Understanding the process involved here is very
important, because it is quite dif ferent than the world’ s usual methods. The
approach that brings fast and easy results is the following: Don’ t look for
answers; instead, let go of the feelings behind the question . When we are
surrendered on the feeling behind the question, we can let go of any other
feelings that we might also have about what seems to be the problem. When
we are finally and fully surrendered on all components, the answer will be
there waiting for us. W e won’ t have to look for it. Consider how simple and
easy this is as compared to the mind’ s usual long, drawn-out, inef ficient
attempts at problem solving. Usually the mind hunts and pecks endlessly ,
fumbling around with first this possible answer and then that one. The
reason the mind can’ t decide is because it is looking in the wrong place. Let’ s see how the system works with a common everyday example. Let’ s say that we disagree with our mate on which movie to see. W e look to
see what the feeling is behind the problem. In this case, let’ s say that we
find the feeling of anger and resentment, specifically that we feel resentful
about the lack of romantic time spent together . What we really want tonight
is af fectionate time spent together . As we let it be okay inside ourselves that
what we really want is af fectionate togetherness, it suddenly dawns on us
that we don’ t want to go to a movie at all. W e just want to be together . Or
the opposite might happen. W e might find that the feeling behind wanting
to go to a movie is fear , because we want to avoid spending the evening
talking to and being close to our mate. W e see that the feelings we have
built up are unpleasant. W e have resentment, so we let go of wanting to
modify that feeling, and we just let it be there. It’ s okay to have that
resentment. As we surrender our resistance to the resentful feeling, we feel
less guilty; we admit to our mate that we have had a resentment. A dialogue
starts going, and the other person’ s feelings are cleared up as well. W e both
feel relieved and closer , and we then say , “T o heck with the movies. Let’ s
stay home, make love, and go for a walk in the moonlight.”
This approach is rewarding in all decision-making. When we first clear
out the underlying feelings, the decisions are more realistic and wise. Think
of how often we have changed our mind and regretted past decisions. That
is because there was an unrecognized and un-relinquished feeling behind
the decision. When the action that was decided upon is taken, the
underlying feeling shifts. Then, from the viewpoint of the new feelingspace, the decision turns out to be wrong. This happens with such regularity
that most people develop a fear of decision-making, because it turned out to
be wrong so often in the past. Problem solving using the mechanism of surrender can often be
lightning quick with problems of long standing. T o discover how fast it can
work, let’ s try it out. T ake several problems of long standing and stop
looking for the answers. Look to see what the underlying feeling is that
produced the question in the first place. Once that feeling is let go, the
answer will present itself automatically . Lifestyle
A lot of our activities and attachments are based on fear and anger , guilt and
pride. As these negative feelings are relinquished in any given area, we
move up to courage. On that level, changes in life begin to occur . Or , if we
choose to continue the same activity , the motivation is dif ferent and,
consequently , we will experience dif ferent results than in the past. The
emotional payof f will at least be dif ferent. Instead of grim satisfaction, we
may experience joy . W e may find ourselves doing the same activity as
before, but now we do it out of enjoyment rather than obligation. W e do it
because we want to, not because we have to. The ener gy requirement will
certainly be much less. One delightful discovery we will make is that our capacity for love is
far beyond what we ever dreamed. The more we let go, the more loving we
become. More and more of our life will be spent doing things that we love
to do, with people for whom we feel increasing love. As this happens, our
life becomes transformed. W e look dif ferent. People respond dif ferently to
us. W e are relaxed, happy , and easy-going. People are attracted to us
because they feel comfortable and happy around us. W aitresses and cab
drivers suddenly mysteriously become attentive and courteous, and we will
wonder , “What has come over this world?” The answer to that question is
“ Y ou  have!”
As we let go the negative, we come into our own power . It happens of
its own. Happiness was in there all along and now it shines forth after the
blocks to it have been surrendered. W e are now influencing everyone with
whom we come into contact in a favorable way . Love is the most powerful
of the emotional ener gy vibrations. For love, people will go to any lengths
and do things that they would never do for any amount of money .When the negative blocks and “I can’ ts” are removed, whole new areas
of life open up to us. Success stems from doing what we like to do best, but
most people are tied down to what they imagine they have to do. As
limitations are relinquished, whole new avenues of creativity and
expression become available. Let’ s take the example of a young woman with a lot of natural musical
talent who was spending most of her time at a boring job, which she felt she
had to stick to for financial reasons. What she really liked to do was play
musical instruments when she was alone at home. It was something that she
did strictly for personal enjoyment. Because of the lack of self-confidence,
she seldom played for other people, even close friends. After she began to
let go of her inner limitations—all of the low-ener gy feelings that were
blocking her expression—her abilities and confidence grew so rapidly that
she began to play in front of public gatherings. Her talent was well
received, and a busy musical career ensued. She made a professional
recording that was suf ficiently successful that she could cut back to
working part time, and she began to pour more time and ener gy into what
was now a blossoming career that brought her great joy and satisfaction. Although she had known nothing about business, she now started her own
musical business and, within a year , was distributing the recordings
nationally , then in Europe. T o her delight, she found that she was very
successful by doing what she liked to do best. Her increasing vitality and
happiness were apparent to everyone, and success spread to other areas of
her life. Another example is that of a middle-aged engineer with no creative
ability who had always hated poetry . After learning to let go of his negative
feelings, suddenly he found himself writing Haiku (a formal Japanese
