This chapter includes verbatim questions and answers from workshops and seminars that have been given around the world in recent years. In anticipation of the reader’s questions, the most typical and frequently asked questions about the mechanism of surrender have been included.
There are always a number of questions regarding the application of surrender to achieving what are generally referred to as spiritual goals, expansion of consciousness, and religious beliefs. We can answer many of these questions by making a general statement.
The letting go mechanism does not conflict with any religion or spiritual pathway or self-improvement program, nor does it disagree with any philosophy or metaphysical position. It entails no spiritual teachings of its own. Instead, it provides a mechanism so that self-understanding removes the blocks to spiritual advancement. It is also compatible with the humanistic movement. All spiritual pathways and religions emphasize the need for expanding our capacity to love, and this is essentially what the process of surrender is all about. By removing the blocks to love, the capacity to love self, others, and God is expanded.
Surrender also facilitates the basic teachings of all the world’s great religions. The essential goal of these teachings is to surrender the “small self,” commonly called “ego.” The letting go technique facilitates the goal of dissolving the small self by using a simple inner process of surrender. When the small self is transcended, the true inner Self shines forth. Let us take, for instance, the most common short means of expression of this surrendering phenomenon as given by most religions. Typically, they follow this pattern:
Let go and let God.
Be still and know that I am God.
Turn your life and will over to the care of God as you understand Him.
Surrender to what is, for God is in all things.
It is obvious that letting go of negativity facilitates the very direction that all religions and spiritual pathways urge us to take. The process of letting go is concerned primarily with feelings, and we have seen that feelings have a profound effect on our thoughts and belief systems. The experience of most people who use the mechanism of surrender is that it facilitates their spiritual and religious goals. Those who do not consciously have any religious or spiritual goals have remarked that it facilitates their capacity for lovingness, which substantially increases their happiness and well-being.
Carl Jung pointed out that, because God is one of the major archetypes in the unconscious, each person has to take a position about God whether they like it or not. Even the atheist has feelings about the concept of God. So whether God exists or not, the subject has to be dealt with sooner or later. Suppressing our feelings about God or consciously being overwhelmed by the subject is not a satisfactory solution. The letting go technique brings resolution to long-standing inner conflicts, both to the atheist and to the believer.
Question: What is the relationship of letting go to the whole concept of sin?
Answer: If we examine the negative feelings that we have been discussing and describe them in religious terminology, we see that what we have really been describing are the so-called “cardinal sins.” Inasmuch as the mechanism of surrender is a way of letting them go, it seems obvious that letting go of the attachment to these characteristics facilitates the achievement of religious teachings in our personal life.
Question: I am not a follower of any particular spiritual pathway but have my own personal pathway. How could this technique be helpful?
Answer: Without exception, all spiritual pathways are based upon a method of dissolving the ego. The ego includes the totality of our negative programs. Surrendering is the process par excellence for letting go of negative programs. It is, therefore, the best tool to facilitate spiritual understanding.
Question: Will this process interfere in any way with my faith?
Answer: On the contrary: What are the obstacles to faith? You will notice that they are all forms of negativity. Consequently, letting go of negativity would be removing the obstacles to faith.
Question: I am a nonbeliever, but I do have an interest in learning about spiritual matters. Would this approach be of any use to me?
Answer: The mechanism of surrender is a tool only. You can use it to remove the obstacles to making a million dollars; or you can use it to remove the obstacles to the development of spiritual awareness. Most people who continuously surrender report that they discover something within themselves akin to love itself, which is independent of the body, emotions, thoughts, and the events of the world. Have you ever heard of anyone becoming displeased by this discovery?
Question: Does the letting go technique contradict any spiritual or religious teachings?
Answer: A study of the subject reveals that there is no conflict between the letting go of negativity and any spiritual teaching.
Question: I gave up religion many years ago because it created so much guilt I couldn’t handle it. What would be the effect of using the letting go technique?
Answer: In clinical observations over the years, guilt emerges as the most frequent reason for which people give up their religion. It is because the goals seem unobtainable. Ask yourself what has made these goals seem unobtainable. It will always be the disparity between what one is taught they should be, as compared to what they perceive they really are. Instead of feeling guilty, try letting go of all the negative feelings that come up and wait and see for yourself what change of attitudes might occur. Again, letting go is a tool. It can be utilized to facilitate your goals in any area of life. How you use it is up to you. A good place to start is to let go of all of your guilt since it fosters an emotional environment for suffering and disease.
