Letting Control Go

In this meditation, I help to throw a spotlight on how meditation can help you to let go of things you cannot control in your life. Think of something you'd like to let go of, and use that as a basis for today's meditation session. There are two ways we can learn how to let go: the hard way, that is learning via the experiences of life; and the other way is via meditation.

Transcript

Hi,

This is Dhyansey and you're listening to Dhyansey Meditation Podcast.

This meditation session was held on 17th of September in Basel,

Switzerland.

Here you learned how to let go.

Welcome to this meditation session with me Dhyansey,

Which is happening since January this year.

We have been together on a journey.

We have tried so many different ways to enter into this state,

Into this art of what is known as meditation.

In each session we explore a completely different gateway.

In the previous sessions we looked into the energetics of the body,

Of the mind,

Of the soul,

Of the entire human system and worked with these energies and tried to harmonize these energies in our body,

Mind and the entire energy system.

Today's session is less esoteric,

More introspective.

It's a session where you have a chance to do some reflection about your life,

Take the moment to go into your own personal world of things and resolve,

Maybe resolve some of the things or at least get a trigger to resolve some of the things.

I may sound preachy,

Please forgive me for that.

I'm not a priest,

But my intention is to share my meditation,

My own understandings,

My own realizations out of meditation which might trigger something for you,

Something for your own personal life to resolve,

Maybe something that has been pending for a long time.

The theme of this session today is letting go.

It's a very important theme,

Also very close to my heart because I myself have gone through a lot of realizations on this topic in my own life and this was something which was also requested by one of you to bring as a meditation in this session today.

Before we go into the topic,

Just take a moment to think about something that you would like to let go in your life,

That is something that is pending for a long time that you have parked somewhere in your mind and would like to let go.

Give a moment,

Give yourself the next minutes here to just bring your awareness to that particular aspect of your life which you would like to let go.

I cannot promise you that you will be able to let go of that now in this session,

But there is a possibility of it.

The way we are conditioned,

The way our mind is conditioned,

The way we are educated is all very one-dimensional.

We are educated to identify with something,

To hold on to something,

To grab something,

To associate ourselves with something so that we function in this world in a way that the economy is running and everything else is running and we collectively function as a society.

Nothing wrong in that,

But the other way,

The other side of the coin which is dissociation to let go,

To disidentify with things,

Nobody teaches that,

It is let,

It is this whole dissociation let go is left for us to figure it out ourselves in our life,

There is no education for it and there are only two ways we learn this let go,

We learn this dissociation,

Disidentification.

One,

The hard way which is where we get hurt,

Where we find ourselves in difficult situations and we learn with the experiences of life and the other way is meditation.

Before I tell you how meditation can help you to let go,

I would like you to know or you to share why is it difficult to let go,

Why do you think is it difficult to let go of a person,

Of things,

Of thoughts,

Of ideas,

Fears,

Anything,

Why is it so difficult to let go?

Anybody?

I hope that you guys also face the same small things,

Large things of life like I do and this question of letting go must have come across your life as well,

So why do you think is it so difficult to let go?

Insecurity,

Fear,

Ego,

Anything else?

Unforgiveness?

Have you ever spent time contemplating about why can I not let go of this or that?

If I have to summarize all this and it's my view,

It's my personal opinion,

Realization that I have gathered over my life's experiences is that there is a sense of us or I wanting to drive things in this way or that way and when that does not happen,

There is a difficulty and we cannot let go.

So this sense of I wanting certain things to be in a certain way or wanting certain things to happen and for other things not to happen,

This is the cause,

This is the difficulty where there is no let go.

Let me share a small story from my personal life.

When I was I think three or four years old,

My father said let's go on a ride.

He took me into the car.

In Germany or in this part of this world,

Switzerland,

France,

You have this seat for the children,

The kinder sits.

In India there is nothing like that.

So it's pretty adventurous to take the kid in the car and my father simply put me in his lap while he was driving the car and he put the seatbelt on and we went on a ride.

I was very small but I could still put my hands,

My small little hands on the steering and as the car was driving,

As my father was driving,

My hand started to move and I started to feel that oh I'm driving.