poetry style). He began writing reams of it ef fortlessly and later developed
the capacity for automatic writing. Still another example is that of a sixty-year -old woman who decided to
return to college part time, even though she already had a full-time job. Eventually , she attained her bachelor ’ s degree, then her master ’ s degree,
and finally a Ph.D., becoming an important executive with great
responsibilities. There are literally thousands of examples that could be cited of the
rapid expansions that take place in people’ s life when the “I can’ ts” aresurrendered. Life situations, often of long standing, may be suddenly
resolved. Paradoxically , such breakthroughs and expansions may be upsetting to
friends and family members because of the shift of balance. Things that we
had done out of constriction, fear , guilt, or a sense of duty may be suddenly
thrown overboard. New levels of consciousness change perception and new
horizons open up. Many of the motives that drive people may suddenly
become meaningless. Such things as money , fame, esteem, position,
prestige, power , ambition, competitiveness, and the need for security
diminish. They are replaced by the motivations of love, cooperation,
fulfillment, freedom, creative expression, expansion of consciousness,
understanding, and spiritual awareness. There tends to be more reliance on
intuition and feelings than on thinking, reason, and logic. People who are
very “yang” may discover their “yin” side, and vice versa. Rigid patterns
give way to flexibility . Safety and security become less important than
discovery and exploration. Personal lives pick up momentum, and
movement replaces stuck-in-a-rut life patterns. One surprising observation about the mechanism of letting go is that
major changes can take place very rapidly . Lifetime patterns can suddenly
disappear , and long-standing inhibitions can be let go of in a matter of
minutes, hours, or days. Rapid changes are accompanied by an increased
aliveness. The life ener gy set free by the letting go of negativity now flows
into positive attitudes, thoughts, and feelings, with a progressive increase of
personal power . Thoughts are now more ef fective. More is accomplished
with less ef fort. Intention is made powerful by the removal of doubts, fears,
and inhibitions. W ith the removal of negativity , dynamic forces are
unloosed, so that what were once impossible dreams now become
actualized goals. Resolution of Psychological Pr oblems: Comparison with
Psychotherapy
In general, letting go is often more rapid than psychotherapy . It is often
more liberating and stimulating to the growth of consciousness and
awareness. Psychotherapy , however , is better designed to elucidate
underlying patterns. The two may work well together . The mechanism of
letting go facilitates and speeds up psychotherapy , and it elevates its goals. Psychotherapy may be more gratifying intellectually because of its verbalnature and its focus on the “whys” behind behavior . However , that is also
its limitation. T oo often intellectual insight is all that’ s really achieved, and
the emotional working through is slow , often painful, and ultimately
avoided. The mechanism of letting go, on the other hand, is concerned with
the emotional “what” from moment to moment, without involving the
intellect. The “why” becomes apparent of itself once the “what” has been
relinquished. It’ s one thing to analyze the causal basis of depression and
quite another to enter fully into the depth of hopelessness by letting go of
your resistance to the feeling. By allowing the full feeling of it and by
letting go of every sensation, every thought, and every little payof f you are
getting from it, you are free. It’ s not necessary to probe the “why” of
depression to become free from the “what” of it. The goals of letting go are far beyond those of psychotherapy . The
ultimate aim of letting go and surrendering is total freedom. The goal of
therapy is readjustment of the ego to a more healthy balance. The two
systems are based on dif ferent paradigms of reality . The objective of
psychotherapy is to replace unsatisfactory mental programs with more
satisfactory ones. In contrast, the objective of letting go is the elimination of
limiting mental and emotional programs. It is the attainment of an
unconditioned mind and, ultimately , transcendence of the mind itself to
higher states of consciousness of love and peace. In therapy , there is dependence on therapists and their training and
techniques, and there is also reliance on a psychological theory to which the
therapist and the patient both subscribe. Scientific research reveals that the
results of therapy are not related to the therapist’ s school of psychotherapy ,
training or technique; instead, the results are related to the interaction
between them and the degree of the patient’ s desire to improve, as well as
the patient’ s faith and confidence in the therapist. Therefore, psychic factors
are operating of which psychotherapy is unaware. W ith the mechanism of letting go, there is no patient role and no
dependency on another person or theory . The very wellsprings of neurotic
patterns automatically unfold as they are acknowledged, relinquished, and
disappear . Their basis is often at depths untouched by psychotherapy . Except for the few holistic frameworks (e.g., Jungian analysis,
transpersonal psychology), therapy can be based on a limited understanding
of the total mind. It commonly addresses itself only to a portion of the ego. It ignores and does not comprehend the great forces that determine, drive,and control the mind. Since the purpose of most psychotherapy is a well-
adjusted ego, there is no conception of what is beyond the ego. The purpose of letting go, in contrast, is the elimination of the ego. The
ego is fearful and limited and, when it is surrendered, the inner Self stands
forth, and what was always more powerful is revealed. Many
psychotherapies have no real knowledge of the Self and are, therefore, blind
to Reality Itself. As for ef ficacy , psychotherapy is like a horse and buggy ,
while the mechanism of surrender and letting go is like a space ship. In the
time it takes for therapy to slowly poke about a limited area, letting go has
already moved far beyond it into a whole new dimension. Letting go has a peculiar advantage in that the surrendering of one
negative feeling also relinquishes the ener gy behind many other negative
feelings, so there is a constant across-the-board ef fect. For instance, a
successful and well-educated man had a life-long terrible fear of heights, an
intense phobia. At the time that he learned how to utilize the mechanism of
surrender , he had many pressing problems in his life. After learning how to
surrender , he was busy with letting go of his feelings and fears about major
life problems and never got around to specifically working on his lifelong
