Non-attachment,

Acceptance,

Surrender & Let go....

 

He who binds to himself to Joy,
Does the winged life destroy;
He who kisses the Joy as it flies,
Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.

WILLIAM BLAKE


THE HUNTER IS INTIMATELY FAMILIAR WITH HIS WORLD, YET REMAINS DETACHED FROM IT.

It is through this detachment that the hunter does not become affected by the world around him. However, the fact that the hunter is intimately familiar with his world means that he is detached in the sense of choosing how he will interact with his world, but not detached in the sense of not caring about it. This is a most important distinction, and something which requires considerable skill in execution. Theun Mares


How can we work to overcome attachment? Only by realizing its impermanent nature; this realization slowly releases us from its grip. We come to glimpse what the masters say the true attitude to change can be: as if we were the sky looking at the clouds passing by, or as free as mercury. When mercury is dropped on the ground, its very nature is to remain intact; it never mixes with the dust.

As we try to follow the masters’ advice and are slowly released from attachment, a great compassion is released in us. The clouds of grasping part and disperse, and the sun of our true compassionate heart shines out. Sogyal Rinpoche

Buddha said attachment to ego-craving / desire / thirst leads to

suffering / dissatisfaction / mental agitation

To achieve self realisation, happiness, inner peace, success, good relationships, and God-realization we must let go of all attachments and addictions. As Buddha said, "All suffering comes from attachment to ego cravings."

To pass the fourth initiation we must become an renunciate, which means being in this world but not of this world. We must learn to have strong preferences in life but not attachments.

That which we try to hold onto we lose.

We may go too far and become totally detached, with no preferences. This is not good, either for then we are not involved in life. It is important to have a total passion for life and for all our goals, preference, and priorities, but the key is to be happy and have inner peace regardless of what happens. We shouldn't fight life.

Dr Joshua David Stone

"Be detached, but involved"

"Do your best, but be detached from the outcome!"


Grasping is the source of all our problems. Since impermanence to us spells anguish, we grasp on to things desperately, even though all things change. We are terrified of letting go, terrified, in fact, of living at all, since learning to live is learning to let go. And this is the tragedy and the irony of our struggle to hold on: Not only is it impossible, but it brings us the very pain we are seeking to avoid.

The intention behind grasping may not in itself be bad; there’s nothing wrong with the desire to be happy, but what we try to grasp on to is by nature ungraspable.

The Tibetans say that you cannot wash the same dirty hand twice in the same running river, and “no matter how much you squeeze a handful of sand, you will never get oil out of it.”

Sogyal Rinpoche


Letting Go
Excerpts from Diamond Mind by Rob Nairn

pp87 -89



Letting go is a very highly disciplined action. It is the action of training ourselves to see and know and be present with that moment of arising (thought). Then to see the compulsive cycle of buying into the incoming thought through the three modes of grasping: grasping desire by trying to grab, grasping rejection by trying to push away, and grasping negation by trying to block it out. All three of these constitute grasping becasuse every time we engage in one of these we get caught in whatever thought or feeling is there, because it is all reactive. Any reactive movement within the mind leads to bondage as it does in life.

Let thoughts pass, let it happen

The Buddha illustrated this point

One day when Buddha was giving a lecture and a Brahmin got up and began insulting him. He raved for while and when he had finished the Buddha said,

"If somebody laid out a banquet in front of me, to whom would it belong?

"Obviously it would belong to the person who put it there," replied the Brahmin.

"And if the person offered it to me," continued the Buddha, "and I declined to accept it, whose would it be?"

"Well obviously it would remain the property of the person who put it there."

"Just so," declared the Buddha. "just so."


In our external relationships if people insult us and want to fight with us then that's their banquet, It becomes ours only if we choose to accept and engage it. It is exactly the same with all our thoughts and feelings. They are arising and passing but are problematic only because we pick them up. We make them ours, thus bringing a sense of egocentric possession to a situation that could have remained neutral. Only when the decision is made to appropriate the thought to ego-territory does grasping arise. When we don't do that then the mind relaxes, it is no longer caught up with all the thoughts and feelings and we understand what is meant by freedom. Freedom from thought.

