Why letting go is the ultimate meditation

[Carl-Richard]

One time during a college lecture, I sat trying to focus on what the teacher was saying, and I noticed a kind of tension related to this, that I was trying really hard to hold my attention on every word, every word on the slide, every moment of the lecture. And when I noticed this tension, I chose to let it go, I let the tension dissolve.

Then for a while, nothing much was different, only I felt a little lighter, more fluid. But then suddenly, it hit me. There is literally no time. Things are happening, but it's perfectly still, not moving, just being. It's a singularity moving and morphing onto itself, but nothing moving it in time. And there is literally no me. All of me is plastered on the walls of the room.

And this felt like ultimate groundlessness, like reality had disappeared beneath my feet. All that was left was a surging energy that was at the same time completely silent. I felt like my heart had sunk beneath my chest. I grasped my hands at my desk and clenched my leg muscles, trying not to die of terror. And then when the lecture ended, I exited the lecture with my friend, levitating, spending no effort in moving, and the singularity feeling was back as I was talking and making sounds, walking down the stairs, entering the bathroom stall, closing the door and telling myself to get it together.

This was the result of more than 1000 hours of seated meditation practice, and more than 16000 hours of complete obsession to awaken. And it was when I decided to stop seeking, because enlightenment, at that stage, was too much for me. Being dead but alive, being in terror but in bliss, was the biggest catch-22 situation I could have ever imagined. And I wanted out. Turns out that wasn't so easy, but that's another story.

 

Anyways, I've been talking about "deconstruction" before and I felt that it didn't land for many people, maybe that it was too "mental" in its connotation, that it's something intellectual you do. But it's simpler than that. It's just about letting go of whatever thing or process that might be holding you back from experiencing reality as it is. It can be as subtle as a tension associated with focusing on what somebody is saying, or it can be as gross as the sensation of sitting in a room right now and that there is a house surrounding it and that there is a world outside the house and that there is a universe outside the world. Every tension, every feeling of solidity, every ground, every roof, every level, every notion of reality, must be let go of.

 

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No technique will ever take you to liberation. You have to let go of the technique and merge with the Self at the right time.

- Jan Esmann

While you can distinguish letting go from the concept of "technique", it can also be thought of as a technique, if you practice it. And practicing letting go in meditation can be quite explosive. It's not necessarily as light and non-confrontational as "ah I'll just let go and sit here and just be still". It can be a quite visceral and energetic process. It can cause all kinds of movements and releases, both physically in the body and emotionally.

And using other techniques are in a sense tools for helping you getting to the place of letting go, where letting go gets you to the place you want to go. Because training your focus through focused meditation, or elevating your energy through psychedelics, matters, but they will do nothing if you do not let go. You can take psychedelics and flail around, trying your best to hold on without dissolving into nothingness, and you may be successful in doing so, if not through some intense suffering, but it will not lead you to an expanded state unless you let go.

And that's what suffering is about. It's when you can't for the life of you let go. And you keep holding on despite what the reality wants you to do, to just accept it.

Anyways, even people who are big proponents of psychedelics and who also are big proponents of the non-dual perspective, emphasize the importance of letting go:

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[...], but they [psychedelics] can’t ever fully violate our free will. They cannot do that because they’re only an amplification of ourself, and so we can’t override our own free will. So this is why, like in the 5MEO experience, it can’t force someone into a non-dual experience, even if it’s at an unconscious level somewhere. The ego must choose to trust and let go and have this experience. And this is where people they can fight all the way through if they want, and this is also a place where I’ve seen people.

- Martin Ball

 

And of course, other non-dual proponents say the same thing:

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Let what comes come. Let what goes go. Find out what remains.

- Ramana Maharshi

 

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When everything that can be let go of is let go of, what remains is what we desire above all else.

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What remains when we have let go of all thoughts, images, memories, feelings, sensations, perceptions, activities and relationships? Our self alone remains: not an enlightened, higher, spiritual, special self or a self that we have become through effort, practice or discipline, but just the essential self or being that we always and already are before it is coloured by experience.

- Rupert Spira

 

And letting go and seeing reality for what it is is synonymous with truth. Just like how Leo says truth is the highest value, letting go is the ultimate meditation, because letting go reveals what is true.

Edited yesterday at 03:32 PM by Carl-Richard

[theleelajoker]

Nice post thanks for sharing 

Edited yesterday at 08:59 AM by theleelajoker

[Princess Arabia]

There's no one to let go of anything and nothing to let go of in the first place. Anything that's a call to action in this context is null and void and empty words that speaks to no one. There is no center and no point of reference. This is groundless and boundless. Nothing can be held unto already, so nothing is there to be let go of. 

Edited yesterday at 12:48 PM by Princess Arabia

[inFlow]

@Carl-Richard Bravo. Letting go opens the door for God to go through You.

I practice yoga asanas, and the the point of yoga stretching is not the stretch itself, but relaxation of the muscle so it can let go and stretch itself. It's very tricky to understand this because a lot of people are just brute stretching it. And at the end of all the asana practice you lay down to "Shavasana" and let go of everything, every muscle, every tention. And after a while you learn to let go of tention, just on command. Sort you letting go to the level of dissolvement.

I noticed that there is a ball of energy in the head, it has no ground, but it has energy and attracts a lot of stuff and thus creating a self. That is what I call the actual Ego. You can either give so much attention to that ball that it goes away or you can sort of let go with all the power that you have and that ball also breaks down, giving you non-dual God consciousness in an instant.

[inFlow]

@Princess Arabia Let go that there is nothing to let go of ♥

[Princess Arabia]

6 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

What remains when we have let go of all thoughts, images, memories, feelings, sensations, perceptions, activities and relationships? Our self alone remains: not an enlightened, higher, spiritual, special self or a self that we have become through effort, practice or discipline, but just the essential self or being that we always and already are before it is coloured by experience.

There is no one to let go of what cannot be held unto in the first place. 

"Our self alone remains" suggests someone that has a self. There is no one there that has a self to remain. Nothing is coloured by experience because experience is already illusory and needs a person to be there to have; and to suggests something is coloring experience, is acknowledging there is a self there that is experiencing a coloured experience. 

"What remains" also suggests there was actually something there and now when it is let go of, what remains.,,,.,no, there is nothing that remains from letting go of anything in what cannot be separated to begin with. It is all wholeness being, so therefore, wholeness cannot separate from itself, let go of itself, remain as anything it was never in the first place. 

[Princess Arabia]

14 minutes ago, inFlow said:

@Princess Arabia Let go that there is nothing to let go of ♥

Funny. Nice play on words.

[inFlow]

@Princess Arabia Same to You my Love

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

There's no one to let go of anything and nothing to let go of in the first place. Anything that's a call to action in this context is null and void and empty words that speaks to no one. There is no center and no point of reference. This is groundless and boundless. Nothing can be held unto already, so nothing is there to be let go of. 

In other words, let go.