadness in me perhaps because a shaky faith within my self wonders if that ultimate, unconditional Love is just an illusion. I'm wondering if for some reason that ultimate love will abandon me. And if it does... well I still come back to the question "what else is there"? The strange thing is, all I can come up with is Love once again - bringing me full circle and reminding me that my illusions of abandonment are just reflections of my fears.

But my tears here are not about an insufficient faith or lack of spiritual inspiration. Even more it is my deep longing within myself to be in constant and abiding connection with that transformative Essence of Love. I want to be the incarnation of Love within myself as I live in the physicality of this world.

When I Open up, Love is all there is. I perceive the onward movement of this Love as glacially slow. It moves at the speed of human evolution. But I want the reality of it NOW. I don't want some abstract theory of metaphysics. And then I go back again to "Open, Open, Open", where I find that even this slowness is exactly what it is, and is perfection in Love's own way. It could NOT be anything other than what it is, at exactly the speed it moves through this world. Why? Because it is always in a dance with everyone and everything in all of creation. It moves exactly how we move because it is within us - it is our very essence. It is our true but sometimes hidden nature of God within waiting for our self realization of it.