HEN
WE SAY, “LET GO AND LET GOD,” even if it’s something worth letting go, it is the nature
or habit of the mind to resist. And even if we succeed in letting go of one,
two, or ten things, there is resistance inside, wishing we could hold onto
them. That is how we miss the joy, the sense of being free that we should
get from letting go. Abandonment to God is not an austerity; it should be
sweet with joy, with freedom, with love.
Therefore, how to let go?
Should we determine to let go, then try to feel joy and stir up our hearts
to love? These are not exercises that will help. Some things simply cannot
be practiced such as peace, joy, love, and so on. So there are methods. You
can tell your mind to let go through auto-reflection, saying, “This is good
and the way it should be. If you let go, spiritually you’ll get higher.” But
in sweet abandonment, the one thing that really strikes me most is this: in
order to let go, the easy way is to link it with the aspiration to give up
ego, or at least to diminish it, because ego actually holds on to things for
its own survival.
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In order to let go sweetly, you either already
have love for the Lord, or you are letting go with love. But what if love is
deficient? Everyone knows how to love another person but not many know how
to love that which is not a thing, person or attachment related to them. The
spiritual way is to accept that one day ego has to be given up, reluctantly
or willingly. And since that is so, even though you are not able to give up
the ego instantly, the method is to reduce the ego, sublimate it, humble or
soften it. Make it less stubborn and proud. That humbling or softening
automatically produces more love because if you are less egotistical, you
will naturally love more. It is ego that prevents you from loving enough or
more perfectly. If you work upon humbling the ego, the love that ensues will
automatically bring you to sweet abandonment.
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