Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender (Power vs. Force, #9)

by David R. Hawkins

No single group or system owns inner peace, as it belongs to the human spirit by virtue of our origin. This

the “kingdom of heaven” is within us, why do we often “feel like hell”?

steeped in the Protestant ethic. According to this view, success requires suffering, toil, and effort: “no pain, no gain.” But where has all the effort and pain gotten us?

The major requirement for the journey is a willingness to let go of the attachment to your current experience of life.

It may seem bizarre, but our self with a small “s” actually enjoys an impoverished life and all the negativity that goes with it: feeling unworthy, being invalidated, judging others and ourselves, being inflated, always “winning” and being “right,” grieving the past, fearing the future, nursing our wounds, craving assurance, and seeking love instead of giving it.

One of the biggest hurdles to happiness, he tells us, is the belief that it isn’t possible: “There’s got to be a catch”; “It’s too good to be true”; “It can happen for others but not for me.”

In this book, he reminds us of the law of consciousness that says: We are all connected at the energetic level, and a higher vibration (such as love) has a powerful effect on a lower vibration (such as fear).

The mechanism of surrender that Dr. Hawkins describes is applicable to the entire inner journey: from the letting go of childhood resentments to the final surrender of the ego itself.

The important step for all of us, he advises, is to acknowledge that we have negative feelings as a consequence of our human condition, and to be willing to look at them without judgment. The high state of non-dual awareness may

As he explains in the book, it takes courage and self-honesty to see negativity and smallness in ourselves.

Because we are all part of the whole, when we heal something in ourselves, we heal it for the world. Each individual consciousness is connected to the collective consciousness at the energetic level; therefore, personal healing emerges collective healing.

Simply stated, it sets us free from emotional attachments. It verifies the observation made by every sage, that attachments are the primary cause of suffering.

Because most people throughout their lives repress, suppress, and try to escape from their feelings, the suppressed energy accumulates and seeks expression through psychosomatic distress, bodily disorders, emotional illnesses, and disordered behavior in interpersonal relationships. The accumulated feelings block spiritual growth and awareness, as well as success in many areas of life.

Physical: The elimination of suppressed emotions has a positive health benefit. It decreases the overflow of energy into the body’s autonomic nervous system, and it unblocks the acupuncture energy system (demonstrable by a simple muscle test). Therefore,

There is a general reversal of pathologic processes in the body and a return to optimal functioning.

Behavioral: Because there is a progressive decrease of anxiety and negative emotions, there is less and less need for escapism via drugs, alcohol, entertainment, and excessive sleep. Consequently, there is an increase in vitality, energy, presence, and well-being, with more efficient and effortless functioning in all areas.

Interpersonal Relationships: As negative feelings are surrendered, there is a progressive increase of positive feelings that results in quickly obs...

There is less and less dependence on intellectualism and a greater use of intuitive knowingness. With the resumption of personality growth and development,

It used to be that we could count on social institutions, but they have had their day; nobody trusts them any more. We now have more watchdogs than institutions. The hospitals are monitored by multiple agencies. Nobody has time for the patients, who get lost in the shuffle. Look down the corridors. There are no doctors or nurses. They are in the offices doing paperwork. The whole scene is dehumanized.

Intuitively, we know that somewhere there is an ultimate answer. We stumble down dark byways into cul-de-sacs and blind alleys; we get exploited and taken, disillusioned, fed up, and we keep on trying.

Multitudes follow spiritual pathways, but scarce are the ones who finally succeed and realize the ultimate truth. Why is that? We follow ritual and dogma and zealously practice spiritual discipline—and we crash once again! Even when it works, the ego quickly comes in and we are caught in pride and smugness, thinking we have the answers. Oh, Lord, save us from the ones who have the answers! Save us from the righteous! Save us from the do-gooders!

If you are confused, you are still free. If you are confused, this book is for you.

It’s not by finding the answers, but by undoing the basis of the problem.

works for the cynic, the pragmatist, the religionist, and the atheist. It works for any age or cultural background. It works for the spiritual person and the non-spiritual person alike.

Eventually you will discover your inner Self. You always unconsciously knew it was there. When you come upon it, you will understand what the great sages of history were trying to convey.

Letting go is like the sudden cessation of an inner pressure or the dropping of a weight.