fear of heights. When he was later in a situation involving standing on a
roof, he was amazed to discover that his fear had greatly lessened. He was
delighted and went to the edge of the roof where he sat dangling his feet. He was now able to get up on ladders and go on the roof for an hour with
no discomfort. This illustrates that, as one fear is relinquished, all fear is
diminished non-specifically . Psychotherapy aims at the amelioration of neurotic patterns. Letting go,
however , is designed to undo the underlying causes of all neurotic
formation. It undoes the basic structure of maladaptive feeling and
behavior . Psychotherapy seeks for an improvement in neurotic balance. Letting go, however , eliminates it all together . A limitation of most psychotherapeutic frameworks is that the therapist
is constricted to what the world calls a healthy , functioning ego with all its
restrictions. In this paradigm, a healthy patient is considered to be one who
shares the same illusions and limitations condoned by society and the
therapist. By contrast, the purpose of the mechanism of surrender is to
transcend the illusions of the world and reach the ultimate truth behind it—
which is Self-Realization—and to discover the very basis of the mind itself,
the source of all thought and feeling.The goal of letting go is the elimination of the very sour ce of all
suffering and pain. This sounds radical and startling and, in fact, it is! Ultimately , all negative feelings stem from the same source. When enough
negative feelings have been relinquished, that source reveals itself. When
that source itself is let go of and dis-identified with, the ego dissolves. The
source of suf fering, therefore, loses the very basis of its power . Each of us has a limit to the amount of negative feelings we have
stored up. When the pressure behind an emotion has been let go, that
emotion no longer occurs. For instance, if fear is constantly surrendered for
a period of time, eventually it runs out. It then becomes dif ficult or almost
impossible to feel further fear . It takes progressively more and more of a
stimulus to elicit it. Finally , the person who has surrendered a great deal of
fear actually has to search for it diligently . The ener gy of fear simply isn’ t
there anymore. Anger also progressively diminishes so that even a major
provocation fails to elicit it. A person with little fear or anger feels
primarily love all of the time and experiences a loving acceptance of events,
people, and the vicissitudes of life. The goal of surrender is transcendence. Psychotherapy accepts levels of
behavior as healthy that, from the viewpoint of total freedom, are
unacceptable. For instance, in psychotherapy , minimal fear , anger , and pride
might be considered necessary or acceptable levels of functioning and
perhaps even “healthy .” But as we have seen, the innate destructiveness
behind those lower states is ultimately not acceptable—given the power of
surrender to transcend them totally . Beyond the “acceptable level of
functioning” awaits our greater destiny: total freedom. CHAPTER
17
T R A N S F O R M A T I O N
Although letting go seems simple and easy , its ultimate ef fects are
profoundly powerful. A quick little surrender done in an almost of f-handed
manner can sometimes bring about a major change in our life. W e can
picture it being similar to the wheel of a ship. If we make even a one-degree
change in the ship’ s compass, we will notice very little dif ference; but, as
the ship sails over the sea hour after hour , day after day , a one-degree
change in the compass will end up taking us to a very dif ferent place many
miles from where the original course would have taken us. In this chapter we want to look at the ef fect that the mechanism of
surrender has on those areas of life with which most people are concerned:
health, wealth, and happiness. W e will discuss these areas as they are
usually experienced by the majority of people, and make a contrast to the
changes that will occur as the practice of letting go progresses. These
changes are quite obvious when we watch the lives of others who use the
technique. They will become obvious in your own life as well. Sometimes
you will not be aware of them; therefore, it is suggested that you keep a list
of goals and check of f the gains as they occur , so that you remain conscious
and aware of the progress. This self-awareness step is to circumvent a
peculiarity of the mind. When we decide on a specific technique to improve
our life, and when improvement occurs, the mind has a peculiar tendency to
discount the very technique that brought about the change. It is as though
the mind’ s ego is so vain that it doesn’ t want to give credit where credit is
due.This proclivity of mind to discount inner progress is sometimes quite
comical. For instance, a man who had been stuck in the same job position
for 23 years began using the technique of letting go. W ithin a couple of
months, he suddenly jumped to the position of V ice President and, by the
end of the year , he was President of the company . When asked if he was
pleased with himself about what he had accomplished by using the inner
technique, his mind totally discounted it and ascribed his gains to “shifts in
business patterns.” His marriage had also improved and the mind, again,
ascribed the improvements to external reasons: “My wife’ s attitudes finally
changed.” The relationship with his son also improved, and the mind again
circumvented the inner transformation and said it was due to the fact that
his son was “getting older .”
In the discussions that follow , it will be noted that the transitions from
one state to a higher state are not dif ficult to make. They may only seem
“dif ficult” to us because of current perceptions. It’ s important to keep in
mind that, as we surrender , our perceptions will change. Our goals will
automatically be elevated. What now seems impossible will become old hat
after we have been practicing the technique a while. W e will also notice that, as the mind contrasts the lower level of life
with the higher level, a peculiar resistance to the description of a higher
level of functioning will occur at times. The mind will get critical and try to
save face by ridiculing a higher state. This is a golden opportunity because
this is the very attitude that prevents a person from reaching that higher
state of life. The very process of reading this material is invaluable, for it
will reveal precisely what the blocks are and exactly why these goals are
impossible at the present time. As resistances, criticisms, and
disparagements come up, we can begin surrendering them and letting them
go right now in the process of reading about them. It is a great opportunity
to identify the inner blocks to fulfillment. As Pogo said, “W e have
identified the enemy , and it is us.”
