Letting Go

Hi everyone! Today I would like to discuss letting go. I know as Jedi we must let go of the past so that it does not cloud our future judgment on situations. But what about letting go of a life that we had planned out so as to accept the one the force has planned for us?

I want to hear from anyone on this subject.

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

May The Force Be With You

Maybe a bit nitpicky, but the teaching does not actually tell us to let go, merely to be wary of attachments. What you describe sounds to me like an attachment to an idea, as you put it, letting go of what you had planned. That being said, the concept of this being an either/or yes/no situation, a straight up duality, seems odd. I believe you could let go of that attachment even without changing your course of action. Instead of discarding the plan that would merely require you to allow it to adopt as you move along.

Personally I don’t see the force as an external factor, rather as a part of me. More on point: Not as a separate entity. Thus it would not plan anything for me but draw my attention to other ideas/plans I came up with, more of a hinting rather than direct guidance – though I am aware your experience might be quite different .

In this very sense I cannot answer your question as I simply lack this particular experience.

Ryan Rasberry wrote: Hi everyone! Today I would like to discuss letting go. I know as Jedi we must let go of the past so that it does not cloud our future judgment on situations. But what about letting go of a life that we had planned out so as to accept the one the force has planned for us?

I want to hear from anyone on this subject.

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

May The Force Be With You

I dont think the Force plans anything for me , sometimes i feel kicked in the rear to change direction and obstain from people that are making me sad and are not contributing to my well being but rather nit pick at me and try to change me into something i am not , and so i take distance without letting them go , because in their heart i know they do love me in a weird kind of way. I had a big plan for my life that completely backfired , now after a few years i am glad it did , but it takes a while of mourning , mourning loss , mourning you inability to follow your dream at that time , and when you get to terms with another future for yourself , you will see how brave you are , you are brave , you dont stay stuck in time , you dare to move on.

Good for you and off course it hurts , that means it was worthwhile to you , but you choose to follow Your bliss

Let's go!!!
Can't change the past, so don't let it change your future.

Firstly, we have to remember that it probably isn't possible - and perhaps not desirable, depending on your point of view - to let go of all attachments. I don't have a spouse and children, but if I did, I imagine that it would be impossible for me not to fear losing them. I don't refer to the Star Wars movies often, but the quote "Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose", whilst interesting food for thought, is intended for a fictional character in circumstances that we simply will not find ourselves in, here in the real world. I believe that we cannot simply take that quote and plonk it into a totally different context (reality) and use it as a standard. It's a useful illustration of an idea that needs some tailoring before it can be taken as a guiding construct of our lives...

Perhaps it is more about letting go of the fear than the 'thing' itself...

I find fear a little bit of an alarming topic to confront sometimes - we don't want to dwell on the things that scare us, that is only natural! But looking at our fears of loss, understanding them, finding their root - doesn't stop us from loving things. Fear of loss is generally not about the thing itself but about some insecurity or void in ourselves that we have used the thing to plug. Regarding a life we have planned - why is it that we have planned those things? Why do we think that that job, that move, that person, will make us happy? Is it really so inconceivable that we could find that same happiness elsewhere?

The life we have planned is little more than a fantasy - we have no way of really knowing how things will turn out and if our lives will end up looking anything like how we envisage - and sometimes it is the fantasy in itself that is plugging a gap. I wouldn't suggest for one minute that pursuing a dream is always a bad thing (sometimes it's a very good thing!), but often we see that those who engage in habitual, relentless fantasy-dwelling find it difficult to ever exit that world - by the time they make their dream a reality, they have already moved on to a new dream and are never really able to enjoy the present. The fulfillment of their dreams is less important than the dreams themselves.Not always - I'm generalizing.

For that person, again, the question of fear - why are they scared to accept things the way they are? What is it about reality that makes it impossible for them to be happy? Is it really impossible?