We carry around with us a huge reservoir of accumulated negative feelings, attitudes, and beliefs. The accumulated pressure makes us miserable and is the basis of many of our illnesses and problems. We are resigned to it and explain it away as the “human condition.” We seek to escape from it in myriad ways.

We have become afraid of our inner feelings because they hold such a massive amount of negativity that we fear we would be overwhelmed by it if we were to take a deeper look. We have a fear of these feelings because we have no conscious mechanism by which to handle the feelings if we let them come up within ourselves.

It is not thoughts or facts that are painful but the feelings that accompany them. Thoughts in and of themselves are painless, but not the feelings that underlie them!

Thoughts are filed in the memory bank according to the various shades of feelings associated with those thoughts. Therefore, when we relinquish or let go of a feeling, we are freeing ourselves from all of the associated thoughts.

We have three major ways of handling feelings: suppression, expression, and escape. We will discuss each in turn.

1. Suppression and repression. These are the most common ways in which we push feelings down and put them aside. In repression, this happens unconsciously; in suppression, it happens consciously.

The feelings that we select to be suppressed or repressed are in accord with the conscious and unconscious programs that we carry within us from social custom and family training.

As you begin the process, you will notice that you have fear and guilt over having feelings; there will be resistance to feelings in general. To let feelings come up, it is easier to let go of the reaction to having the feelings in the first place. A fear of fear itself is a prime example of this. Let go of the fear or guilt that you have about the feeling first, and then get into the feeling itself.

the mind. As we become more familiar with letting go, it will be noticed that all negative feelings are associated with our basic fear related to survival and that all feelings are merely survival programs that the mind believes are necessary. The

To be surrendered means to have no strong emotion about a thing: “It’s okay if it happens, and it’s okay if it doesn’t.”

These principles are in accord with the basic teaching of the Buddha to avoid attachment to worldly phenomena, as well as the basic teaching of Jesus Christ to “be in the world but not of it.”

You become progressively primarily the witness rather than the experiencer of phenomena.

You thought that you were the victim of your feelings. Now you see that they are not the truth about yourself; they are merely created by the ego, that collector of programs which the mind has mistakenly believed are necessary for survival.

who are growing in consciousness. We are not aware of all the coal that we have shoveled; we are always looking at the shovelful we are handling right now. We don’t realize how much the pile has gone down. Often our friends and family are the first ones to notice.

Let the resistance be there but don’t resist the resistance.

You are free. You don’t have to let go. Nobody is forcing you. Look at the fear behind the resistance. What are you afraid of regarding this process? Are you willing to let go of that? Keep letting go of every fear as it arises, and the resistance will resolve.

The ego is not our friend. Like “master control” in Tron (1982), it wants to keep us enslaved by its programs.

Thoughts are like gold fish in a bowl; the real Self is like the water. The real Self is the space between the thoughts, or more exactly, the field of silent awareness underneath all thoughts.

Inside of us, but out of awareness, is the truth that “I already know everything I need to know.” This happens automatically.

What happens is that we keep letting go when life is not going too well and we are beset by unpleasant emotions. As we finally surrender our way out of it and all is well, then we stop letting go. This is a mistake because, as good as we may feel, there is usually more to it. Take advantage of the higher states and the momentum of letting go.

Sometimes you will feel stuck with a particular feeling. Simply surrender to the feeling of being stuck. Just let it be there and don’t resist it. If it doesn’t disappear, see if you can let go of the feeling in bits and pieces.

(1) We only deserve things through hard work, struggle, sacrifice, and effort; (2) Suffering is beneficial and good for us; (3) We don’t get anything for nothing; (4) Things that are very simple aren’t worth much. Letting go of some of these psychological barriers to the technique itself will allow an enjoyment of its effortlessness and ease.

Humans fear, most of all, the loss of the capacity to experience. To that end, people are interested in the survival of the body because they believe that they are the body and, therefore, they need the body to experience their existence. Because people view themselves as separate and limited, they are stressed by their sense of lack.

The mind is, therefore, a survival mechanism, and its method of survival is primarily the use of emotions. Thoughts are engendered by the emotions and, eventually, emotions become shorthand for thoughts. Thousands and even millions of thoughts can be replaced by a single emotion. Emotions are more basic and primitive than mental processes.