Live an Awakened Life Now: Let Go and Lean into Remembrance
An awakened life calls us to let go, lean into divine remembrance, and trust the inner light to guide us.
To live an awakened life now is to let go and lean into remembrance.
To live an awakened life is to affirm the oneness of all that is and remember that we are not separate from it. We let go of our need to control, turn toward the truth of our being, and lean into remembrance. In doing so, we learn to trust more deeply, abide in inner peace, and let the light within guide us.
Enter the Oneness of It All
This is the fifth and final message in this series on Health, Healing, and Spiritually Awakened Living. So the message is: Let’s do it now. Let’s live an awakened life now. We can ask ourselves, if not now, what’s my excuse? And when will it be?
How do we dive in and affirm the oneness of all that is, remember that we are not separate from it, and stay awake to that truth? The first answer is to let go. That will be our theme: let go.
Of what? We already know, but I have a list. Self-will. Self-centered motivation. Arguing with the way things are. Chasing what we want and avoiding what we don’t. Struggling to attain, trying to get somewhere, and dueling with the pairs of opposites.
We let go and enter the temple of the oneness of it all.
"Your life is lit by the torch of the Holy Word glowing in your heart right now. Tend it."
—Yogacharya Ellen Grace O'Brian
Let Go and Trust the Universe Completely
My favorite all-time reading on this topic is from the third patriarch of Zen, Sengcan. In The Mind of Absolute Trust, translated by Stephen Mitchell, we find this teaching: “The Great Way isn’t difficult for those who are unattached to their preferences. Let go of longing and aversion, and everything will be perfectly clear. When you cling to a hairbreadth of distinction, heaven and earth are set apart. If you want to realize the truth, don’t be for or against. Be at peace in the oneness of things, and all errors will disappear by themselves. Don’t keep searching for the truth; just let go of your opinions. For the mind in harmony with the Tao, all selfishness disappears. With not even a trace of self-doubt, you can trust the universe completely."
What a great place to begin.
Imagine that experience of trusting the universe completely and letting go of our need to try to run it. Even though we don’t have that job, we are constantly applying for it. Imagine trusting your Self, your divine Self—completely and being free in the realization of our innate, original wholeness.
That is healing.
We are only as far from divine support as we take ourselves to be. To embrace it, we practice yoga in the highest sense of turning toward the truth of our being and letting go of our insistence that we are on our own and have to be in charge of everything.
Float Into Creator Spirit’s Deep Embrace
The poet Denise Levertov gives us a beautiful image of swimmers who dare to lie face to the sky and discover that the water bears them, and hawks who rest upon the air and are sustained by it. She writes of learning to “free fall and float into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace.”
Free fall and float into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace, knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace.
No striving. No pushing. No flailing about. Just letting go.
I remember being a child and learning to float. Many of you probably do, too. What an amazing thing. Most of us start with a ferocious dog paddle. Then someone shows us—maybe holds us up—how we can lie face up to the sky and not sink.
I have been floating.
I recently returned from a retreat at the Center for Spiritual Awareness, my spiritual teacher’s beautiful, peace-filled, sattvic meditation retreat center in North Georgia, in the Blue Ridge Mountain area. I had not been there since my guru passed several years ago. My stay was filled with so many tender memories of spiritually nourishing times there and with him over a span of forty years.
Being there profoundly underscored for me what the Kriya Yoga masters in our tradition have taught: the critical importance of regular times of spiritual retreat to support a spiritually awakened life.
Make Time for Spiritual Retreat
Taking time out—or time in, we should say. Taking time in to float in Spirit’s deep embrace.
We give ourselves time to let go of distraction, reflect on our highest priority in life, and tend to the soul life. For those of us who are up to living a spiritually awakened life, spiritual retreat has a recommended rhythm: daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually.
Daily meditation and prayer may be once a day, twice a day, or five times a day, according to your tradition. Or, as my guru wrote, “As often as I am inclined, I turn within the silence and experience pure consciousness. I rest in the silence and know my reality as the wave on the ocean of God.”
As often as I am inclined.
We all get these little prayer calls during our day that pull us into divine remembrance—if we notice them and if we heed them. It only takes a moment to tune in and remember the truth of our being. It only takes a moment to rest in the silence and move beneath the surface of things instead of continually being pulled and distracted by this and that.
Weekly satsang offers conscious connection to the One in community. There is a deepening that happens. As Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name,” in that Holy Name, in the Divine Presence, we are all uplifted.
Then there are longer times of retreat—monthly, quarterly, or annually. These offer longer periods for meditation and contemplation and more time apart from our daily routine.
While I was on retreat, I came across a quote from my guru in one of his magazines from years ago: “We need God in our lives, and the world needs God through us.” We need that light. We need that hope. We need that peace. We need that love. And the world needs God through us.
Don’t Fight Forgetfulness; Lean Into Remembrance
Throughout this series, I have drawn inspiration from the aphorism: Don’t fight darkness. Bring in light. Don’t fight sickness. Bring in health.
To this, I want to add: Don’t fight forgetfulness. Lean into remembrance.
