The Freedom of Letting Go

 

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My three year old son often likes to wake up in the morning and tease my daughter. He runs up to her, eyes shining with mirth, telling her he had a dream. Now, I somehow doubt he has this recurring dream. Instead,  sense that he only longs to tease his older sibling and bring up a memory that was actually a very traumatic one when it had unfolded itself in real time.

"Guess what Tana? I had a dream!" He announced  this morning,  yet again, jumping on her bed.

"I know, I know Noah. You were were on a water slide and I lost my favorite hat!"  Montana no longer gets upset as she once had. Her initial reaction, tears immediately surfacing, is what I believe prompted my son to continue in his teasing for so long. I know, not very nice, but he is three. I'm working on the compassion part of things!

This summer we were at a local amusement park. We had waited an  hour and a half to get on a ride in which our family would set sale on a large raft and meander up a long incline only to swoop down a sharp decline that simulated white water rapids. I had told my daughter repeatedly as we waited to put her hat she was wearing, her very favorite one, in the safe confines of our backpack. She refused stubbornly. Ever since the moment the hat had become hers, on hot summer days she and it were inseparable. 

It was of no surprise when our raft descended down the sharp decline that her hat fell off. I was so close to catching it, but alas, my fingers were just too far away and I watched, my heart sinking, as the hat did, beneath the current's untidy water.

My daughter mourned the loss of her hat,  tears continuing on the rest of the day and intermittently in days to come.  Her hat had served as a tangible reminder  to a meaningful experience of a day that just her and I shared together at Provincetown, MA.  We had spent rare time together, going on a whale watch where we saw two whales breach, sea beasts of mammoth proportions defying logic with their graceful bodies pirouetting as they heaved their large masses out of the water in a display that challenged our senses. Sun's light blazing off wet slick skin. Eyes wide my daughter let it all sink in. She had been delighted at her new hat, sharing a fried dough on the pier in the lazy afternoon sun in the moments that followed.


Well, this morning when my son brought up his "dream", my daughter replied with her own counterattack.

"Well I had a dream too Noah. That we went down a water slide and lost YOUR favorite hat!"

My son coolly replied, "I don't have a favorite hat Tana, so ha!"

This reminded me of the principle of non-attachment.  That in order to find joy, clarity, God Himself, we must rid ourselves of the attachments that steal our sense of peace and muddy our experiences of the Divine in the present moment.  A current theme in many of the world's religions, coming from their many inspired voices,  from Jesus, to Krishna, to the  writers of the Upanishads, comes the message that we are not to invest our hearts into the temporary superficiality of the material. That within harbors eternity's real treasure. Eternity itself. And all of these things in the world that distract us are mere illusions promising a gratification that will only turn bitter in our mouths in the end, leaving us unfulfilled and craving for something more to satisfy us.


Sometimes it's as if my little son is a zen master. It's not that he doesn't take joy in the things of life. He does. With passion he dives into things, fully immerses himself in the moments that captivate him. But he doesn't become invested, attached to things in the sense that when they move beyond his reach, he feels that part of him does as well. He lets things rise up , enjoys them while they remain, and with what seems an uncanny wisdom, bids them adieu with grace as they vanish.

A few verses I memorized for passage meditation from the Bhagavad Gita flashed through my mind this morning as the discourse between my son and daughter ensued:

He lives in wisdom
Who sees himself in all and all in him,
Whose love for the Lord of Love has consumed
Every selfish desire and sense-craving
Tormenting the heart. Not agitated
By grief nor hankering after pleasure,
He lives free from lust and fear and anger
Fettered no more by selfish attachments,
He is not elated by good fortune
Nor depressed by bad. Such is the seer.

                 ~Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2 (emphasis mine)

When our love for the eternal and awakening to the awareness of His Being begins to take prominence in how we prioritize earthly things and pursuits, then our "Love for the Lord consumes us", and we are no longer tormented by the fleeting illusions of life.  We empty ourselves of our attachments to sense cravings and ego and in our emptiness God fills the void. And then we find the real treasure in which our soul can truly rejoice!

It's easy to let material things determine our sense of joy. But everything, except the eternal within us, is governed by the law of impermanence. Things that we become so easily and habitually attached to are constantly evolving. It's a given that the things of life will erode, fade and tarnish. Jesus told his followers, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal." (Matthew 6:19) Jesus was encouraging us to pursue spiritual treasures and not earthly ones, for it is the spiritual that is eternal and all other things merely fade away.


In order to unfold our layers of ego and encounter the Divine within, we have to let go of these attachments. Meditation and the practice of mindfulness can be powerful aids in helping us accomplish this.  To become mindful in our ordinary waking moments plunges us into the reality of God that stands poised between every breath we take. We begin to enter into a state of awe at seeing the divine everywhere, in and through life, and begin to sense a oneness with God.  The superficial starts to lose its charm as we realize there is no beginning or ending to God, all is God and God is all,  therefore there is no real reason to cling to anything.

 To become non-attached to the non-spiritual  definitely doesn't mean that we shouldn't enjoy the things that life has to offer, we just shouldn't allow them to define ourselves and become spiritually or emotionally invested in them to the point that they hinder us from maintaining an awareness of the present moment and contact with God. We shouldn't allow things to have the ability to steal the peace and joy God offers us for this wastes precious energy that we can be used to manifest His love to those around us. To lose our attachments towards earthly things is to enter into deeper stages of spiritual freedom loosening us from the chains of suffering and moving us to deeper states of peace and well being.


Thoughts? Comments? I'd love to hear them! Please leave them in the comments section. Thank you!