Meditation and Inner Techniques
Question: How does letting go and surrendering correlate with the different meditative techniques?
Answer: Almost all meditative techniques have as their goal the quieting of the mind. This is the basis of the dictum from the Book of Psalms, “Be still and know that I am God.” As most meditators have discovered, achieving silence of the mind is the main problem of meditation itself. This is because suppressed feelings constantly produce thoughts, which are the main distractions in meditation. Acknowledging and letting go of the energy behind these suppressed feelings, therefore, facilitates the goal of meditation. When the feeling behind the train of thoughts is located and surrendered, then that entire train of thought instantly stops.
By constantly surrendering, it is possible to arrive at an extremely silent state of mind. This can be accomplished as one goes about one’s daily activities, thus greatly expanding the capacity to meditate. Most meditative techniques are limited to a specified number of minutes or hours during the day. It is possible by constant surrender to reach high states of consciousness.
Question: I do not follow a spiritual pathway, but I do affirmations and visualizations. Will the letting go technique be of use to me?
Answer: Letting go greatly facilitates the power of affirmations. An affirmation is a positive statement. Its power is limited by the fact that, either consciously or unconsciously, we have multiple negative programs that are saying the very opposite thing to the affirmation. You can discover this for yourself by noticing that, as you write the affirmations, your mind comes up with, “Yeah, but … ” It is these “Yeah, buts … ” that limit the power of the affirmation and reduce its effectiveness. If you surrender the obstacles to the affirmation, you will notice a rapid increase in their effectiveness.
Question: I am in psychoanalysis. Would the letting go technique be helpful or would it be in conflict with my analysis, which is getting progressively more expensive?
Answer: Therapists who have studied the technique agree with it. Many psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists have learned it and utilize it in their practices. So far, we have heard only 100% positive evaluations of the results, because the so-called “working through” is facilitated by the patient’s capacity to let go of negativity and self-limitations, which allows the therapy to move forward much more rapidly. Psychotherapists, themselves, have found that letting go has greatly facilitated their understanding of patients and the resolution of counter-transference. If therapists know how to acknowledge and let go of negative feelings, then they can avoid the development of many stress-related illnesses during the course of their practice. Thus, the technique is considered to be of assistance in psychotherapy, increasing its effectiveness and the satisfactoriness of its outcome.
Question: I am in group psychotherapy. How would that work with the mechanism of surrender?
Answer: Just as in individual psychotherapy, the capability of surrendering one’s inner negative feelings greatly facilitates group work.
Question: I am a Jungian analyst. Would this approach fit in with my work?
Answer: Through surrender, we can free ourselves from being at the effect of the archetypes. The archetypes are obviously a collection of beliefs and feelings and are, therefore, programs like any other. The individual who uses the mechanism of surrender to let go of programmed beliefs and feelings has the power of choice over the archetypal patterns, rather than unconsciously being run by them.
Question: I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), and I would like to know if others in A.A. have benefited from this technique.
Answer: The common experience is that the technique of letting go greatly facilitates working the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, especially the Third Step. The Third Step states, “Made a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” This very step is frustrating to many people in A.A. because there is no how-to. Just how do you turn your will and life over to the care of God or some Higher Power? If we look at will, we see that it is desire. This desire is connected to attachments. The mechanism of surrender, therefore, facilitates freedom from attachments and is almost equal to the Third Step in its intention. Surrendering to God means letting go of one’s willfulness. Willfulness is the ego itself.
The obsession to drink is a drivenness, a compulsion due to an attachment. This can be weakened and lessened by the process of surrendering. Drinking is also an escape from the pain of negative feelings; therefore, letting go of negative feelings decreases the psychological need for escape in that particular form. This applies to other drugs as well, which are all attempts to replace a lower feeling with a higher feeling.
The letting go technique does not replace the need for self-help groups or for Alcoholics Anonymous; however, it greatly facilitates success in recovery programs and is certainly compatible with all the anonymous groups, which are based uniformly on the 12 Steps.
Question: I’ve been on a spiritual path for many years and do not understand why I still experience negative emotions.
