SATSANG OF SWAMI AMAR JYOTI © 2005 TRUTH CONSCIOUSNESS

WHEN THE LIGHT SHINES, YOU WILL FIND THAT IT IS NOTHING NEW.
IT WAS ALWAYS SHINING. YOU DIDN’T SEE IT SIMPLY. WHEN IT
NATURALLY AWAKENS IN YOU, YOU WILL SEE HOW TRUE IT IS.
THAT LIGHT IS IN YOU, ME, EVERYONE.

HEN WE SAY, “LET GO AND LET GOD,” even if it’s something worth letting go, it is the nature or habit of the mind to resist. And even if we succeed in letting go of one, two, or ten things, there is resistance inside, wishing we could hold onto them. That is how we miss the joy, the sense of being free that we should get from letting go. Abandonment to God is not an austerity; it should be sweet with joy, with freedom, with love.
      Therefore, how to let go? Should we determine to let go, then try to feel joy and stir up our hearts to love? These are not exercises that will help. Some things simply cannot be practiced such as peace, joy, love, and so on. So there are methods. You can tell your mind to let go through auto-reflection, saying, “This is good and the way it should be. If you let go, spiritually you’ll get higher.” But in sweet abandonment, the one thing that really strikes me most is this: in order to let go, the easy way is to link it with the aspiration to give up ego, or at least to diminish it, because ego actually holds on to things for its own survival.
 

      In order to let go sweetly, you either already have love for the Lord, or you are letting go with love. But what if love is deficient? Everyone knows how to love another person but not many know how to love that which is not a thing, person or attachment related to them. The spiritual way is to accept that one day ego has to be given up, reluctantly or willingly. And since that is so, even though you are not able to give up the ego instantly, the method is to reduce the ego, sublimate it, humble or soften it. Make it less stubborn and proud. That humbling or softening automatically produces more love because if you are less egotistical, you will naturally love more. It is ego that prevents you from loving enough or more perfectly. If you work upon humbling the ego, the love that ensues will automatically bring you to sweet abandonment.