I started to enjoy that very much.

I looked outside,

I looked in the front.

When I wanted to turn right,

I turned the wheel right and the car turned right.

I wanted to turn left,

The car turned left and it was so pleasurable.

It was so much fun.

I thought I'm driving the car.

I totally forgot that somebody else was driving the car.

And then we reached to a place where it was very crowded and I wanted to turn right but the car did not turn right.

The car turned left.

I wanted to turn left,

The car turned right.

The car just turned the way it wanted to turn or my father wanted it to turn but not me and that experience left me with dissatisfaction.

I was in that moment so annoyed,

So frustrated.

I was crying.

Why is it not moving?

I wanted to turn it to right but it's not moving.

What could I have done?

Just cried.

Few years later,

I went through certain experiences of my life where I realized that oh I'm driving my life.

I'm so confident that whatever I will do,

Wherever I will drive my life,

It will go this way.

If I drive it in this way,

It will go that way.

So perfectly fine.

Everything was going fine.

More experiences in life,

More maturity.

I saw that it only happens sometimes.

It doesn't happen all the time that I want to drive my life in the right way and it goes in the right way and I want to drive it in the left way,

It goes in the left way.

Sometimes I want to drive it in the right way,

It goes left and so on.

And this thought brought me back to my childhood and I started to think maybe I'm not the driver of this life.

I'm not the driver of my own life.

Maybe there is a higher force.

Maybe there is a father.

Maybe there is God or something that is driving my life and that left me also in a very strange space,

A space where I thought maybe I'm not in control then what is the sense of me trying to drive this life?

I did not find these answers.

So I sat down,

I meditated,

I explored my inner silence,

I explored my inner space to understand who is this driver?

Am I driving or somebody else driving?

Or is there a higher force or who is this driver?

The deeper I got into my meditation,

Into my silence,

I found out that there is no driver.

It's not only that I am not the driver,

It's also that there is nobody else who is the driver.

Life has its own flow,

It goes on its own flow.

The only thing we can do is to be with the flow that is the highest realization.

In meditation that is the highest realization.

In fact,

Meditation is nothing but letting go.

Letting go is meditation and meditation is letting go.

Letting go along with the flow of life,

To just let the flow of life be.

How do we bring this as a practice into our daily life?

We do this meditation in three parts,

There are three components to it.

Letting go of the body,

What does letting go of the body means?

It simply means to relax the body,

To allow the body,

All the muscles,

Everything that is there in the body,

To just be the way it is.

Not trying to contract yourself,

Not trying to move.

For a few minutes,

Just for very few moments,

Letting the body be the way it is.

All we do is rest and let the body be the way it is.

Second component of this meditation,

Letting go of the mind.

What is letting go of the mind?

Another small analogy from India.

It's like a bazaar,

Mind is like a marketplace,

Like a bazaar where lots of things are going on and you especially,

I don't know how many of you have gone to Asia or India or wherever,

Where when you're standing in a marketplace,

Lots of people will come and try to sell you something,

Maybe some kids will come and try to take a picture with you because you're an exotic person over there and things like that will happen to you when you're standing in a bazaar in a marketplace.

Mind is exactly like that.

When you in meditation observe your mind,

You do not try to stop the bazaar,

You let it be.

You just remain silent.

The way you would just remain silent in a bazaar and these people who would come to you would go away once they realize that you're not involving,

You're not participating,

You just remain silent without giving any energy to the thought,

Without getting involved.

Once you just sit in silence and observe this bazaar of mind,

You let go of it,

You let it be the way it is.

That's the second level of meditation,

Of this letting go of the mind.

The third,

The deepest let go is of the eye.

When you are letting go of the body,

When you are letting go of the mind,

You see that there is an observer who is observing the body,

Who is observing the mind,

Who is letting go of the body,

That observer who is letting of the mind.

Then you turn your awareness back towards this observer and ask yourself who is this observer and you let go of that.

That is the ultimate let go.

Once you do that,

You are in bliss.

Once you relax the body or once you let go of the body,

You are in relaxation.

When you let go of the mind,

You are in peace.