Answer: There’s a common illusion that spiritually evolved, loving people never have any negativity, as though they are already angelic. They get annoyed that they still have negative feelings, and then it’s compounded by their guilt and self-frustration. They have to realize that feelings are transitory, whereas their intention to evolve remains constant. Let go of feeling guilty that you are still just an ordinary human despite your angelic ambitions! Having compassion towards your innate humanness, its nervous system, and the brain function that goes with it allows for greater equanimity. Heavenly ambitions do not necessarily make us angels!
Question: I have a colleague at work who doesn’t carry his load. Every time I see him, I feel resentful. Then, I feel guilty for resenting him. How would I begin the letting go technique in that situation?
Answer: We notice and accept what our feelings are about a situation, and then we proceed to clear them as a priority rather than indulge in emotionality. In the workplace, many people think they should suppress their feelings of resentment; however, this approach does not handle the problem and the tensions will fester. With the letting go technique, go within yourself and acknowledge the negative feelings as they arise. Let them come up without suppressing them and without venting them. And then shift your attention from the feelings to something else. Let the feelings be there and let them go.
Question: You recommend that we shift attention away from the negative feeling. How is this different from repressing the feeling?
Answer: Repression is an unconscious process by which unaccepted feelings are put out of awareness and not dealt with. In shifting attention, you make a choice not to indulge the negative emotion. You have already acknowledged and accepted the feeling within yourself as part of being human, but you are choosing to let it go because you want something higher, like peacefulness, harmony, and getting the job done. People will sometimes shift their attention by way of actions such as rearranging the furniture a little bit, opening and closing the window shades, making a quick trip to the bathroom, or going for a short coffee break. These actions allow for a moment to shift from the negative to the positive.
Question: I notice there are certain feelings that seem to recur frequently, even though I use the method with regularity.
Answer: The frequent recurrence of negative feelings would indicate the necessity for a period of contemplation about recurrent patterns. For instance, the manner of handling negative emotions may follow parental or family patterns, as well as cultural ones. There is a wide variation among cultures in how to handle feelings. So, look at the unconscious underlying patterns going on with your emotional response, and let go of those patterns.
Question: What if a negative feeling toward someone or a situation persists, despite my intention and effort to let it go?
Answer: Sometimes one is more or less forced to surrender to a situation and presume that it’s karmic. With spiritual research, one finds out that it is indeed karmic. Let’s say you are paying off the karma of being mean to a lot of people! Now you get a chance to see what it’s like to have people be mean to you. Sometimes the only reasonable thing left to do is to surrender to karmic patterns. You don’t have to believe in karma as a religious doctrine in order to make this step. It’s simply accepting the basic law of human interactions that “what goes around comes around,” and most of us have not always been saints!
Question: I’m a teacher and sometimes there are students who annoy me. As their teacher I want to get over the annoyance so I can be helpful to them. What do you recommend?
Answer: First, accept the fact that you are annoyed, and that it’s okay to be annoyed. It’s the price of human consciousness. Let the annoyance come up fully without calling it anything or making it personal. Instead of resisting it, you ask for more of it. See that it’s simply the energy of negativity. That observation depersonalizes it. Then ask yourself, are you willing to let go of this energy? Often the energy will lift.
Question: I have a good marriage but there are moments of annoyance, frustration, and disagreement. How do I deal with feeling frustrated and annoyed at my spouse?
Answer: We’ve already said that it’s okay to be annoyed. That is part of being human. What you do is become familiar with what the other person is processing and their style of expression. There are often different attitudes and preferences. Very common differences are preferences over room temperature, volume settings, and how to spend money. The key is to let go of being judgmental of the other person’s preferences or feeling prideful about your own as “the right way.” Each accepts the humanness of the other and that, of course, there are sometimes going to be different attitudes.
Question: Such seemingly minor differences often lead to the downfall of a relationship because people blame the other person or want to change their behavior. How can they live peacefully instead?
Answer: You just accept that all relationships have their ups and downs. You have to have a sense of humor about the human condition itself and its seeming contradictions and paradoxes. You want the other person to be happy and comfortable, and you know that you are happy and comfortable when they are happy and comfortable. There is a mutual alignment with a peaceful lifestyle. Let go of judging, blaming, and controlling the other. Let go of expecting them to be different than they are. We all have our foibles. It can be sort of fun to make a list of your own foibles. There can be a decision not to focus on negativity in one’s environment or a relationship. People can tolerate tensions and differences for variable periods of time, and at different ages you can tolerate things more or less.
