Let it go seems to be the phrase a lot of people have been singing recently. I get a daily email from a very wise person named Richard Rohr. He's been talking about letting go for the past few days. I really liked what he had to say on July 23.
Letting Go of Ego
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
|
We need forms of prayer that free us from fixating on our own egos and from identifying with our own thoughts and feelings. We have to learn to become spiritually empty. If we are filled with ourselves, there is no room for another, and certainly not God. We need contemplative prayer, in which we simply let go of our passing ego needs, which change from moment to moment, so Something Eternal can take over.
This may sound simple, but it is not easy! Because we’ve lost the art of detachment, we’ve become identified with our stream of consciousness and our feelings. Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not saying you should repress or deny your feelings. I’m challenging you to name them and observe them, but don’t directly fight them and don’t identify with them or attach to them (which almost all people do before enlightenment). Unless we learn to let go of our feelings, we don’t have our feelings, our feelings have us. (Is that the deepest meaning of “being possessed”?)
Now you might ask: “What does this have to do with God? I thought prayer was supposed to be talking to God or searching for God. You seem to be saying that prayer is first of all about getting myself out of the way.”
That is exactly what I am saying. God is already present. God’s Spirit is dwelling within you. You cannot search for what you already have. You cannot talk God into “coming” into you by longer and more urgent prayers. All you can do is become quieter, smaller, and less filled with your own self and your constant flurry of ideas and feelings. Then God will be obvious in the very now of things, and in the simplicity of things.
|
|
