PETER RUSSELL

Peter Russell on the

Healing Power of Letting Go

by Linda Sechrist

photo by Peter Russell

In Letting Go of Nothing: Relax Your Mind and Discover the Wonder of Your True Nature, Peter Russell reminds readers what lies at the heart of all spiritual traditions. Based on his half-century of practicing Transcendental Meditation and applying the lessons of ancient and contemporary spiritual teachers, he offers a new perspective on the age-old practice of letting go, which involves not being attached to outcomes, surrendering desires, accepting the present, opening to a higher power, relinquishing the ego and practicing forgiveness. He traces the seeds of many ideas in the book to his time in India studying with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, as well as immersing in A Course in Miracles and the writings of contemporary teachers including Eckhart Tolle and Ram Dass.

What exactly do you advise us to let go of?

While the thought-provoking title suggests that individuals might be asked to let go of a situation, possessions or a relationship, the fundamental theme running through the book is not the letting go of things themselves, but rather letting go the things that only exist in the mind—thoughts, interpretations, fixed beliefs, points of view, expectations of the future, attachments to possessions and relationships, judgements, grievances, assumptions about how things should or should not be. These things in the mind are the lens through which the things of the world are experienced. For example, looking at things through blue-tinted spectacles gives everything a blueish tinge. But the lens itself is not part of the world you see. In a similar way, the lens through which we see our world is not another thing we see. In this sense, we are letting go of the “non-things” that color our view of the world.

What led to your understanding of this?

The questions “Is there another way of seeing this?” and “Could there, just possibly, be another way of seeing this?” occurred spontaneously, without an effort on my part. With an open, curious attitude and without trying to find an answer or even assuming there was one, my inner knowing was able to shine through and reveal another more helpful way of seeing things.

What benefits have you experienced from letting go?

I’m more in touch with my intuition and my feelings and less consumed by my thoughts. I feel better, experience more peace and am content. Discontent is largely self-created by thinking how things should or should not be. When discontent drops away, contentment becomes more prevalent. No one walks around wonderfully enlightened all the time. Letting go is a lifetime process. Noticing where I get caught up, pausing, coming back to the present, to what is, has a feeling of “Ahhh.” It’s a sense of coming home to my inner home.

The world pulls us outward, taking us out of ourselves. When we step back from it and let go for a while, it’s like coming home to our self.

How can we better savor each moment?

In just pausing and noticing what is in the present moment of experience, you’ll simply be stopping and withdrawing your interest from the thoughts that showed up when you paused. If you notice that your attention relaxes and if there is a sense of ease, a gentle sense of happiness or joy or a quality of spaciousness and clarity, savor it. Later, when it occurs to you, pause again and again. But don’t let the practice of pausing become routine or a ritual. Instead, make each pause a fresh inquiry into the moment and be curious about what it feels like, as if it were the first time, because it is the first and only time you will savor “this” moment.

Linda Sechrist is the Natural Awakenings senior staff writer. Connect at Linda Sechrist.com.

The Ease of Effortless Living

by Dr. Larry Castellani

Depth psychology tells us that human existence suffers from a sense of lack and frustration—especially frustration of our desires. But this isn’t permanent. Lack and frustration are often the color and texture of existence—emotional existence—but not our essence being.

Sadly, if not humorously, our solution to these perceived problems is more and greater pleasures or, all too often, more and more work until we become slaves of sorts to either pleasure and work or excitement and achievement or both.

A therapy or behavioral management approach to dealing with this existential dilemma has its place and virtue, but it is not the only or necessarily the best approach. They can ameliorate pain and dysfunction, ending suffering to a degree. What the therapies don’t do or may not even believe can be done is to unveil the inherent happiness and peace of our very being at the heart of existence. Therapies are oriented to eliminating problems resulting in some relief from suffering. Freud himself said that the most therapy could hope to do is return people to ordinary everyday suffering. For some, this is sufficient. But in a way, this is kind of like the relief we get if we’ve been hitting ourselves over the head with a hammer and then figure out how good it feels to stop.

Through therapy, I did learn some of what it takes to stop hitting myself over the head with a hammer. I am grateful for that. However, it did not help me with effortless peace and happiness, let alone love and true freedom. Despite experiencing quite a variety of therapies for years, real happiness was elusive. A sense of lack and longing remained and moved me forward to try “meditation”.

The path of meditation began for me in the summer of 1971. Since then, I have traversed the practices of yoga and relaxation, mindfulness, tai chi and many transformational workshops. These were wonderful experiences which I enjoyed, yet they did not lead me to the goal I sought. I really didn’t even know how to name that goal, but I knew and felt that I was not there. I was not free of longing and seeking.

In spring of 1999, I was invited to a session in Satsangh, a spiritual experience which leads one on the direct path of absolute awareness and awakening to Truth. Satsangh means “in communion with Truth”. After nearly two decades of seeking and searching, my breakthrough came in an instant of awakening to the truth of myself as pure, effortless Awareness or Self-Consciousness, that is, consciousness became aware of itself as happiness and final fulfillment in peace, love and freedom from suffering. I had never ever experienced anything like this in my 52 years on Earth. I didn’t regret my years of searching. Given my kind of karma, my emotional conflicts, beliefs and drives, the indirect path of searching and seeking, of practice and efforting was probably inevitable. It just was not necessary. Why was it not necessary? Because in that moment of awakening, I saw what was always there. It was my own true essential nature. It was good, very good. It was happiness and love, peace and freedom, a love not just of myself but of life itself, a freedom from all burdens. The reason effortful practices to achieve something were not necessary is because “effortlessness” is our true nature. It didn’t have to be achieved or earned. It just had to be seen, felt, loved. It was not a matter of a process, a step-by-step procedure of perfecting something—something that was already perfect. I just had to see, experience and know it—my true Self.

What arose for me in Satsangh was like the sun rising. But like the sun that is always there and really doesn’t arise, doesn’t move, but shows itself when the Earth turns toward it, in like manner one doesn’t make the light of meditation arise. It is always there. But when you turn your attention from the world to the Light of lights, the conscious Self of pure awareness, then one sees what was always there and shows itself, its Light, as happiness, peace, freedom and Love.

So, this experience of happiness is not a “doing” but a “knowing” not dependent on any “thing” that makes us happy. When one experiences the truth of our real, natural existence, then we see this truth and know it. Once it is known, the burden of seeking, doing, practicing and achieving is over. You are home and you can put down the burden that was never really yours and now no longer you. Concern and consternation end; love and compassion begin.

Dr. Larry Castellani is a retired philosophy professor living in Clearwater, Florida. He is the father of 12-year-old twin boys. Having also retired from homeschooling his boys, his teaching is focused on meditation for health and happiness. Castellani created a unique approach to effortless meditation entitled “Integral Awareness Meditation” which he has been teaching for 27 years. For more information, call 716-816-5464. See ad page 45.