Question: What about the negative emotions that come up for parents when dealing with children?
Answer: Tolerance for children’s behaviors varies depending on cultural context, gender, age, moral views, and other factors. You put up with things in kindergarten that you don’t tolerate in third grade. It is common for parents to have to let go of expectations of their children. What’s it like for an expert musician to have a child with no musical skill or inclination? Expectations are subtle pressures on the other person, who will then unconsciously resist. In parenting, you want to relinquish expectations and personal favoritisms. If you’re an expert at billiards, can you let go of being disappointed that your kid is lousy at shooting pool?
Another common issue is over-parenting. Sometimes a parent confuses loving a grown child with bailing them out of every difficulty. At a certain age, sometimes love means “tough love,” that is, letting the child find his own way out of the mess he made so that he has the opportunity to discover his own inner resources.
Question: If I let go of a lot of guilt, wouldn’t the technique result in promiscuity?
Answer: On the contrary, promiscuity is based on low self-esteem, exploitation, and lack of love. The letting go of negativity and selfishness, concern for others, a heightened pleasure from their company, and higher self-esteem changes one’s perspective of relationships. The capacity for lovingness increases rapidly. Much of promiscuity is an attempt to overcome unconscious fears and seek reassurance. These can all be let go of, so that more mature relationships take their place.
Question: I have been going to sex therapy, which is based on behavioral retraining. Would that be compatible?
Answer: There is no incompatibility. Behavioral retraining is an attempt to replace negative programs with positive ones. Essentially, it is replacing “I can’t” with “I can.” That is what this technique of letting go is all about.
Question: Will the letting go technique cure impotence or frigidity?
Answer: It is not a cure for anything; it is a self-investigative technique that rapidly opens up awareness of inner feelings, thoughts, and beliefs. Both frigidity and impotency are statements on the behavioral level of “I can’t,” which in the unconscious means “I won’t.” They are both resistances to joy, love, expression, and aliveness. The most common causes are repressed guilt, fear, and anger, emotions that spill out through the autonomic nervous system. Impotence and frigidity are expressions of conflict. Most people who use the letting go technique report overall improvements in their sexual life in a variety of ways, and many have reported recovery from sexual inhibitions. Likewise, many have also reported the relief from sexual excessiveness and excessive preoccupation with the subject.
Question: How does the mechanism of surrender relate to the process of aging?
Answer: It facilitates graceful aging. Getting older brings a big change in your lifestyle. Often there is a decline in vision, hearing, and mobility, which means you are increasingly dependent on the care of others for things that you accomplished previously without a second thought. Old age can be annoying. Suddenly, you are incompetent in areas where you once excelled. As you let go of feeling annoyed, however, you see that the incapacities of old age serve a purpose. They get you ready to leave the world. If you were still involved as a “star” in some area of life, you’d resent leaving the world. You wouldn’t be very graceful about it. As you decline, it gives you time to adjust, get used to the fact that you’ll be leaving, and do any spiritual work that you want to have completed by the time you leave here.
When you surrender to the process of aging as simply part of the human condition, you come to peace with it. You become more loving and appreciative of other people’s love and care for you. The more loving you become, you see that everybody is trying to be helpful to you. And it is loving to allow them to be helpful to you. People think, “Oh, I’m being selfish if I allow somebody to be helpful to my life.” Actually, it’s being generous. Generosity is the willingness to share your life with others. It’s a gift to people to allow them to love you.
Question: How can surrendering be more constant?
Answer: The secret to using this mechanism more often and more consistently is, first of all, the wish to do so. That is Step #1. You have to want to be free of the feeling more than you want to keep it. Sometimes it is just a matter of remembering, and you can use some kind of a cue card to remind you.
Another way is to establish a routine. It is very good to start the day by surrendering your thoughts and feelings about your expectations, to picture the way you would like it to go, and to let go of all negative thoughts that would interfere with the day going in that way. Then, at the end of the day, sit down and surrender anything that came up during the course of the day that you overlooked or didn’t have time to pay attention to. This is called “cleaning up,” and most people find that they sleep better.