The mind is now becoming more and more stable because it is no longer possible for the average change in thought / feeling to overwhelm the mind. The basis for this instablility is no longer there. Once again the basis for instability is our compulsive conviction that whatever arises has to be experienced in the sense of being grasped in one of the three modes. We no longer have that belief. We've learnt that we no longer have to do that.

Excerpts from Diamond Mind by Rob Nairn
pp87 -89


---------------------------------------

Without accepting or rejecting what is happening,

Let's use the manure/ weeds to fertilize the plants!

let us be like the peacock who eats poison but becomes more beautiful!

let us be like the lotus flower above the water, with its roots in the mud.

'let the insults of others (and our thoughts) be like writing with a stick in air / water'

'let us be independent of the good opinion of others'

Let us know our self-worth, without needing to prove it to others

greg
(my two cents)

Attachment to fears and desires

In his book, The Mystic Path To Cosmic Power, Vernon Howard says:

"Identification means that we mentally or emotionally lose ourselves in something inside or outside of ourselves. We become absorbed in a person, a place, our career, a hobby, our personal viewpoints... When we identify with our thoughts, we call it daydreaming... Identification also means to wrongly take something as being part of our essential selves. Take your name. That is only a label attached at birth. If you change your name, it would not make you any different. Take the physical body. That is merely a vehicle for living on earth. Your True Self does not consist of name, body, money, home, career, or your personal beliefs. You are something entirely different from these attachments."

It is always focused outward to the world of possessions, things and activities that enhance only its own self interests and flattered image. It seeks the constant approval of others to validate its slowly eroding façade. It is only focused in the past or the future. That's why it keeps your mind running from the pleasures and self-flattering images of the past to the hopeful dreams of accomplishment in the future. It also torments you with the failures of the past, and the anxieties of the future.

"Anything we attach ourselves to, by identification, is separate from our real self . it is either a useful tool, or an attached illusion."

Although we have detached from these useful functions and aspects of ourselves, this in no way diminishes their importance to our lives. They are as much a part of us as our "humaness" and cannot be denied their useful expression. Our purpose in this exercise was to arrive at an understanding of our real being, aside from that which changes and is considered part of the manifest "dimensional" universe.

The real treasures of life are revealed only as we empty ourselves of the useless baubles we've acquired. What are these baubles? They can be anything (physical, emotional, or mental) that weigh us down and hold us back. For example: that high priced car that flatters the ego but wastes the wallet; that relationship that seemed so good but now is so draining; the opinion or belief that seemed so right and gave us stability, now has so many holes that we're constantly patching it up or trying to defend it. We refuse to part with these burdens because 1) they seem so familiar 2) we worked hard to get them, and 3) without them there would be a void. All of these reasons, I assure you, are only rationalizations of the false self. What we need to do is "detach" from these false treasures, accepting with awareness the uncomfortable void, then allowing the true (for you) to fill the void and take its place. But to prove to you the validity of the above, just reflect on how good it feels to finally decide, then remove, what has been weighing you down. How good does it feel to clear the clutter of "stuff" from the garage or attic? How good does it feel to end a faulty relationship and move on? How good does it feel when you drop a frozen attitude like, "I have to do what others want, regardless of what I want, to keep their approval."

 

Training and Watching your mind (from T.c.com)

The Witness, of course, is used for self observation. However, this process is much more involved than mere words like self observing can relate. You will have to question "why" to practically everything you previously did without question. The realm of self-honesty is pivotal here, so you must try to uncover why you do what you do. You will be surprised with the many rationalizations you use to give a good face to otherwise questionable activities. You will be annoyed at the many contradictions you have allowed to exist between your thoughts and your actions, between the facts and your beliefs. In short, you will be disappointed to find all the ways you have lied to yourself.