As a professional psychotherapist and psychiatrist with many decades
of clinical experience and training, these higher levels of functioning were
considered to be impossible for most people. However , learning how the
mechanism of surrender works on the practical level and watching hundreds
of families, friends, patients, and ex-patients transform their lives has totally
changed this view . Now , higher levels of functioning are seen to be
automatic, easy to achieve, and available to everyone, often in asurprisingly short period of time. As a matter of fact, some of these levels
of success and happiness will seem impossible, but the higher level will
already have occurred by the time you have finished reading this book. Y ou
can tell yourself right in the beginning that these high levels of functioning
are not only possible, but they are an inherent birthright. They are the
natural state of which you have been deprived by all the programming that
the mind has been subjected to since birth. Before reading on, it is advisable to sit quietly and make an inner
decision to let go resisting higher levels of functioning. This means to make
a decision to stop denying the higher levels to yourself, and to make a
decision to let go of all blocks to happiness, success, health, acceptance,
love, and peace. By doing this, the deed is already done, for you have set
the whole experience into a context that will automatically begin to unfold. Health
The average person is preoccupied with the body , its functioning,
performance, appearance, and survival. The average mind is beleaguered
with worries, fears of sickness, suf fering, disease, and death; therefore, the
mind sets about defending the body in a great variety of ways. This leads to
over -attention to diet, weight, exercise, and the health of the environment. W ith such inner tension, by the end of the day the average person frequently
feels like a victim: drained, empty , and exhausted. One consequence of this preoccupation with the body is self-
consciousness. W ithin the field of awareness, the body’ s presence is
prominent, and there is a mental fixation with what it is doing, its
whereabouts and movements, its survival, the attitudes and approval of
other persons toward the body , its appearance and behavior . Underlying all of this concern is the unconscious equation, “I am a
body .” This is a very limited level of consciousness. In fact, in the spiritual
world this is called “being unconscious.” Because it is a false identification
due to a marked narrowing of awareness, it is like wearing blinders. It is
like having a pimple on the nose and thinking that the whole world now
revolves around that pimple, and going through the day with that pimple
most prominent in our mind. Be aware of how much ener gy is drained by this constant
preoccupation with the body . Our mind has been continuously programmed
with a countless variety of belief systems about the body: what it needs,what will be good for it, and its infinite number of vulnerabilities. This
leads to constant preoccupations with all kinds of health preventive
measures, including health food fads, the endless reading of labels for
potentially poisonous ingredients, the fear of being near someone smoking a
cigarette, the fear of dusts and pollens and all of the supposed contaminants
of the environment. There is an obsession with of fsetting all of these
“dangers” by various countermeasures. As we have seen from previous discussions, these vulnerabilities are
merely the product of the mind, and the body will react to what is held in
mind. This was demonstrated in our discussion of multiple personalities
where the body reflected in each instant what that particular personality and
mind believed. As we begin letting go of all these fears, cancelling the belief systems
and reaf firming that our true Self is Infinite and not subject to limitations,
we move into a higher state of health, wellness, and vital ener gy . A helpful
way to phrase it to ourselves is, “I am an Infinite Being, not subject to
____________.” W e put into the blank space whatever disease or substance
that the mind has been programmed to see as a possible “danger” for us. After letting go of the endless variety of bodily fears, concerns and
belief systems, physical illnesses begin to resolve automatically . There is an
increase in the feeling of aliveness and personal freedom. In the state of
total surrender , the body is barely perceived at all. It is only peripherally in
awareness, and there is no preoccupation with it. It functions ef fortlessly ,
smoothly , and with very little attention. A surrendered person can eat anything or go anywhere and is no longer
subject to fears of contaminants, pollutants, drafts, germs, electromagnetic
frequencies, carpet, smoke, dust, animal dander , poison ivy , pollen, or food
dyes. Our perception of the body shifts, and it now seems to be like a
puppet or a pet. This shift of perception is from “I am  the body” to “I have  a
body .”
It becomes progressively obvious that the body is not experiencing
itself at all. On the contrary , it is the mind that is experiencing the body . W ithout the mind, the body cannot be perceived at all. The arm cannot
experience its arm-ness. Only the mind can experience the arm-ness. This,
of course, is the very basis of anesthesia. When the mind is asleep, the body
has no sensation. It slowly dawns on us that, in fact, the body doesn’ t have
any sensation; only the mind is capable of that function.This is a very important shift of consciousness because now the
preoccupation is not with the body and defending it. The focus of attention
now shifts to the mind, which is where the greater power lies. As we shift
our thoughts, feelings and perceptions, we begin to notice that the body
follows suit. W e recognize that people are not really responding to our body
at all but to our inner attitudes, our ener gy state, and our level of awareness. One day it dawns on us that everyone and everything in the world are
responding to our level of consciousness, our intention, and to the inner
feeling we have about them. W e register the magnetism of saintly people
such as Mother T eresa, the Dalai Lama, and Mahatma Gandhi. W e see that
they are beloved not because of their physical appearance, but because of
the inner radiance of love and peace they emanate. The shift of focus from
the physical level to the level of consciousness begins to bring rapid results. The persistent surrender of negative feelings and attitudes means that
the associated guilt is also being constantly relinquished. A consciousness
that is not guilt-ridden tends no longer to attract disease. In the unconscious,
guilt requires punishment and sickness, with its attendant pain and
suf fering, as the mind’ s most frequent means of self-retaliation. This self-
retaliation may take the form of an accident, cold, attack of the flu, arthritis,
or any of the multiple diseases that the mind has invented. These diseases
take epidemic forms due to television and media publicity . When a
prominent figure shares with the public some serious illness, there is a
sudden jump in the incidence of that illness. The unconscious grabs hold of
a disease and utilizes it to settle the score. W ith the constant surrender of
inner guilt, there is less and less of a score to be settled. Therefore, a person
who is free of negativity and guilt tends to be free of disease and suf fering. The healing can be dramatic. There was the case, for example, of a
magazine publisher who was in a hopeless state of advanced multiple