Another way is to keep a notebook where you write down your successes. You might put down the goal of constant surrendering and follow it up with what the results were.
Another way is to let go of your resistance to surrendering and, as you start the day, reaffirm your intention to let go of all negativity that day. You also reaffirm that you are free not to surrender. After all, it is totally a matter of choice. Let go of any feeling of compulsion about it. There isn’t any “should.”
Question: What do you think is the most frequent cause for our resistance to surrender?
Answer: We think that somehow, if we hang on to that feeling, it is going to get us what we want. If we get stuck in a feeling, it is useful to look at the question of what we think we have accomplished by hanging on to it. We will almost always find that we have a fantasy that it will have some effect on some other person and change their behavior or attitudes toward us. If we let go of that, we become willing to let go of the feeling.
Question: If I surrender all the time, won’t I just become passive?
Answer: On the contrary, surrendering will clear the decks for effective action. Passivity is often because of inhibition and a failure to see alternate ways to handle a situation. For instance, a person will say, “In the conference, he got me so mad I just sat there and said nothing.” Now it’s rather clear what the problem is. The saying nothing was due to the anger and the person’s picturing that the only emotional response he could make would be anger. Since this would be inappropriate in a business situation, he said nothing. Had the anger been let go, the person could have been confidently assertive and stated his opinion instead of clamming up.
Question: In therapy, I learned how to express anger, and I think it is a very useful thing. Do I have to give it up?
Answer: If you look at anger, you will see that its basis is almost always fear. We get angry because we have been threatened. The threat arouses fear. The fear means we feel that we are unequal to the situation. Anger biologically is like swelling up to intimidate our opponent. Anger is coming from weakness rather than strength. The person who has surrendered is, therefore, relying on strength rather than weakness. The person who has surrendered does not have to fall back upon anger to handle a situation. Also, anger cannot be counted upon. In addition, it has many destructive effects; for example, it is running you instead of your running it. A totally surrendered person is free to choose to express anger if they wish, but it is done out of choice, not out of necessity. Anger, especially chronic anger, has deleterious effects on the body organs, and research in psychosomatic medicine has indicated that repressed anger is associated with hypertension, arthritis, and a variety of other diseases.
Question: You mentioned that surrender is a natural psychological mechanism of the mind. If that is so, how come we have to learn how to do it?
Answer: Although it is true that surrender or letting go is a natural mechanism of the mind, it must be remembered that the mind has multiple conflicting motivations. Whereas one part of your mind would like to be free of the tension from a feeling, another part of your mind is programmed to believe that hanging on to the feeling will somehow magically bring about some desired end. Unless one is conscious and aware and has mastered the technique, the conflicts of the mind will overrule and dominate. Basically, the technique of letting go gives you the power of choice over the tendencies of mind. Instead of being at its effect, the mind is now under your mastery. It opens up freedom and the capacity for free choice.
Question: I have a hard time with acceptance. What do you recommend?
Answer: Divert your attention to that which is really essential, experientially. Some days it rains; some days it’s sunny; some days it’s cloudy. You can’t change the rain, but you can put on your raincoat. You can be realistic and take the necessary steps to remain dry. There are many aspects of life you can’t change, but you can let go of your expectation or need that they be different from what they are. With observation, for instance, you will notice that there is always a war going on somewhere in the world. So to be peaceful, it is necessary to accept that waging war is part of human nature and has been throughout all of recorded time. Mankind has been at war 97% of the time.
Question: I realize that fear and insecurity have driven me all of my life, but it seems like those drives account for my financial success. If I learn how to surrender, will this adversely affect my income?
Answer: When a lower motivation has been let go, the mind automatically replaces it with a higher feeling and a higher motivation. What’s wrong with enjoying earning a living instead of being driven by fear? The same activity will continue but now from a pleasurable space, and it will start bringing in many rewards other than just financial.
Question: Without guilt, won’t people misbehave?
Answer: Similar to a previous answer, loving concern for others replaces inhibition due to guilt. The more loving we become, the more harmless we become to others and to society in general. When you are lovingly concerned for the welfare of others, your own welfare will be taken care of and covered.
Question: I have a poor memory. Do you think I could learn this technique?