As I say, whilst there are undoubtedly plenty of more 'trivial' attachments that we can and perhaps should work on overcoming, I'm not convinced that it's always right to live without fear of loss. The losses that I have experienced in life have probably been more formative than the successes, and they are a mark of the level of love and care that I have had for things that have been really important to me. Perhaps that is one of the fantasies that I don't want to let go of - the idea that the more painful the loss, the greater the love. It's probably not true, but it certainly helps to make the pain of loss seem a little more bearable! But this is the world we live in - one in which we have not been brought up in the fictional Jedi order since birth with no family or possessions - and are thus probably incapable of truly letting go of everything. Becoming friends with loss, accepting that it will inevitably mark our journey through life and understanding what it is about ourselves that makes us reluctant to lose certain things, gives us a good head start and a good foundation from which to approach it in a vaguely healthy way, rather than ignoring it and rejecting it and hating it asserting "I MUST LET GO" without really trying to understand what it actually is we're trying to let go of or why we're clinging to it in the first place, until suddenly...BAM...we've lost something, and we find ourselves confronted with this 'enemy' that we don't have the first idea how to go about overcoming.

The Force doesn't plan your future. You are not some puppet on strings performing tricks the puppeteer makes you do. Apply your past lessons into your future progress. The only thing you have to "Let Go" of, are Materialistic Attachments, the memories of these material attachments can and will always be with you, even after you drop the physical portion of those chains.

Good Luck

The notion of letting go, often expressed as non-attachment, is often confused with detachment. Along similar lines, it can be understod as non-possession, which can also be misunderstood as not having anything.

The problem arises because the translations from Vedic Sanskrit, a layered language, don't always lend themselves to a one-to-one match.

To let go, in this context means not to attempt to posses or hold a phenomenon in a given state. A thing hat is one way will become another way, and you are meant to allow the change rather than resist it. To attempt to force a state of beingto remain is Upādāna (attachment, clinging, grasping) and a primary source of suffering.

To whit, a person is in your life until they are not. People die. Things change. The world is full of impermanence. You are free to engage the world, but you must learn to allow things to pass. They will anyway, but the fight will only harm you. This is not to say that the passing of things will not hurt. But you need not suffer extra over whether or not you feel this all should be.

I'll include a more practical document taken from some of the sobriety literature I work with. I like this document very much.

Letting Go

o To let go doesn’t mean to stop caring. It means I can’t do it for someone else.
o To let go is not to cut myself off. It’s the realization that I can’t control another.
o To let go is not to enable, but to allow learning from natural consequences.
o To let go is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.
o To let go is not to try to change or blame another. I can only change myself.
o To let go is not to care for, but to care about.
o To let go is not to fix, but to be supportive.
o To let go is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.
o To let go is not to be in the middle, arranging all the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their own outcomes.
o To let go is not to be protective. It is to permit another to face reality.
o To let go is not to deny, but to accept.
o To let go is not to nag, scold, or argue, but to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
o To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires, but to take each day as it comes, and to cherish the moment.
o To let go is not to criticize or regulate anyone, but to try to become whatever I dream I can be.
o To let go is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.
o To let go is to fear less and love more.

this is a very good sermon on Letting Go:

https://www.templeofthejediorder.org/sermons/2146-g-e-marrs-proteus

que cera, cera....whatever will be, will be...

if you come to understand that everything changes it's no longer a matter of "letting go" but a matter of acceptance...

i love my dog, i've raised her since she was 5 weeks old and could fit in my shirt pocket. she's 7 years old now and her breed has an average lifespan of 12-14 years max...one day she will die, i know this. there is nothing i can do that will change that so clinging to the emotional attachment in the face of that is pointless. instead i enjoy today with her, everyday. everything in my life will one day not be in my life, that is the way of things. i can either accept it (by letting go) and enjoy life, or deny it (by attachment) and spend life worrying about what i'll eventually lose...

I appreciate everyone's input on the subject and seeing how everyone's answer is different form person to person. The force works in mysterious ways.