We need God in our lives, and God is our life. We don’t have to call God long distance or from afar. Lean into remembering that. Rest in the silence, even for a moment, remembering that. Lean into that.
Consider how this works in meditation. We prepare for meditation by beginning with concentration. We turn our attention within and concentrate on one thing, perhaps the breath or a mantra. Slowly, slowly, the distracted mind becomes concentrated and focused. Our attention and awareness naturally flow into meditation, and we experience peace.
Then, inevitably, thoughts arise right in the middle of our peace. We lose our focus. We are no longer sitting there experiencing peace. We are on the train to Paris—or, less romantically, planning dinner. Whatever it is, it’s a distraction.
We daydream for a while, unbeknownst to us, because we are on the train, at the game, or in the grocery store. Then we notice that we have become distracted. The common reaction is, “Ugh.” Especially if it is the ninth time it has happened in that meditation.
Don’t fight forgetfulness or distraction. Lean into remembrance. Lean into the light of remembrance.
Notice that something brought you back. Otherwise, you would still be at the grocery store getting snacks ready for the playoffs. Something brings us back. Something restores us into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace.
Be aware of what brought you back. Be aware of that return to remembrance, and let that remembrance illumine your mind and your heart.
Drop the complaint and get the call. Be present to what has brought you back.
Tend the Inner Environment
Sister Joan Chittister wrote, “There’s no amount of darkness that can extinguish the inner light. There is no amount of forgetfulness that can take it away." She also wrote that the important thing is not to spend our lives trying to control the environment around us. The task is to control the environment within us.
As yogis, we know that the inner environment is the mind. Think of it this way: the mind is our thermostat for staying cool—in all of its connotations. Cool, calm, and present. It is our most local tool to mitigate global warming. We should make good use of it in these times.
Paramahansa Yogananda wrote, “If you can hold your peace and be calmly active and actively calm in all you do, you have identified yourself with your real Self that dwells always in the inner chamber of peace.”
We have many tools for changing our mind and abiding in inner peace, purifying the mental field so that the inner light of peace can shine through us. Then we can be aware of God in our life, and the world can experience God through us.
Practice: “I Don’t Mind What Happens”
I began this year by keeping an inspiration from the sage J. Krishnamurti in front of me. When he was asked how he stayed calm, he replied, “I don’t mind what happens.”
This is such a powerful tool for the mind. It is a powerful way to stay present.
Notice that he said, “I don’t mind what happens.” It is so easy for us to mind what happens—to take something in and then take it on, worry about it, resent it, resist it, strategize about it until it becomes all-consuming.
Try it out. What if you didn’t mind what happened? What would it be like to notice, be aware, let it be as it is, and stay open to what the light of discernment or the soul’s inspiration will bring you about it?
Here is our challenge. That usually takes a little time to arise, while minding what happens takes only a second. When we are caught up in minding what happens, we cannot access that inner light because there is no peace within us. It is clouded by minding.
So we take the energy of the mind that wants to figure everything out and turn it within, toward the temple of peace. Notice how you want to hold on to something, jump into it, fix it, resist it, or cling to it. Take that energy and turn it within. Turn the energy to your breath. Intend to breathe and enter the temple of peace within you. Then let the inner light reveal what your response can be.
I practice this every day, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. But I practice keeping the thermostat of my mind set to cool. I don’t mind what happens. I don’t give it my mind.
Live Boldly with the Light
Lately I've been practicing with a tree. I've been learning about radiance and letting go from a tree. They're good teachers if you hang out with them a little bit. Every year there's a time when the sun is low on the horizon at dawn, and it shines its light up into the fronds of my neighbor's tall palm tree. But once a year, something truly amazing happens with that tree. Here's what I saw. Here's what I wrote about that seeing.
From my window, I can see a secret fire ignite the tallest palm tree at sunrise.
The trunk glows orange, and the fronds in the dawn breeze dance with a lightning fire,
flash with moving yellow light, come alive with Spirit.
Who sees it?
I do.
Who knows this?
The palm tree is lit by the sun.
Your life is lit by the torch of the Holy Word glowing in your heart right now.
Tend it.
Tend it.
A friend told me that in South India, palm trees are recognized as holy, perhaps because of their height. But now I know it is more than that because I have seen it. It is their ability to catch and hold the light without being consumed, like Moses’ burning bush.
That is a task for us all: to remember to catch, hold, and reveal the light within us without being consumed by fire.
Live boldly with the light. Live boldly with the light and fearlessly let it guide you on. Welcome it each morning. Welcome it throughout the day. It is the most beautiful thing, the most awesome, beautiful sight—a life lit up like that.
I have seen it.
I can see it right now.
Listen to a recording of Yogacharya's message below.
Live an Awakened Life Now - Let Go and Remember
Letting go and leaning into divine remembrance open the way to a spiritually awakened life. Discover the role of spiritual retreat, the practice of “I don’t mind what happens,” and simple ways to return to inner peace when the mind becomes distracted. Learn to release the need to control, trust more deeply, and allow the inner light to reveal the way forward. Live boldly with the light and fearlessly let it guide you on.
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