Answer: There is nothing to memorize in learning this technique. It is simply a way of letting go. As yet, we have not heard of anyone unable to learn it.
Question: Sometimes I think I am letting go, and sometimes I’m not sure. I get confused. What is the problem?
Answer: Look at the resistances to the process of surrendering itself. Are there any negative thoughts, doubts, or feelings about your ability to do the technique? Let all of these resistances come up, accept them, and let them go. Clarify your intention to become a happier, more loving and peaceful person.
Question: You’ve mentioned “surrender at great depth” as a method by which we experience Ultimate Reality. Can you describe what occurs?
Answer: We might call it the “final run.” As you apply the letting go technique to every area of life, without exception, the energy of spiritual work gets stronger and stronger. There is the fixity of attention, the relentless staying with a method, no matter what is going on.
Some people say, “I’ve done spiritual work off and on for 30 years, and I’m still where I was.” They’ve meditated a little there, prayed a little here, gone to a workshop, heard a speaker, read a book, and it has all been sporadic. That’s all right. You are busy in the world and accumulating data that you know you’re going to use at a later date.
But then there comes a time when it means to do whatever practice you’re doing without exception, all the time. The devotion to the Truth becomes overwhelming. It isn’t that you’re driving it. You’re being pulled by your own destiny; it is by your own karmic commitment that you’ve chosen the ultimate destiny. At that point, let’s say you use the technique of surrender. This means to surrender and let go of everything at the very moment it arises. It happens in 1/10,000th of a second—it’s coming, it peaks, and then it leaves. So, every feeling, every thought, every desire, you let go at the peak of it. This becomes continuous, nonstop.
As mentioned earlier, I remember letting go of a severe attachment for 11 days, sitting and doing nothing but letting go of this attachment. Every thought, every feeling, every memory, everything about it—as it arose, it was surrendered. The grief that we feel when we lose a member of our family is not just about losing that person here and now. It’s an accumulation of the energy of all the deaths from all the lifetimes. This particular surrender was nonstop for 11 days, morning and night. Finally it stopped. Gone forever. Never again to be subject to that.
So, serious spiritual work is a continuous willingness to let things go as they arise. It is the willingness to surrender wanting to control everything as it arises, the willingness to surrender wanting to change it, and to have it our way. Very often there will be illusions about the nature of Reality that also have to be let go. That there’s a good and a bad, a desirable and an undesirable; that’s all in the mind. In Reality, the sun shines and then the clouds come; the rain falls and the grass grows up and dies; the stock market goes up and down; age comes and goes; people arise and leave. And, so, there’s the ebb and flow. If you are at this one point of the cycle, there’s no use in crying about it because the cycle will cycle itself out. By surrendering to whatever is cycling up, it eventually disappears. You disappear it by choosing to be one with it and refusing to want to change it as it arises. Do this continuously, no matter what, nonstop.
This means that you cannot make an exception here, or an exception there. It means continuously, and with everyone and everything. The one or two things you hide behind probably represent a stack. That’s why you’re hanging on to them. It’s not just this annoying person you hate; they represent a whole stack of that energy to you. You can’t just skip over your mother-in-law!
Eventually, everything is surrendered that stands in the way of the Presence. The Presence is so obvious, so startling, so overwhelming, that there’s no question about it. It is profound, total, all-encompassing, absolutely overwhelming, totally transforming, and completely unmistakable. When everything is surrendered that stands in the way, It is there, shining brilliantly forth.
Instead of viewing this as something in the future, own it now. Enlightenment is not something that occurs in the future, after 50 years of sitting cross-legged and saying “OM.” It is right here, in this instant. The reason you’re not experiencing this state of total peace and timelessness is because it is being resisted. It is being resisted because you are trying to control the moment. If you let go of trying to control your experience of the moment, and if you constantly surrender it like a tone of music, then you live on the crest of this exact alwaysness. Experience arises like a note of music. The minute you hear a note, it’s already passing away. The instant you’ve heard it, it’s already dissolving. So every single moment is dissolving as it arises. Let go of anticipating the next moment, trying to control it, trying to hang on to the moment that has just passed. Let go clinging to what has just occurred. Let go trying to control what you think is about to occur. Then you live in an infinite space of non-time and non-event. There is an infinite peace beyond description. And you are home.