When you let go of the eye,

The observer,

You are in bliss.

It's up to you to what extent you can let go of the body,

Of the mind,

Of your own self.

Try that as a meditation.

See how far you can go.

How does it taste like?

Does it bring you anything?

Does it allow you to let go of the body,

Mind and your eye,

Which can be called as ego or this observer who is observing the mind,

The body and everything else?

Any questions how we are going to do this?

And let's start this meditation.

I'll guide you through each of the steps.

We'll go from the body to the mind to the eye and then to the silence.

So four steps.

Please remember letting go of the body,

Letting go of the mind,

Letting go of the eye and just remaining silent for a few minutes.

I see all of you are nicely sitting in the cross-legged posture except for one of you.

It does not matter how you're sitting as long as your back is straight and you have a posture which allows you to completely let go of your body,

Let go of your mind.

If you wish to sit next to the wall as the gentleman at the back,

Please feel free to do so because that is something which if your body is in pain,

If it is calling again and again your attention,

You will not be able to go deep into yourself.

Those who are sitting next to the wall,

Just make sure that your head is not touching the wall because you will fall asleep if you do that.

Now close your eyes.

Take a nice deep breath in from the nose and out from the nose.

Take a deep breath in from the nose and out from the nose.

For the next minutes,

Allow yourself to be here and immerse in this meditation,

In this silence.

For the next minutes,

Try to remain as silent and quiet as possible for yourself and for others.

Keep on breathing as naturally as you always do.

We'll do a short body scan starting from the toes and we'll go all the way to the top of our head and wherever you find any tension,

Allow that part to relax.

Just let it be for the next minutes.

Bring your awareness to the toes.

Feel the sensations and release any tension you find in your toes.

Your toes.

Your ankles.

Your calves.

Bring your awareness to your calves.

If you find any tension there,

Just let it loose.

Let it be.

Bring your awareness to your knees.

To your thighs.

Feel the sensations in your thighs.

And let go of all the tension in your thighs.

Feel the contact of your buttocks and the mat.

Allow your entire legs to settle in a comfortable posture.

Bring your awareness to lower back.

Move up the spine to the middle region of your spine and up to the neck.

Let the entire spine be at rest.

If you find any tension,

Any contraction,

Just let it release with the exhalation.

With every exhalation,

Allow your body to relax more and more.

Bring your awareness to your stomach.

Feel any contraction,

Anything that is creating tension.

Just release it.

Let it relax.

Let it be.

Your chest.

Bring awareness to the chest.

And let it relax as you inhale and exhale.

Nice rhythm,

Very naturally.

Your shoulders,

Let them fall.

Both your arms.

Your wrists.

Your hands.

Let them rest on your knees or in your lap,

Wherever you have them.

Bring your awareness to your neck.

Allow your head to find a stable,

Relaxed,

Centered position without any effort.

Bring awareness to your face and keep all the facial muscles relaxed.

Just let them be the way they want to be.

For the next minutes,

Let your body be rested in this posture.

Let it do whatever it wants to do.

Don't try to change anything about your body for the next minutes.

Now observe your mind.

Bring your attention and awareness to all the thoughts and everything that is going on in your mind right now.

While you observe your mind,

You remain passive.

Quiet.

Silent.

Let thoughts come and go.

Let everything come and go on its own.

Simply observe what's going on in your mind.

Don't touch any thought.

Just observe passively.

Don't get involved in any contents of the mind.

Let things come and go.

Let your mind be completely free.

Can you just stay silent and observe everything that is going on?

In your silence,

Thoughts have come and gone.

In your silence,

Thoughts have no energy.

They slowly start to fade away.

Remain absolutely silent and aware.

Don't touch any thought,

Any sensation,

Any sound.

Remain silent and aware.

Now observe who is this observer?

Turn your awareness towards this observer.

Who is observing everything?

Lower your energy in self-realization.

Remain silent,

Just aware of who is this observer of everything.

Try to let go of this observer.

Let this observer fade away.

Let this sense of I fade away.

And what is left is awareness.

Settle in this awareness,

In this silence.

