It is letting go...

Too many people abdicate responsibility for themselves. Too many people in spirituality want someone to tell them what to do....If we get caught in this habit, we can stay in sort of spiritual infancy.  At a certain point we need to grow up, we need to look inside ourselves for our spiritual guidance. There are things most human beings know; they just don't want to know them. They know deep down that certain things in their lives are working or aren't working, that certain parts of their lives are functional and others are dysfunctional.  But sometimes, as human beings, we don't want to know what's not convenient. So we pretend not to know. What is most important is to come out of pretending.  There is a time and place for everything.  There's a time to make effort and be disciplined.  There is a time to let go and realize you cannot do it alone, that it is up to grace, that efforting and struggling and striving play no part.

But understand one thing; the trajectory of our spiritual lives---no matter what our path...the trajectory of our spiritual lives and of all spiritual awakening is toward total surrender.  Ultimately that's the name of the spiritual game. Everything we do spiritually is leading us to a spontaneous state of surrender---to letting go. That is where it all leads, no matter what the path is, no matter what the practice is. Once you know that, you notice that each step along the way is the next opportunity to surrender...ultimately the whole of spirituality boils down to letting go of the illusion of the separate self, letting go of the way we think the world is and the way we think it should be.

We need willingness to lose our world. That willingness is the surrender; that willingness is the letting go.  And each of us has to find what that letting go means for us, what we need to let go of. Whether it's difficult or easy doesn't matter in the slightest. It is the letting go that is ultimately important.