Letting Go Means Holding On

The other day, I was listening to a talk by one of my beloved spiritual teachers, Adyashanti, and he said something that truly struck my mind.

He said something along the lines of, “Whatever is trying to let go is the very thing that’s holding on.”

“Whatever is trying to let go is the very thing that’s holding on.”

It’s quite a shocking statement, because when we are grounded in spiritual practice, we usually try to let go. We let go of all false notions about ourselves. We try to let go of everything that’s not our Absolute nature. We even try to let go of letting go, since this is also only our relative sense of being trying to get rid of something in order to attain something it perceives as desirable.

But remember, the Buddha said that desire is suffering. As long as we desire something other than what is, we crave an idea and split reality into two things: the current “what is” and “what should be.” And because we want to go from one to the other, it implies that where we are right now is not good enough.

And here comes the problem: if we understand this teaching—if we really understand it to be true—what do we do? We start trying to get rid of everything in the hope that something else will appear.

And this “something else,” of course, is enlightenment, infinite well-being, infinite wisdom—claiming our identity as God, Buddha, the Absolute.

As soon as we do that, we’re caught up again in desire, in suffering, in wanting to go from here to there.

Just take a look at your meditation. When you are sitting and practicing, maybe something comes up and you feel the urge to let it go. It’s typically a mixture of thoughts and feelings—maybe even a whole story. 

And you now think to yourself, “Okay, I can see that this is not real in the absolute sense. Whatever I can witness is not the absolute truth, because it’s just an object in my mind. So I have to let go of this damn object in order to maybe get enlightened.”

And there we are! We’re now trying really hard to let this thing go, but we also see that it’s very hard—it’s very sticky.

And it’s not enough that it simply fades from our awareness—no. We want some sort of confirmation about it. We want it to leave, and afterwards we want to claim a sense of certainty that it has finally gone, that we’re free from it, and that we can continue with our practice. Has this ever happened to you?

I think what happens is that whenever we try to let go of something, we actually become more identified with it. We turn whatever we’re trying to let go of into an object we want to get rid of, and now we’re wrestling with this very object—because for some reason, it doesn’t disappear.

And this is where Adyashanti’s statement becomes really relevant: “Whatever is trying to let go is the very thing that’s holding on.”

When we struggle to let go of something, we actually—unknowingly—hold on to it. True letting go is quite the opposite of struggle. So what can we do if we struggle not to struggle?

I think the most important thing here is to recognize it—to notice how all of this plays out in our consciousness.

Whenever we become aware that we’re trying to let go of something, we can notice it—and we can also see that there’s a force that’s actually holding on to it.

So we can see that trying to let go actually means holding on.

And instead of adding another layer of struggle by trying to let go of that, we simply notice it—we just look at it.

We recognize this theme playing out, but we don’t do anything—we just let it play out.

This is true surrender; this is true letting go—letting go even of our idea of letting something go. It’s accepting whatever happens, whether the very thing we want to let go of persists or vanishes.

If this very thing disappears or stays in our consciousness, we don’t care.

The truth is that this whole thing is only playing out in our relative sense of being anyway—it only plays out in illusion, in samsara. So no matter what happens in illusion, whether we defeat something and finally make it let go, or we fail and it persists in our mind, it’s all illusion anyway.

True spirituality is not about making illusion nicer; it’s not about improving relative truth. It’s only about waking up from this dream to the absolute nature that we already are.

So why should we even care what happens in our mind? Thoughts and feelings come and go continuously. What are we trying to achieve when we try to let go of something? This is all samsara.

Leave samsara as it is. Don’t try to improve it, don’t try to fight it, don’t try to overcome it. As long as you do any of this, you’re caught up in it.

Letting go also happens only in samsara. Do you really think our True Self needs to let go of something? Do you think our True Self can ever be burdened by anything? Do you think it needs to overcome something in order to become what it already is?

Only our illusory sense of self tries to become something which it is not. It tries to become more pure, more holy, more whatever.

And when you recognize that in your meditation, there’s a very subtle feeling—and this feeling isn’t nice, at least to our separate sense of self.

When you recognize that this whole game of letting go actually means holding on, you realize that you can’t do anything. It feels discouraging, it feels hopeless—because you truly can’t do anything.

You recognize that there will never be a moment when we can finally claim victory over our tendencies, our struggles, and everything we want to let go of. No, it’s more about this whole motivation—this whole desire—emptying out, slowly fading away.

Maybe struggles will still appear in your mind, but you’re no longer struggling with them. You become less interested, because you see that it doesn’t lead anywhere. You become absolutely okay with whatever happens.

Your whole motivation, your desire, will slowly fade away—will slowly empty itself out—until there’s nothing left anymore.

And when there’s truly nothing left—then what?

The sky is blue, the grass is green. Truth is just like this.

…

I wish you all the best.

Your friend of the way. Bye.