Settle in this awareness,

In this silence.

Stay in this awareness,

In silence for a few more minutes.

Let everything go.

Absolutely everything.

Only silence and awareness.

Stay here.

Let go of the body,

Let go of the mind,

Let go of everything.

Just stay in this silent awareness.

Stay here.

Stay here.

Stay here.

Stay here.

Stay here.

Stay here.

Now bring your awareness back to your body,

Back to your mind,

Back to yourself.

Take a nice deep breath in and out.

And very gently and slowly you may open your eyes.

Switch to mouth.

If you want to sit in silence,

In silence you can maintain the silence even for the next minutes while you are moving your body,

While you are finding yourself back into the body,

Into the mind,

Into the room.

This last part of the session is sharing.

If there is anything to share,

If there are any questions,

If there are any experiences,

Positive,

Negative,

Anything,

Or just stay silent.

So your question is,

Do we visualize something in meditation?

Yes,

We are talking about clouds and moons,

So in order to visualize something in meditation,

We have to keep our mind and body empty without visualizing it.

If you visualize clouds,

You can visualize them as clouds,

If it helps to visualize them as balloons or what I gave as an analogy of a bazaar,

For me the thoughts are like something if I give my hand and start getting involved,

I get involved,

But if I stay silent,

The person or these elements from the bazaar come to me and go away.

So,

You can use any visualization that you like,

The only criteria is you remain completely passive,

Completely ignoring everything that is coming to you.

So,

Not even making an effort to say no.

So,

When something comes to you,

When you say no,

You are also involved and you must have observed when you are saying no to somebody in a bazaar,

The person is following you until you completely ignore.

So,

You ignore and then you see in your ignorance,

In your ignoring that in your silence,

In your not responding to the thoughts,

They lose energy,

Because who is anyways giving all these thoughts energy?

You.

When you stop giving them energy,

They come and then they go and this process if you patiently wait,

This process doesn't last very long.

It looks like that the crazy mind would never stop.

It looks like that the crazy mind would never come to peace or you would never come to peace with the crazy mind,

But I'm sure you have never tried to sit long enough.

Unfortunately,

To wait until this chaos,

This cyclone,

This craziness settles down and it does,

It does for everyone there without exception given patience,

Given the fact that you do not,

You do not get involved with the thoughts.

They all come and go and eventually they're coming and going also slows down or the interval of them coming and going starts to increase and comes this point where nothing is coming in,

Nothing is going out.

But this,

If this requires you to visualize in the beginning,

It's absolutely fine.

Welcome.

Anything else?

Meanwhile,

I'll make a short announcement for the next two sessions.

We will not have the meditation on Mondays,

But on Sundays.

So next Sunday,

Which is 23rd of September and the following Sunday,

The 30th of September,

We will have sessions on Sunday,

Same time,

7 to 8 p.

M.

For those who may have some excuses to have busy schedules on Monday,

This is the right opportunity to have a meditation session on a Sunday evening.

I'm excited to have this session with you guys because on Sundays,

It's a different energy.

The whole day is more relaxed for you.

It's not that you have gone through crazy things of the day.

So we have a chance to go even deeper.

And I would love to build that meditation accordingly,

Provided you guys are there and you guys are interested to go deeper within yourself.

Last chance.

Anything,

Any other questions?

If not,

Thank you very much for your openness,

For your sharing,

You joining me in the silence in this meditation every time.

See you on Sunday next time.

Thank you.

Namaste.

Reviews

Excellent. Really enjoying this teacher.

The analogy with the bazaar and the guided meditation afterwards were helpful. Thank you so much for sharing.

Thank you. Namaste. 🙏

I was actually able to let go of my thoughts for the first time. Thank you so much!

This really helped with a question, a dissatisfaction I’ve been tussling with this last few weeks. A wonderful deep meditation. Namaste.

Thank you 💙🙏💙

Beautiful. Exactly what I was looking for in deepening my practice. Also, challenging! I’ll come back to this and remember that it truly is a “practice.” Thank you!

Beautiful! Thankyou 🙏

Thank you so much. Powerful meditation, just go with the flow 😃