Letting Go

Lately I've been doing The Work, as recommended by Byron Katie. Thinking it through isn't enough since the process isn't really one of the mind. Doing it on paper really helps. As I write down every thought which I have believed for so long, I see that its oppposite is at least as true if not more true. How could I have been believing I was this person for so long? Thoughts such as "I'm a bad person," "I can't take care of myself," "Life is hard," "I can't...", in reality aren't any more true than "I'm a good person," "I can take care of myself," "Life is easy," "I can...". I'm coming more and more to the conclusion that all thoughts are pretty meaningless, and they don't define me or anyone. Of course, it's one thing to realize, and quite another to experience this truth. But I feel like I'm losing my sense of self, and as much as it seems scary sometimes, in the moment it's quite amazing. I ask myself "Can it really be safe to just do everything that feels right in the moment with no regard to past or future?" Somehow I feel that it's right to live that way. We've been so programmed to fear everything, but I feel like it's all falling away. I'm practicing allowing, and I'm seeing what Katie said she saw, that I'm being done! I'm not living life, life is living me! I'm just here for the ride. I keep watching myself, seeing what it would be like to not interfere, and this girl does things and my mind says "what are you doing? That's wrong, dangerous, crazy, stupid", but she does it anyway. She's me and not me, and I am never in control. I never have been. It's all an illusion. Everything is our greatest gift.

While being sick and very tired I've been able to just spend my time reading and relaxing in bed.I'm going to share a little bit more from Byron Katie's book "A Thousand Names For Joy".

"To be in the desert alone is to understand the absoluteness of solitude, the positive nature of emptiness. During the day, no sound-just mile after mile of sameness. Imagination has no context for the vastness of the desert when you're in it alone. And at night, in the moonless world, amid the smells and the silence, you lie down and have no idea what you're lying on. Is it a snake? A cactus? So you lie and wait, look up at the stars, and receive the ground, the coolness of the sand, giving up the idea that mind could grasp the lumps under your leg or shoulder. And then the thought of time. Is it midnight? Is it five days later, five years? And what am I who wonder what I am? And the smile that comes from knowing that you can't know and really don't care, that the answer to that would shrivel in the delight of this moment. Nothing of life imagined can compete with the beauty of nothingness, the vastness of it, the unfathomable darkness.


"This amazing desert earth has been my greatest teacher. She doesn't budge from what she is. I sit on her and there is no movement, no discussion, no complaint. The earth just gives, without condition, unnoticed, and that's the proof of love. She doesn't ever withhold. She doesn't compromise. The way she speaks is through the ind and the rain, the sand, the rocks, the sounds of her creatures. She just sings her song without meaning, and she continues to give without any expectation of return. She'll support you all your life, and if you throw a tin can onto her or dump poison into her bloodstream or drop a bomb on her, there is still total, unconditional love. She keeps giving and giving. She's me awake. She's you."


"We're born alone, we die alone, and we live alone, each on our own planet of perception. No two people have ever met. Even the people you know best and love with all your heart are your own projections. Sooner or later, you're the one who's left. Do you realize how wonderful that is? After all, you're the one you go to sleep with and wake up with, you're the one who orders your favorite food, and loves your favorite music. You've always been your favorite subject-your only subject. It's all about you.


" There's nothing sweeter than being with myself, by myself. The amusement, the wonder of thoughts! They appear so real in their brilliance, they create the whole world, the majesty and play of it, the life of feelings, the joys that mind brings forth as nectar to itself. Thoughts appear from nowhere, they move by like clouds, they change, they dissipate, they're gone. Who named the sky? How did he know that?


" I sit with my eyes closed. Two hours pass, then it occurs to me that not a single thought has happened. I discover that tears of joy are running down my cheeks. I don't stop them, even though the joy seems bigger than I can contain. All that it is, all that it ever was and ever could be, is invited to live at its highest power, now. It's all right if it kills me; it doesn't matter, I know not to stop it. I become so bright, so weightless and lived, so fearlessly allowing, that the joy can have its own full life through me. And as everything becomes visible, I see its true nature, which is love. Everything else is burned up as this joy has its way with me. I could kiss the ground, I could make love with the dirt, with the cement, the leaves, the soil, the texture of reality between fingers that can't even hold it. There's nothing to grasp, nothing that can be controlled. I notice that I'm worshipping not with any words, but with palm of hand against cheek. Where will this love end? How could I possibly know? And, eventually, the sobbing changes to the softest whisper, a breath, and then not even that."

I love reading her books because, while reading them, I feel what it would be like to be so free. All the problems of my mind go away, at least for a little while. More and more I'm finding myself in a state of surrender, observing the world around me, not needing for it to be any different than it is. It seems that when I'm talking with people I lose a large part of that acceptance, and become lost in fear of judgement, projecting myself into the future. To observe it as it is happening is new to me though, and I feel like I'm beginning to see through it. Who am I trying to hide anyway? If I know that I am perfection, living in this human form, that there can be no mistakes, how can I not love who I am in every moment?