THE ACT AND ART OF LETTING GO

In today’s early morning yoga class at the Ayurvedic Ashram I’m staying there were three times as many people as I got used to. A Japanese group arrived and added about 20 people plus a translator. But I just recovered from jet lag and was very comfortable with our quaint size class. Argh! If this wasn’t enough to push my buttons, the Japanese translator on the mat beside me didn’t put his cell phone on silence and it dinged about every 2 minutes. Now I was agitated enough to be loudly vocal. All of a sudden I imagined the face of a friend in Ireland who has done many long term silent retreats. His words to me were clearly “get over yourself.” This message was so clear I almost laughed out loud.

I asked Barry once after one of these silent retreats what his number one take away was. He told me that he sat beside someone who snorted about every 30 seconds for 3 solid months. It made him crazy. At the end of the retreat he spoke to others sitting in the same vicinity if it bothered them. No one else noticed. The teaching was that this was his trigger that tested his ability to be present or concentrate. If it wasn’t this man snorting, the trigger would have been something else. It’s simply a part of being human. Evolving is about letting it go.

We in the western world get so attached to a desired outcome, so set in our ways, so governed by our likes and dislikes that they become rules to live by and we often suffer more instead of achieving any sense of peace. The conditions we think we need to get through our days successfully are immense.

One unspoken beauty of India is that there is an understanding that there’s room in the world for all God’s creatures. There is absolutely nothing perfect about India but the very perfection of imperfection. The roadways are a perfect example with millions of trucks, cars, motorcycles with families of four, rickshaws, cows and pedestrians together on either side of the lines and managing. Tolerance, patience and a commitment to work with what is seems to come as fluid as breathing.  

It’s interesting to simply observe what it is that gets under our skin. And now I’m stoked with curiosity to ask myself where these conditions come from. Then I ask; “how will I be in the world if I chose to let things go before they get under my skin?”  

Sometimes letting go requires swallowing a bitter humble pill that if digested with sweet gratitude nectar can only leave you feeling lighter and free. So I subscribe to letting go.

Wishing you a day of peace and love for all that is.. even with what or who may push your boundaries.