These are not to be used as judgment against yourself though. This is a whole new game. No longer will you judge yourself, and others, then fester inside. Instead you will observe without criticism what you do, then ask yourself why you did it. You want to investigate and uncover your intentions - your real intentions. And as you do this, I promise, your awareness will step in with its own magic and clear away the debris of all these self-contradictions. Then you will know the feeling of innocence again. And innocence is the state of being of your true self.

want at this point in your life. Let me issue a challenge to help you along in your decision: You know that you can voluntarily will yourself to point a finger or lift your hand or do a thousand other physical movements. These are things you've trained your body to do, and it responds easily and automatically. Now, try to make your mind go blank - stop thinking for just 15 seconds. Try again, then try again. Unless you've practiced meditation or some form of concentration, you find that even 10 seconds is nearly impossible. Why is this so? Would you believe that something "other than" you has control of your mind. It has its own thoughts, and it refuses to let your mind relax into a single peaceful moment. What is it? Of course, it's the ego or false self. If you had control of your mind, just a single voluntary wish to clear it would be enough. But that isn't happening. To be free once and for all of this self-sabotaging entity, it must be dissolved by trained awareness.

 

Sadly, we would suggest, even within the New Age you are taught not to feel or to only feel acceptable "spiritual" emotions. Such conditioning is often couched or hidden within the "half-truths" of the philosophy of detachment. Detachment is a beautiful concept. Yet even it can be used to teach, condition, cajole you into denying your emotions and into staying in the shallows of them. Either way, the price you pay is that you deny yourself the treasures that wait within the depths - within the depths of your emotions.

No Mind

The power of the warrior mind is its ability to act from a state of "No Mind", with technique arising effortlessly out of emptiness. As a mirror reflects objects without clinging to the images, the "Warrior Mind" is free to flow from one object to the next without impediment. From this state arises instinctive wisdom, the power that allows ordinary people to perform extraordinary feats. This Zen mind-guide to empowerment is an active meditation for those who wish to be in the world, but not of it. -Soul Sword - Vernon

 

The Infinite Power of the Self

Mother Amma once said,

'Once you are established in the state of no-mind, no one can do anything to you, unless you consciously let them do it. You can allow something to happen or not to happen. Whether it happens or not, you remain a witness - completely untouched and unpeturbed, ever established in the state of supreme detachment. Suppose someone wants to harm you or even kill you. They cannot lift a finger against you if you do not permit it. As long as your sankalpa (resolve) is there, nothing they do can affect you. They will in some mysterious way always fail. Finally they might reach the conclusion that something, some divine power, is protecting you. But this power is the infinite power of the Self, it is not some power that comes from outside. The source of this power is within you. You become that infinite power. When you are egoless you are everything. The entire universe is with an enlightened being. Even the animals, trees, mountains and rivers, and the sun and the moon and the stars are on the side of the Self-Realized soul - because in that state you are ego less. When you bow down before all existence, in utter humility, the universe (existence) bows doen to you and serves you. But remember that you can also command them to turn against you, because, either way you are not affected."

Awaken Children Volume VII

Maitreya says

"Whoever, whatever, whenever you are, tread the divine water cleanliness which is detachment. I have not come to teach you anything new. Be honest to yourself, sincere to yourself, and be detached.

This method is so simple, so sweet, it is free from religions, ideologies, politics. It makes one experience who one is. Fulfil your role, yet be free. (Share International, June 1992)


SURRENDER & RELEASE

CARD MEANING: LET GO, AND ALLOW GOD AND THE ANGELS TO HELP YOU. EVERYTHING THAT YOU RELEASE WILL EITHER BE REPLACED BY SOMETHING BETTER OR WILL BE RETURNED TO YOU HEALED.

When you hold on tightly to a part of your life that's not working, it has no room to heal. Whether you're uunhappy with your love life, finances, career, home, or health, this card asks you to let go. If you hang on to these aspects of your life because of fears such as "What if I can't find someone or something better?" then the situation will only worsen.

However, if you're willing to open your hands and allow the situation to be freed, one of two situations will occur: Either it will be washed away from you and replaced by a better situation, or the situation will heal in a miraculous way. By drawing the card, the angels ask you to try not to control the outcome of your troubling situation. Let go, and let God help you!

Excerpts from: Healing With Angels Oracle Cards - Doreen Virtue, PH.D. (read more/ order now - .co.uk / .com)




Surrender to God / Goodness / Life / Love

'Thy Will Be Done'

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Be as You are - Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi

Vernon Howard

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