sclerosis. The medical profession had done what it could and had given her
up as a terminal, hopeless case. At that point, she came upon a technique of
relinquishing guilt by studying the “W orkbook” of A Course in Miracles . In
working with this home-study course, which consists of contemplating
exactly one short lesson a day for 365 days, she began to undo all of her
guilt and resentment through the mechanism of for giveness. By constantly
for giving and undoing the negative feelings, and therefore undoing her
inner guilt, the disease of multiple sclerosis reversed itself. As of thiswriting, she has been recovered for years and is in radiant glowing health,
happy with her life. Health and well-being, then, are generally the automatic consequence
of the letting go of guilt and other negativities, as well as the letting go of
our resistance to the positive states of health and wellbeing. Through the
surrender mechanism, the whole gamut of illnesses can be resolved into
wellness. As was said earlier , there may be uncommon cases in which illness or
infirmity continues unabated due to unknown factors, such as karmic
proclivities. Continual surrender brings healing at the level of inner being
so that, even while the body appears to suf fer limitation and others may see
it as “tragic,” the person is at peace and radiates an inner well-being that
uplifts others. Through surrender at great depth, such persons have let go of
self-pity , guilt, and resistance to life circumstances. They have transcended
the view that their illness is a barrier to personal happiness and see it as a
vehicle of blessing to others. In recent years, public examples of this
phenomenon have included the late Pope John Paul II, who approached his
unremitting Parkinson’ s disease as a spiritual opportunity to become one
with, and even to take on, the suf fering of others. W ealth
This is an important subject, not only because it has such a direct ef fect on
our life, but also because it so quickly and easily makes obvious our
feelings, thoughts, and attitudes about money . T o the mind that holds
limiting belief systems and negative thoughts and feelings, money is a
“problem.” It is a source of endless worry and anxiety , hopelessness and
despair , or of vanity , pride, arrogance, intolerance of others, jealousy , and
envy . At its worst the end result of all the negativity is a feeling of financial
limitation, lack, and deprivation. In this area, the feeling “I can’ t” due to
fear and limitation is often skirted by simply avoiding the whole issue of
money and resigning oneself to a low social economic status as
“inevitable.”
The unconscious brings to us what it thinks we deserve. If our view of
ourselves is small, limited, and miserly—due to accumulated guilt—then
the unconscious will bring those economic conditions into our life. Our
attitudes about money can be discovered when we look at the many things
that it means. For example, we see the degree to which it stands for security ,power , glamour , sexual attraction, successful competition, self-worth, and
our value to others and the world. It is very useful to sit down with pencil and paper and, under the
heading “Money ,” begin to delineate what its real meanings are in all the
various avenues of life. Then, write down the feelings that are associated
with each area and begin to surrender on each negative feeling and attitude. As we do this, we have the surprising discovery that money in and of itself
is not the most basic issue. More important than money itself are the
emotional gratifications that we hope will be ours with the use of that
money . Let’ s say that, behind the desire for money , we discover that one of our
goals is to be respected and valued. In that discovery , we have just found
out that it isn’ t money itself that we are interested in; rather , it is our self-
respect and a feeling of inner worth. W e see that money was just a tool to
achieve something else and that, as a matter of fact, it isn’ t money that we
want at all but the self-respect and esteem we thought it would bring us. It
will also dawn on us that the goals which we thought money would bring us
can be achieved dir ectly . The higher our inner self-esteem, the less we need
the approval of others. As we uncover these awarenesses, money takes on a
dif ferent meaning in each area of life. Money now becomes subservient to
higher goals rather than an end unto itself. W ithout being conscious of what money means to us emotionally , we
are at the ef fect of it. W e are being run by our unconscious beliefs about
money and all of its associated programs. It is like the millionaire who
keeps piling up more and more millions. There never seems to be enough. Why is that? It is because he has never stopped to look at what money
really means to him. If we obsessively chase after money or other symbols
of wealth, it is because our inner self-worth is so small that it takes a huge
amount of money to compensate for it. The inner insecurity is so extensive
that no amount of money can overcome it. It might be said that the smaller
we feel inside, the greater amount of power , money , and glamour must be
accumulated in order to try and compensate for the inner smallness. When we are in a surrendered state, we are free from that inner
smallness, insecurity , and low self-esteem. Then, money becomes merely a
tool to achieve our goals in the world. W e have an inner security , knowing
that there will always be suf ficient abundance. W e will always get what we
need when we need it, because we have an inner feeling of completion,fulfillment, and satisfaction. Money , then, becomes a source of pleasure
rather than a source of anxiety . On a certain level, we may even appear to be indif ferent to money . When we need it to complete a project, it just magically seems to appear
from somewhere. W e feel nonchalant about it because we are connected to
the source of our own power . When we re-own the power that we have
given to money and see that it is our own power , we are no longer
concerned about money , nor do we need to accumulate a great deal of it. Once we have the formula for gold, we don’ t need to carry a bag of it on
our shoulder with all of its attendant worries and anxieties. The problem with excessive accumulation of money , of course, is the
constant fear of losing it. It is tragi-comic to watch someone who is worth
50 million dollars practically have a nervous breakdown because, through a
business oversight, he lost 10 million dollars. The man was actually in a
panic. Emotionally , he was frightened that he would not be able to survive
on the planet with only 40 million dollars. The person who suf fers from
inner poverty is relentlessly driven to accumulate on the material level. W ith this inner poverty , there is the whole attitude of selfishness or its
correlates of vanity and false pride. It is very common for people who use the letting go technique suddenly
to come into abundance. Struggling actors now have starring roles in
Hollywood. A playwright on the edge of poverty becomes the producer of a
smash Broadway hit. Paradoxically , some people have grown so nonchalant
about money that they have chosen to get rid of a lot of money and live a
much simpler life. They are no longer interested in money; they have
mastery over it. The inner satisfactions that they had sought by means of
money are now satisfied directly , so that inner happiness is independent of
outer wealth. In this state of inner freedom, one is independent of the outer
world and no longer at the ef fect of it. This is because one transcends that
