Letting Go Does Not Equal Giving Up

Human beings, all sentient beings, hate suffering, love happiness and enjoy pleasure. Those who have either skewed their view so that their "happy place" is unattainable or unsustainable will indeed suffer. To what extent or to what extent they are able to endure this suffering will gauge whether or not someone like Robin Williams, myself, my brother who shot himself in 1990, lives or dies. Gives up.

Being a young and now an old hippie has been of benefit. I’ve never had big plans involving money, attaining so-called success, although I’ve always loved beautiful things; nice cars, bikes, glass, pottery and musical instruments, but never suffered from not attaining them and have been willing to have something almost as good without stress or injury.

Take cars. My first car was a 1961 MGA coupe, $600, yeah I wanted a Jag, a Big Healey, an Aston Martin but instead owned quite a few MG's, Triumphs, AH Bug-Eyed sprite, two Alfa's (slight better) and other less expensive European sports cars. Now some might say where is the suffering in that?  Remember folks, take my college engineering professor's advice "everything is with respect to something else".  My suffering is not yours, yours is not mine. Your threshold is unknown, you can find it, but few people give much thought to the way their mind works, they live by the motto “shit happens” or “its God’s will".  It's like they believe they are little more than a passenger on this journey called life. 

There are two very important things that occur all the time. One, things arise before our noses, second, how we react. How we react, function in the face of these momentary arisings is a reflection of our state of mind. How much weight we offer these impermanent and therefore “not so real” happenings and how much we allow them to contribute or take away from our happiness quotient.

We will suffer, it is as sure as the night will follow day. Changing our view will not stop the sun from rising and setting, but it will affect our reaction to it. All things spontaneously arise, there is no predestination nor one who predestines our moments. When we become willing to “find and live our truth” we will begin to see and experience the freedom and the joy that comes from letting go and the willingness to change our view or just “stand still/stop” when necessary.

Also, being willing to give up the idea we should have all the answers, need to have them, especially the answers to “unanswerable questions” just because we want to know. This letting go will free us from this need and also free us from the worthless guesses religions have created to satisfy our insatiable need to know.  

Unanswerable questions : Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? Is there a god, God, many gods? Was the world and we creatures created by a deity? 

Ask yourself, is it fear that is motivating such questions be asked and answered?  If so, let it go “it takes courage to be happy”.  Be brave. The universe is not angry, no one in space is plotting to harm you. All this is spontaneous, all we are responsible for is how we react to it. Fear will only cause us to recoil and or strike back. Love and acceptance will free us from such protective responses and will instead leave us with arms, eyes and hearts wide open.

Receive this life with gratitude. Learn what is to be learned, and evolve...gi