Let Go

 

As I travel through the world, interacting with hundreds and thousands of people, often have I been asked the secret to leading a life full of happiness, excitement and joy. Occasionally some people (the ones always looking for a short cut universal solution) have asked one single step / action through which they can achieve this seemingly blissful life. This post is my viewpoint about such one single step that can lead to living fully.

‘Letting go’ is truly the key to everything.

All our miseries, sadness, failures, dejections, depressions, negativity, etc. arise from one single factor – as human we don’t let go and don’t like the idea of letting go and we are reluctant to the point of absurdity, to let go. Whereas letting go is the order of the very fabric of the universe, of nature, of life itself. When we go against this fundamental law of nature, no wonder, life eludes us.

Let’s analyse this with an example. What do we need (not desire) the most to live? It is not food, not water, not a house or anything that we can buy or produce. It is simply the AIR we breathe. Without breathing we will die in few minutes. Despite that, nature has ingrained into us that the air we breathe in cannot be held in forever (actually not more than few seconds for most people) and must be allowed to expel, in effect we must let go of the air we breathe in so as to create a vacuum, a space of emptiness within for the next breath of air to come in. And this is learnt from the day we are born by itself. It’s the first and the most important lesson that life teaches us naturally. I am yet to meet anyone who wishes to hold on to her breath that she has inhaled indefinitely or for a long time (except one crazy guy wanting to set a Guinness World Record for holding breath).

Next time when you find yourself in the laps of nature (mountains, woods, by the sea) do this experiment – breathe mindfully. Breathe with intention and complete focus on the breathing. See what happens, how you feel, what you do. Analyse the entire process for several cycles of inhaling followed by exhaling and again followed by inhaling, so on and so forth. That’s all there is to learn actually – the art of letting go. And you don’t need me or any other teacher, mentor or a guru to teach you this, life and your own breathing is teaching the art of letting go every moment that you live.

You will discover that when we breathe deeply, fully, allowing the refreshing life-giving air into our lungs till the very last volume, your chest and belly expands, you feel a sense of euphoria, inexplicable happiness without any apparent reason, you are filled with a sense of well being, truly happy to be alive. You retain that air for a bit, allowing it to swirl within you, and your blood to absorb the oxygen and you feel an uplifting lightness, like a balloon soaring into the sky above. And then just as naturally you had breathed in, you breathe out and expel the entire volume of life giving joyful air that you had breathed in few moments ago, despite knowing how amazing and euphoric that air had been. And we do this without any regret or sadness because we know that in the next moment, after we breathe out and let go of our breath, we would inhale the next one that will once again fill us up with joy, lightness, and euphoria. And this process continues all through our lives. This is as much a matter of faith and believe as much as an objectively scientific natural phenomenon.

When it comes to anything else in life, why don’t we let go? Why are we afraid to let go? Why do we want to hold on to something or someone forever? Why are we afraid to let go of our own lives and die happily, peacefully?

Treat everything, material and non material, as that breath of air you breathe in. Enjoy fully what you have, with who you are, wherever you are, and then letting them go when it is time for them to go. For sure there will come a time when they have to and must go. The thought of letting go in future (in a way losing what you have) should not deprive us of the happiness and joy that the present (while you have it) is offering. If you can teach yourself to live fundamentally with this process of enjoying the moment fully and then letting go of the moment (whatever the moment is associated with) when it is their time to go then you would live moment to moment full of joy, happiness and positivity.

This is easier said than done, I know. It took me as well years of deep introspection, analysis, and objective evaluation to learn this fundamental truth and then to put the ‘art of letting-go’ into practice. No one ever said life or anything else is easy. It is only easy with practice and patience.

Believe me, for I have gone through the process. Let Go but enjoy while you have it. Don’t be scared to let go. Like we say in Zen, only when your cup is empty can it be filled up again. So drink up what’s there in your cup and let go. So that the next wonderful brew can be poured into the empty cup. Which you must empty again...