David Hawkins Letting Go

[sausagehead]

Is the Letting Go technique the most effective method for reaching higher states like David Hawkins suggests? He claims if you get present and feel your emotions eventually the emotion or feeling will run out and be replaced by a higher one. He didn’t say how long it takes to reach enlightenment through this process but if it worked as well as he makes it seem, then wouldn’t all monks and people disaplined in this practice be enlightened? Either the feelings take thousands of hours to run out or the monks are using less effective techniques lol. 

 

Im curious how effective it is because I’m considering doing a 7 day retreat where I spend 8 hours a day feeling into my body in hopes that some of my dense energy will “run out” putting me in a more loving state.. This technique resonates with me but maybe someone more experienced can recommend better ones for burning up the ego

[okulele]

2 hours ago, sausagehead said:

Is the Letting Go technique the most effective method for reaching higher states like David Hawkins suggests? He claims if you get present and feel your emotions eventually the emotion or feeling will run out and be replaced by a higher one. He didn’t say how long it takes to reach enlightenment through this process but if it worked as well as he makes it seem, then wouldn’t all monks and people disaplined in this practice be enlightened? Either the feelings take thousands of hours to run out or the monks are using less effective techniques lol. 

There is a lot to go through, in my opinion. And once you go through all your personal stuff, there is always the collective unconscious to work on.

[Bill W]

I love this book. I don't agree (or find useful) some of his theory and I've struggled with all his other books but the bits I do like in Letting Go I really love!

I've seen a few reviews and comments of this book on here. One factor I have not seen referred to much is that he explains that part of letting go of a negative mindset or feeling is to (1) identify the pay off's from that mindset or feeling and (2) focus on surrendering these pay off's. 

That's my take on the whole thing in a nutshell. Well that's what I choose to focus on. If I don't correctly identify the pay off's, any surrender or letting go is hampered. 

There is a lot more to his teachings in that book than simply sitting with the emotion until it runs it's course. If it was that simple then everybody would just need a one off therapy session lasting 5mins and told to do this. He did also say that one of his issues he surrendered took him 11 days. All day, everyday with surrendering. I think it was 11 days. He said the negative mindset then disappeared and never returned. I'm not sure I personally believe you banish the mindset/feeling forever, but I'd settle just for making progress on it and using Letting Go to further degrade my ego.

This comment is not directed to the OP, it's just I sense that the reviews on this book I've read seem to not refer to the pay off's element of his teaching. 

[FocusOnTruth]

I wouldn't get too hung up on a time frame or the efficiency of the technique. 

Kind of ironically focusing too much on measuring will hamper effective surrender. Also, I'm not sure if this is your mindset, but based on your post, I'm going to go ahead and make the assumption you somewhat have the expectation of releasing a certain amount of stuff then reaching a more loving state. It may not work like this, and even if you do experience more love at the end of the retreat, it may not really matter.

Issues run deep and may rise over and over again as you release more layers of the same underlying craving. It's quite possible to feel horrible afterward while having made a ton of progress, though that's not a requirement either. I'd say the best way to gauge your progress is just through self-honesty and seeing how much you've really worked through stuff and let it go.

I think there's some utility to a map like Dr. Hawkins's, but it can also be misleading, depending on what you get out of it. Our systems are complex and it's not so linear as dissolving a certain amount of stuff and then resonating in the peace or love frequency. Not sure if that's your inclination, but I used to have that kind of expectation, and underestimating the non-linearity of things caused a lot of unnecessary doubt.

I feel that's good to keep in mind in regards to expectations.

In terms of the effectiveness of the practice, I'd recommend making sure there's depth to your surrender. Feeling into the body and just letting stuff come up can be really good, and it's a good habit to establish if you don't have a lot of experience with it. On your path you may find really hard times and need basic mindfulness like that to ground yourself; it's really useful. However, I'd also like to emphasize that the depth of your insight matters. Just feeling something come up and noticing it and being nonreactive is a good start, but it's even better to really see through things, your control mechanisms/cravings/ ego and deconstruct/see through it. The more fully we see through the futility of craving, the more completely we can relinquish it. 

[Zizzero]

@sausagehead I think it's worth trying!

I did some research the last few days on the the possibility of attaining enlightenment solely through the letting go technique, but I was unable to find answers for whether it's possible or how effective it is.

Based on my own experience, I can definitely say that implementing a habit of letting go significantly increased my life quality and puts me in a way more present state with less self-identification with my ego. 

To quote Hawkins from his book "Letting Go": "
Eventually, everything is surrendered that stands in the way of the Presence. [...] Instead of viewing this as something in the future, own it now. [...] [Enlightenment] is right here in this instant. The reason you're not experiencing this state of total peace and timelessness is because it is being resisted. It is being resisted because you are trying to control your experience of the moment, and if you constantly surrender it like a tone of music, then you live on the crest of this exact alwaysness. Experience arises like a note of music. The minute you hear a note, it's already passing away. The instant you've heard it, it's already dissolving. So every single moment is dissolving as it arises. Let go of anticipating the next moment, trying to control it, trying to hang on to the moment that has just passed. Let go clinging to what has just occured. Let go of what you think is about to occur. Then you live in an infinite space of non-time and non-event. There is an infinite peace beyond description. And you are home."

That makes sense to me and I don't think I will start to do self-inquiry because of it; I rather intensify how often I focus on surrendering; I resonate way more with this method than self-inquiry.
If you do your retreat, feel free to share your experiences.