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The Wisdom of Letting Go

If you are in the New Age circle, you have no doubt come across the concept of “letting go”. What is meant by letting go? What do we let go of?

We go through life with a mental habit of acquiring and clinging on to things, people, emotions and thoughts. We do it almost always unconsciously. This is our default mode. However, it is not the acquiring that causes us problems. The problem is that we cling to our acquisitions – automatically, religiously and often times fanatically.

Clinging on to things or people can be quite obvious to most people. For example, we are used to seeing children clinging on to their parents, or a boyfriend clinging on to a girlfriend. We have also seen people clinging on to their money and properties, like the famous story of Scrooge in Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol.

What is not so obvious is our clinging to our emotions and thoughts. Most of us can probably remember a time when we were so angry that we actually clung on to that anger for some time before letting it go. And nowadays, we often hear of fanatics who cling on to their concept of God as the only truth and dismissed all else as falsehood. Whenever we cling on to a belief or concept so tightly that we refuse to open our mind to other possibilities, we are subjecting ourselves to the pain of clinging on to our thoughts.

So when we say “let go”, we are not merely saying to let go of our clinging to things and people. We are also saying let go of our clinging to emotions and thoughts too. In fact, it is even more important to work on letting go of our clinging to our thoughts since thoughts precede feelings and actions. When we are able to let go of our thoughts, we free ourselves from emotional and mental slavery.

Holding on to our thoughts, feelings, things and people is actually a very unskillful and painful habit of the mind. When you examined this mental habit, you will find that it is the cause of all our sufferings.

Letting go also allows us to let go of the past and live in the present moment. We stop living in our past memories and stop clinging on to old hurts and injuries. Letting go is forgiving. It does not hold grudges. It starts anew. It is refreshing. It is healing. It heals not only mentally and emotionally but also physically.

In terms of spirituality, it is only our foolishness that leads us to cling so strongly to our thoughts as if they are ultimate truths. How can there be any ultimate truth in this relative universe we live in? Every single truth in this relative world is dependent on another thing. It is only true in relative to something else.

For example, this tower is tall only in relation to the surrounding short buildings. I am short only when compared to someone taller than me. If I were to compare myself with another person who is shorter than me, then I am tall. Likewise, I am rich only when compared to someone who is poorer than me but I am poor compared to the billionaires in this world.

Thus, ultimate truth is not to be found in this relative universe. Ultimate truth is only found when we transcend this relative universe.

Since every truth in this relative universe is only a relative truth, are we not foolish to cling so tightly to our thoughts as if they are ultimate unchanging truths?