August 18, 2011: Letting go

Hola, All. As I was reading "The Way of Mastery" in my dining room, I stopped to think about a question that was posed: "As you look upon your environment, imagine that the things around you were taken away. Would that take anything from you?" Now, I have some lovely things in that room...........a small table that I got from my mom's house that I use as my meditation center, another pretty table from my mom's house, a pitcher that I use when I have company, several pieces of Waterford crystal, etc. I asked myself the question as I looked upon each piece...........if I no longer had the meditation table, would that truly take anything away from me? Me, being the soul of me; me, being the place where God resides; me, being where the peace that passes all understanding is living. Of course, when put in that light, the answer is no, nothing would be taken from me. Would I miss it if it was gone? Yes, but why? Then, I realized that the meditation table is important to me because of the emotion that I have given it; in my perception it is important. I hear people say that they hang on to things because something has been in the family for years. But, that's not really the reason they keep something; it's because of the emotion that they have given the particular thing. Which leads me to another question: What if we saw these things as neutral? What if we took the emotion out of it; would we still feel the same way if it was gone? Truly, do you think your dead ancestors give a flip about the lamp they used to read by? We have a wonderful table from Ed's grandmother, Dora, that has at least 5 leafs in it. I use it sometimes when I need an extra table. I seriously doubt that Dora cares about that table, considering that she has been gone 10 years. Taking the emotion out of the table just makes it a nice piece of furniture. If it were gone, I would still be the same; inside I would still be the being that God created. To me, taking the emotion out of things seems to be very liberating, very freeing; it should not disturb my peace if it were gone. I think that's what this all boils down to for me............striving for inner peace and letting go of the emotional attachment to things is one more step toward inner peace.

Letting go,
Dawnie