which one has mastered. Happiness
In the sections on Health and W ealth, we have already touched upon
important areas relating to overall happiness. Now we will focus more on
inner emotional life because that is where we all really live. The purpose of
health and wealth is, after all, merely because we presume, and to some
extent it is true, that they result in happiness. Happiness can be experienceddirectly , however , and on this level it is relatively independent of health or
wealth. Let’ s take an objective look at the average view of happiness. T o begin
with, the happiness is extremely vulnerable. A chance remark, a critical
comment, a raised eyebrow , or a car cutting into line ahead of us are all
suf ficient to blow the average person’ s happiness in an instant. The threat of
a job loss, a feeling of distrust in a relationship, a foreboding remark by a
doctor , or an impertinent cab driver , are suf ficient to ruin the day for many
of us. Why is our happiness so fragile that commonplace occurrences can
“ruin” the whole day? In the section on the anatomy of emotions, we have already looked at
the reasons for this. As a result of negative feelings, thoughts, and attitudes,
together with the constant judgment and criticism of other people, we often
feel separated from others. Because of this feeling of inner aloneness and
separation, relationships take on the form of attachments, with all the fear ,
anger , and jealousy that accompany any threat to those attachments. The
inner negativity results in such commonly held beliefs as, “Y ou are born
alone and you die alone.” Nothing, in fact, is farther from the truth. As
recent books on near -death experiences reveal, it is during life that one
often feels alone and, at the moment of death, there is an absolute feeling of
oneness and connectedness (Eadie, 1992; Neal, 2011). Because of attachments, dependencies, and inner smallness, we may
feel weak and limited. The guilty intolerance of our inner thoughts and
feelings are projected onto the world, making the world look like a fearful
place. Because these fears are held in mind, fearful events and experiences
are literally brought into our life experience. Fear results in chronic anger
and makes us prone to attack and to inner emotional chaos. Pain and
suf fering occur , with periodic despair and proneness to emotional upset. The ego-mind, which sees everyone as separate, is envious of anyone else
who appears happier , more successful, or with a better relationship, a better
body , or better connections. Soon, because of a lack of inner clarity about
goals, there is confusion leading to self-pity , envy , and further resentment. Self-condemnation gets endlessly projected onto the world, taking the form
of condemnation from others, which increases further the guilt and feeling
of smallness. For some of us, the only escape is through grandiosity , intolerance,
bigotry , arrogance, and anger , which take the form of cruelty , over -bearingness, brutality , and insensitivity to the feelings of others. Often the
insensitivity comes with self-excuses, such as: “I am an upfront person who
speaks my mind,” or “I am the frank type; you always know where you
stand with me.” These comments are a cover -up for insensitivity , which
might be better described as gauche. The low self-esteem results in
criticism of self and others, constant competition and comparison,
analyzing, contempt, intellectualization, doubt, and fantasies of revenge. When all of those mechanisms fail, there is the recurrence of apathy and
feelings of hopelessness and victimization. In such a state, we become
progressively alienated because there is so much of ourselves that we must
hide. Our behavior leads to isolation from others and an imbalance due to
over -valuation of the areas of life that do seem to work. Because of this inner chaos, the average person must of necessity stay
unconscious at all times. It is interesting to watch the means that the mind
has invented to accomplish this end. W e watch as a person gets up in the
morning and flips on the radio or the television to immediately get the mind
of f the self and its mental chatter . Despite the extra amusement, thoughts
and feelings tend to arise until the mind becomes preoccupied with the
projects of the day , work, and various schemes of accomplishment or
pleasure. It starts the preoccupation with the body—all of the brushing,
washing, perfuming, powdering, deodorizing and carefully selecting the
clothes for the day . The choosing of clothes brings up all the schedules of
the day , its busyness with activities that have all been crowded into the day:
the endless appointments, phone calls, errands, social engagements, home
responsibilities, and emails. On the way to work or the day’ s activities,
there is the chatting with companions, listening to the car radio, making the
cell phone calls, sending text-messages, and reading the morning newspaper
on the subway . Once at the destination, there follows the preoccupation
with the external events of the day: the business, the deals, the bar gains, the
arrangements, the worries, the manipulations, the endless search for power ,
the quest for “strokes,” and the ever -present fear of survival. All of this is
motivated by the desire to somehow derive meaning and security , and to
increase our self-esteem and ensure our self-worth by whatever means. The franticness of the struggle is not really realized until we are
suddenly forced to discontinue it by some external event. Then, we are
confronted with the internal emptiness. This calls for the incessant ingestion
of novels, magazines, television, and websites. Or , the emptiness is avoidedby the constant going to parties, escaping through drugs, numbing out with
a few drinks, watching movies, and pursuing other amusements. W e tend to
do just about anything to avoid facing that feeling of inner emptiness. There is nothing wrong with any of these activities, in and of
themselves. What we want to examine is only the state of consciousness,
the state of awareness, and the manner in which the activities are perceived,
pursued, and experienced. In a state of inner freedom, these same events
and experiences take on a totally dif ferent significance. The identical activities can stem from an inner sense of happiness, self-
worth, and completeness. The same goals can be fulfilled through the
realization of our inner achievement rather than competition with others. Relationships become sharing and loving rather than jealous, competitive,
and driven by the seeking of “strokes” and approval. When we are free of
negative drives, we enjoy gratifying relationships because we love people,
not because we are attached to them. W e can allow the other person to be
free, not subject to jealousy and threat. W e are not the victims of
manipulation by others because we have already found an inner fulfillment. As negative thoughts, feelings, and attitudes are relinquished, we re-
own the power that we had given over to the world. Much of the attraction
of the world is due to the glamorization that we have projected onto it. Questions arise for self-reflection: “Is it really all that money that I want, or
is it the glamour that I have attached to it? What is it that I want from that
job title or from that designation of “Dr .” and “Esq.” and “Rev .”? Is it the
responsibility and activities that go along with it, or is it the glamour and
esteem associated with it? Do I really love that person, or am I in love with
the glamour I have projected onto him or her?”
