The path to self-realisation is learning about letting go.
We have all to a greater or larger extent rejected ourselves and adopted a character to get by in life. What character that might be, depends largely on decisions over which we had no control: decidsions made by our parents, our families and our teachers. We simply adapted by adopting a character, a way of being that got us through all of that.
The problem is that we forget this was just a strategy, a character that we created to get by; instead we end up believing we are that character and the “certainties” the character contains. We believe that is who we are, even when it causes suffering and unhappiness.
When we set out to grow, to move forward on the path of self-realisation, we come to a moment that can feel quite frightening: it is the moment of letting go, realising just how little control we have over anything, and how clinging to our “character and certainties” do not hold our lives together but rather stop us from moving forwards. We begin to trust in the universe, in the process of life.
This moment can feel as if you are on the edge of a precipice; to move forward feels like it might mean death, like everything will be erased and you’ll cease to exist. This is simply fear of the fear of the unknown.
There is an element of death in this process, but it’s just a little bit of your ego that dies.
In our fear we scrabble around: “what will I use to substitute my certainties?” The answer is nothing, be uncertain, just trust in the process. Like a good vegetable gardener, just tend to your daily tasks. The results will come.
The vegetable garden in the winter seems like a place where nothing much is happening; all is dormant, but that is part of the cycle. The emptiness is pregnant with possibilities. The gardener accepts this phase and continues with his daily tasks.
Then, when the time is right (a time by the way not decided by her/him), she/he witnesses the miracle of the universe turning water, sunshine and soil into delicious nourishing food.
