Audio Transcript
In our AI and digital dominated world, we have been trained, and I use the word trained, to believe that contentment and peace and joy arrives through accumulation. More downloads, more apps, more savings, more coupons, more certainty, more control, more optimization. And society and this entire social media ecosystem, it trains you patiently day after day until this idea feels like common sense, at least for those who are not awake and who are not following the path. Accumulation is not only desired, but for them it’s a viable path to contentment and happiness.
But Zen, Advaita and other teachers, they point us to an opposite direction. So they do not promise contentment and joy and peace through acquisition. They talk of something very strange. They speak of freedom through release, through letting go. A willingness to stop gripping, to stop holding on. And this shift from accumulation and grasping and holding on to things and thoughts and identities and memory, it requires a type of courage, a type of bravery, which confronts us with our deepest fear of being insignificant, of losing control, of not being enough.
And this courage, this bravery, it’s not of endurance, it’s not of physical endurance. It’s the courage of letting go and standing still while this entire social and materialistic machinery keeps asking for more. And this bravery also touches a deep fear in us that without our emotions, stories, relationships, security, roles, plans, we will amount to something very little. We might not achieve our full potential. And I will talk about full potential as a myth in another talk.
We have been, again, brainwashed to believe that we need to achieve our full potential. If you don’t achieve your potential, you are a failure. Why do we need to prove ourselves? Why do we need to prove ourselves to exist? Society demands you fulfil, you become X, Y, Z, you reach a certain level, you beat everyone in the competition. But why all this validation?
So when we have the courage to let go, we have all these fears which come up. You know, if we loosen our hold, something will be lost forever. And a lot of our actions in our everyday relationships are based on outcomes. So the meeting must go well. My child should behave and grow up in a particular way. My partner must be understanding and loving me in a particular way. They should speak in a particular way. And this is very common if one of the partner does not mind read the other partner. They have to mind read and say the exact words that the other partner wants to hear. It creates a fight, a disagreement, a tantrum.
So again, most of our actions, our happiness, our joy, our expectations are based on certain outcomes. These decide our inner peace. And life kind of becomes a constant negotiation with reality. And this accumulation and the accumulation and the holding on can be of many forms. When I say, when we are talking about let go, it can be letting go of an identity. It can be letting go of a hurt. It can be letting go of a desire. Letting go of the past, letting go of the future, letting go of jealousy. So letting go can take many forms.
And why do we need it? I think we need it not only to walk the path, but also to live sanely in this dysfunctional society. So I’ll give you a small metaphor or an example. Say you’re going through life and you have a bag. You’re a traveler. You have a bag. And that bag grows heavier every month, every year. So initially it has all these useful things. You have skills in it. You have memories which are useful. You have plans, maybe responsibilities. But over the years, you know, another stone gets added. Another label gets added. A failure gets added. A success gets added. Desires, wounds, hurts, pain, money. And so all these small, small stones keep filling up the bag.
So on their own, they’re just one stone. But when they accumulate in the bag, it becomes really heavy. And of course, we are tired. We’re exhausted because we are carrying this heavy bag. And sometimes we put all our problems or responsibilities on the world and say the world demands too much. But maybe it’s not the world. Maybe it’s our refusal to let go of all those stones, of all that past desires, identity, which is making us exhausted. But then this admission itself, even realization, can be very, it can sting you. It can feel very painful because it removes an outside enemy or an outside force. So it’s easy to say the problem lies outside with the system or society and then not do anything internally to fix it.
So our refusal of carrying on this heavy bag is part of the problem. And if you see, as I was talking, in our everyday life, identity is one of the things which gives us a lot of stress because we feel that we need to protect it. So if you see someone says something which is hurting or criticizing you, immediately you feel that defensiveness, immediately your body tightens. The ego posture says, now the person is wrong because they’re devaluing us. And is it possibility of releasing this, letting go of this? For that, of course, we need courage. And where do we find that courage?
So I’ll give you another example. So imagine you’re holding on to a branch on a tree, and you feel if I let go of the branch, I will fall down in the abyss. I will just fall down in the deep valley. But what if you’re already standing on firm ground and just holding on to the branch? So you think letting go, you’ll fall, but maybe you’re already on firm ground, you will never fall. And that grip, that holding on to the branch, it’s just causing you misery and suffering. There is no abyss, there is just the ground.
And in Zen and Advaita, they have this beautiful metaphor of the lotus leaf, which comes up again and again, which symbolizes staying in the world, but not being affected by it, being in a way above it. So lotus generally grows in ponds and muddy waters. But even though its origin is that dark, murky, dirty water, the leaves stay above the water, and they do not partake in this origin. And it’s a symbol. So the leaves do not refuse water, they do not cling to water, they just rise above it.
And when I say letting go, I’m not saying you become indifferent or you do not participate or you become a renunciate. In fact, when you let go, you can show up fully. So for example, say, that example of criticism, if I let go of that image that I’m always right and that my ego needs to be defended, then I can fully show up to that criticism, I can listen to it. Maybe I can absorb some points which will make me better. So letting go does help us be there in the present completely instead of being in our desires and stories and ideas and fears.
And another thing that I have noticed is most of this holding on is because of some form of attachment. Sometimes it’s a negative attachment. People hold on to pain and anger because they are hurt, because if they think they let go of it, they’re going to let go. Somehow letting go of that bad deed or the person who has committed that act is going scot-free. Keeping all these resentments, all these fears, desires and whatnot is just adding on to your suffering.
And there’s another idea which is ingrained in us that we are not complete. So you see an advertisement, it says, you know, if you buy this, you’ll be perfect. If you buy this, you’ll be complete. Happiness is just another purchase, just another upgrade. And the courage to let go of the seeking, it’s deeply countercultural. And it can feel very frightening on the inside. Without the seeking, this constant wanting, who am I? Without constant running after things, what gives my life meaning?
So what I’m trying to say here is the fear of letting go or the courage of letting go has very deep roots inside. It’s just not a simple statement like just let go. There are so many layers and fears and hidden identities which we first need to encounter and understand. And then there is a possibility of actually letting it go.
And where does the courage come from? The courage comes from your teachers. The courage comes from those you follow. So most of the time I think spiritual teachers are like gym instructors. So they motivate you, you know, as instructor on the gym will push you. There’s one more, one more, and they’ll push you to the edge because that’s how you grow.
And one of the jobs of a spiritual teacher, guide, guru, whatever you call him or her, is to motivate you and to give you courage to say, don’t worry, you’re standing on firm ground. You are not going to fall in an abyss. Gently let go of the branch. Now it is your faith and your conviction in the teaching which will cause you to loosen your grip.
So some people will still hold on saying, no, I will never let go of the branch. I’m going to die if I let go. And some people will say, no, I think this person makes sense. Let me try and loosen my grip and see what happens. And once you take the first step towards loosening up and you see the results, then courage automatically comes from inside. In the end, the teacher is just a reflection of your inner awareness. They’re not separate.