Exercise Twenty-Seven

Aug 17th, 2006

Letting Go of Our Attachments

The intention of many of these workbook exercises is to weave a strong web of opportunity for us to develop skills in letting go. These exercises are set out to teach and offer practice to that end.

In exercise eleven we offered a tool for releasing fear. Developing the skill of releasing, a skill that this tool provides, can offer us great freedom from our specific fears. We learn unequivocally that we are not a victim of these dark clinging emotions. The very practice of letting them go makes this obvious to us.

The personality and its world, we are told, is a construct of mind. If we are to dismantle that which is unconsciously constructed, we must first observe or watch it. Thus it is most helpful to observe in order to become acquainted with our thought system, our belief system, our attachments. We began this in the exercises about watching the mind and emotions and then we practiced letting those unwanted feelings go. Most especially we practiced letting go of fear. Fear being but one emotion that we cling to.

To surrender our self to Source or All-That-Is, we learn to generalize the letting go of any emotion, any attachment. We are told that the final fear is the release of our 'self'. The Buddha shared that attachment causes all of our sorrow and Dr. Hawkins reminds us that, at the final door, we will need to surrender our greatest attachment, that of self, to God. Honing our skills to do so becomes an obvious practice then and learning to release our specific fears must surely cement the skill necessary to surrender our 'self'.

EXERCISE

May this be for the Highest Good.

In this exercise, practice letting go of whatever arises in your awareness. Anything within your sensory range, and your thought system is 'grist for the mill'. Rather than focus specifically on fear, search out everything for which you have an attachment. Look into all aspect of your life and discover what holds you in this world.

• Think about the attachments you carry in your life.
• Ask yourself what they are and list them mentally or on paper.
• Imagine having nothing or no one in your life and be assured your fears will rise up. We are told that attachments are physical and mental constructs that define who we 'think' we are, so you need not judge those attachment as positive or negative. Let the urge to judge go. Instead enjoy their discovery potentiates freedom.
• To release yourself from the grip of your attachments, the basic questions used in Exercise Eleven are modified slightly as follows:
• Could I surrender this to God, could I give it away to God?
• If I could, would I?
• And if so, when will I?
• Merely apply the three questions to everything that arises in your awareness and you will discover this to be a powerful practice of surrender.
• Then if or when you notice yourself caught in emotion,refer to exercise eleven and release the specific fear.
• You will likely discover that asking is a potent practice in and of it self to disentangle you from the 'attachment' to an idea, place, thing or person.
• Remind yourself that this exercise is about surrendering attachments. It points to the areas where you are most caught and assists you in gently releasing your self from them. It is a simple, but potent practice
• This exercise deepens your understanding of surrender, of letting go, of moving through life open and flexible.