The more we let go, the more we de-glamorize the world. The more it
is de-glamorized, the less it runs us. W e are not at the ef fect of glamour and
can no longer be manipulated by it. W e are no longer vulnerable to the
professional programmers of the media and the political and social arenas. W e are no longer at the ef fect of an inner need for approval from others. W e begin to love people for what they are, not for what they can do for
us. W e no longer need to exploit others or try to win them over . As our own
level of guilt decreases, our self-esteem expands. Relationships are now
based on integrity , and we are no longer subject to emotional blackmail. As
a corollary , we stop trying to blackmail others with emotional pressure. Because relationships are based on honesty , and they exist and function on ahigher plane, there is no longer a fear of alienation or feeling of aloneness. The surrendered person no longer needs others for personal fulfillment but
is with them out of choice because of love and enjoyment. Compassion for
others and for their humanness transforms life and all relationships. The State of Inner Fr eedom
What does life become when one continuously surrenders? What is
possible? In the surrendered state, we are independent of the outer world as a
source of satisfaction because the source of happiness has been found
within us. Happiness is shared with others so that, in relationships, the
surrendered person is supportive, sympathetic, encouraging, patient, and
tolerant. There is an ef fortless appreciation of the worth and values of
others and a consideration for their feelings. Power struggles, being “right,”
and proving our point have been relinquished. There is an automatic
nonjudgmental attitude and the supporting of others to grow , learn,
experience, and fulfill their own potentialities. There is an easy-going,
nurturing acceptance of others. W e feel relaxed, vibrant, and full of ener gy . Life events flow automatically and ef fortlessly . W e no longer respond from
a motive of sacrifice or “giving up” something for others; instead, we see
ourselves as being of loving service to others and the world. Life events are
seen as opportunities rather than challenges. The personality is gentle and
open with a willingness to let go and surrender nonstop because of the
unfolding and ongoing inner process of continuous revelation. As the process unfolds, we feel an inner transformation. This leads to a
consistent feeling of gratitude, pleasure, and certainty about our goals. There is a living in the present rather than a preoccupation with the past or
the future. There is a trusting defenselessness because the power that was
projected onto the world has been re-owned. There is an inner feeling of
strength and invulnerability leading to an inner serenity . At first, there is the identification, “I am the body .” As the mechanism
of surrender continues, it becomes quite obvious that, “I am the mind that
experiences the body , not the body .” As more feelings and belief systems
are surrendered, there eventually comes the awareness, “I am not the mind
either , but that which witnesses and experiences the mind, emotions, and
body .”Through inner observation, there is the realization of something that
remains constant and the same, no matter what goes on in the external
world or with the body , emotions, or mind. W ith this awareness comes a
state of total freedom. The inner Self has been discovered. The silent state
of A wareness that underlies all movement, activity , sound, feeling, and
thought is discovered to be a timeless dimension of peace. Once identified
with this A wareness, we are no longer at the ef fect of the world, the body ,
or the mind, and with this A wareness come an inner calmness, stillness, and
a profound sense of inner peace. W e realize that this is what we were
always seeking but didn’ t know it, because we had gotten lost in the maze. W e had mistakenly equated ourselves with the outer phenomena of our
hectic life—the body and its experiences, the obligations, the jobs, the titles,
the activities, the problems, and the feelings. But now we realize that we are
the timeless space in which the phenomena are happening. W e are not the
flickering images playing out their drama on the movie screen, but the
screen itself—a nonjudgmental witness of the unfolding movie of life, with
no beginning and no end, infinite in its potential. These progressive
realizations of our true nature prepare the ground for the Ultimate
Realization of the identity of Consciousness with Divinity Itself. CHAPTER
18
R E L A T I O N S H I P S
Because they are so intimately connected with our basic desires for love
and security , relationships quickly bring up our innermost feelings. For that
reason, they are extremely valuable, no matter whether the relationship is
classified as good or bad. In the process of emotional emancipation,
everything is equally valuable. It is necessary to remind ourselves that
feelings are programs; that is, they are learned responses that often have a
purpose. That purpose is directly related to achieving an ef fect on the other
person’ s feelings and, by doing so, to influence their feelings toward
ourselves and to fulfill our own inner goals. W e will look at common emotional reactions and examine what their
real purpose is. Emotional reactions have nothing to do with love, for love
is a state of oneness with another . Love is not just an emotion that comes
and goes. What often passes for love in common human understanding is
primarily attachment, dependency , and possessiveness. Negative Feelings
As we shall see, all emotions toward others involve the basic belief that we
are incomplete within ourselves and, therefore, others are viewed and
utilized as a means to an end. Although we may not be able to influence the
other person in the way we would like, the utilization of the other person
still occurs on the level of fantasy and expectation. W e also discover that
much of what we experience in a relationship is happening only in our
imagination. Let’ s start first with the most negative emotions; we willdiscover what their underlying purpose is and the other person’ s likely
response. Anger
The first feelings we will start with are the most negative: feelings of hate,
malice, anger , rage, revenge, and violence. It is obvious that the underlying
fantasy here is to eliminate, banish, kill, destroy , injure, hurt, frighten, and
intimidate. The other person’ s likely response is to avoid us, to hate us in
return, and to bring about a counter -attack. Lesser forms of anger are
criticism, criticalness, resentment, sulking, stewing, and negative judgments
about others. The emotional purpose is to punish others, make them feel
sorry , try to force them to change their feelings or behavior , make them
suf fer , get even with them, diminish and devalue them. This, of course, also
