In David Hawkin's book "Letting Go: The Pathway to Surrender" he writes...
"Psychotherapy aims at the amelioration of neurotic patterns. (I looked up the word amelioration - "the act of making something better; improvement.") Letting go, however, is designed to undo the underlying causes of all neurotic formation. It undoes the basic structure of maladaptive feeling and behavior. Psychotherapy seeks for an improvement in neurotic balance. Letting go, however, eliminates all together."
"A limitation of most psychotherapeutic frameworks is that the therapist is constricted to what the world calls a healthy, functioning ego with all its restrictions. In this paradigm, a healthy patient is considered to be one who shares the same illusions and limitations condoned by society and the therapist. By contrast, the purpose of the mechanism of surrender is to transcend the illusions of the world and reach the ultimate truth behind it - which is Self-Realization - and to discover the very basis of the mind itself, the source of all thought and feeling."
"The goal of letting go is the elimination of the very source of all suffering and pain. This sounds radical and startling and, in fact, it is! Ultimately, all negative feelings stem from the same source. When enough negative feelings have been relinquished, that source reveals itself. When that source itself is let go of and dis-identified with, the ego dissolves. The source of suffering, therefore, loses the very basis of its power."
"Each of us has a limit to the amount of negative feelings we have stored up. When the pressure behind an emotion has been let go, that emotion no longer occurs. For instance, if fear is constantly surrendered for a period of time,eventually it runs out. It then becomes difficult or almost impossible to feel further fear. It takes progressively more and more stimulus to elicit it. Finally, a person who has surrendered a great deal of fear actually has to search for it diligently. The energy of fear simply isn't there anymore. Anger also progressively diminishes so that even a major provocation fails to elicit it. A person with little fear or anger feels primarily love all of the time and experiences a loving acceptance of events, people and the vicissitudes of life."
I had to look up "Vicissitudes"...."a change of circumstances or fortune, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant."
"The goal of surrender is transcendence. Psychotherapy accepts levels of behavior as healthy that, from the viewpoint of total freedom, are unacceptable. For instance, in psychotherapy, minimal fear, anger, and pride might be considered necessary or acceptable levels of functioning and perhaps even "healthy." But as we have seen, the innate destructiveness behind these lower states is ultimately not acceptable- given the power of surrender to transcend them totally. Beyond the "acceptable level of functioning" aways our greater destiny: total freedom." David
This has been my experience.
And, I believe that ultimately, society will come to recognize that the treatments we have that don't deliver us to total freedom will have to be retired.
Also, many of the 'healing' modalities that there are "in" today, are so that the patient has to rely upon another person...or salve or technique and do not challenge the mind that created it....or the thoughts and/or beliefs.
The new age or latest 'healing' therapies literally skip the mind and address the body. And, the body is only responding to what the mind thinks, has thought or worries about....etc.
David goes on...
"Although letting go seems simple and easy, its ultimate effects are profoundly powerful. A quick little surrender done in an almost off-handed manner can sometimes bring about a major change in our life. We can picture it being similar to the wheel of a ship. If we make even a one-degree change in the ship's compass, we will notice very little difference; but, as the ship sails over the sea hour after hour, day after day, a one-degree change in the compass will end up taking us to a very different place many miles from where the original course would have taken us." David
Surrendering isn't as easy to see....but what you are holding on to is.
What is stopping you from change?
What holds you in place?
What ideas are non-negotiable?
What beliefs have you set your compass to and refuse to budge even one degree?
Letting go of you identity, your beliefs, your religion, your expectations, your ideals, and sitting in a position of being detached may seem very scary.
But, scarier to me is to be mentally tied to something that goes against reality.
To go with the flow, surrendering to what is....Is total freedom.
The greatest transcendence is to get out of your mind.
To question its beliefs and ideas...to use your mind instead of being a prisoner of it.
What was amazing to me was how much I had to let go of to be Me!
Surrendering to everything that wasn't true...for Me.