results in the other person’ s response of counter -criticism, counter -
resentment, and avoidance. T o handle this area, we have to realize that almost everyone has these
fantasies. Playing ostrich with them, thinking that they are wicked or that
we are guilty , will not resolve them. W e have to come up to the level of
courage and look at our worst feelings, admit that they are part of the
condition of being human, and remember that we are only held accountable
for what we do with them. It is obvious that these negative feelings take an
enormous emotional toll on our own inner selves. That reason alone is
suf ficient to warrant looking at them and letting go of them. Looking at the feelings on the level of interpersonal relationships, we
now discover another law of consciousness. Our feelings and thoughts
always have an effect on other persons and affect our r elationships,
whether these thoughts or feelings ar e verbalized, expr essed, or not. W e
will not, at this point, go into the discussion of the mechanics of exactly
how this comes about, but it is currently an area of research of modern
advanced quantum physics, especially that area concerned with high ener gy
subatomic particles and their relationship to thoughts and thought forms. W e can likely intuit the truth of this law of consciousness from our own
experience. W e generally know , for example, when someone is angry
toward us, even if they say nothing about it. Sensing their repressed angry
feeling, we might ask, “Is something wrong?” Even when they reply , “Oh
nothing,” we are still aware of the ener gy of anger and upset.It is somewhat dismaying to discover the truth of this interfacing at the
ener getic level, but anyone can discover it by inner investigation. The
overall attitudes we hold about another person are influencing that other
person’ s feelings and attitudes about us whether we express them or not. W omen in our society are more intuitive than men; they are generally more
consciously aware that their thoughts and feelings are known by others. T rue psychics, of course, are merely people who are experts at intuition. When first discovering the truth of this, we might go through sort of a
mild paranoia. Most everyone is brought up to believe that our thoughts and
feelings are private af fairs and nobody else’ s business, that all minds are
separated, and that emotions happen only within the confines of the body . As we begin to investigate this area, we find that often the set of feelings
we hold about another person is mirrored back to us by their attitude and
that, when we change our inner attitude about them, their attitude changes
abruptly . W e are unconsciously influencing others all the time because of
the feelings we hold about them. As we become more intuitive, we will
laugh at our former naïveté. And, if we research further into the world of
psychics and parapsychology , we will discover that thoughts and feelings
can be read by expert psychics, even from the other side of the globe. The only way to get over this initial paranoia is to clean up our own
act. Finding out what needs to be cleaned up is simple and easy . Just look at
what you would not want others to know about you and begin to surrender
it! W ith observation, it is quite clear that these intensely negative feelings
reverberate and boomerang back to us, and profoundly af fect our
relationships. The other person merely mirrors back what we are projecting
onto them. People who carry a lot of hatred find that they are living in a
hateful world and that lots of people hate them. They see external situations
and the world as hateful. What they fail to see is that this entire situation is
self-created. W e have the secret hope that our angry feelings towards others will
punish and make them suf fer . Actually , we are just providing them with
justification to hate us back. W e have to live with the fear of their retaliation
and our own unconscious guilt, which often results in physical sickness. It
will be discovered that all of our anger and resentment are due to our
perception, that is, to the way in which we are viewing a given situation. When the inner feelings are relinquished, the way in which we see thesituation changes, and we are often surprised by the abruptness with which
feelings of for giveness suddenly arise and the relationship becomes
transformed, even though on the external level we did or said nothing to
express this inner change. This happens with great frequency when our intention is to overcome
our resentments. A Course in Miracles  is based on that precise process of
changing our view of a situation by the willingness to see it dif ferently and
to be for giving. This is what was meant by Jesus Christ when he spoke of
the miraculous power of for giveness. Interestingly enough, there is a scientific basis for Jesus Christ’ s
admonition to bless and love our enemies. On the level of ener gy , the lower
feelings have a lower vibration frequency and lower power . When we are in
lower ener gy state such as anger , hate, violence, guilt, jealousy or any other
negative feelings, we are psychically vulnerable to the other person. In
contrast, for giveness, gratitude, and loving-kindness have a much higher
ener gy vibration and much greater power . When we shift out of a lower to a
higher ener gy pattern, we create a protective shield on the ener getic level,
as it were, and we can no longer be psychically vulnerable to that other
person. When we are in a state of anger , for instance, we are vulnerable to
the ener gy depletion brought about by the other person’ s counter -anger . Paradoxically , if we really want to af fect other people, then we ought to
really love them. Then, their anger at us will boomerang back upon them
with no ef fect upon us! This was the wisdom of the Buddha’ s statement in
the Dhammapada , “Hate is not conquered by hate. Hate is conquered by
love. This is an eternal law .”
Guilt
The next “heavy” area of negativity is guilt. Here the underlying purpose is
to placate, to assuage, to escape punishment by self-punishment, and to
elicit for giveness. The most important of these is the wish to elicit
punishment from another person, combined with self-punishment. This is
not a conscious wish; nevertheless, it is the unconscious purpose of guilt. W ith a little investigation, this can easily be verified. The next time we are
feeling guilty about something particular regarding another person, watch
what happens in the next encounter . Almost inevitably , they will bring up
the very thing we are holding in mind. For instance, if we are feeling guilty
because of lateness to an appointment, that guilt will frequently elicit acritical response from the other person. By the holding of guilt, we bring on
to ourselves all the criticalness of others and their belittlement of us; our
low self-esteem is channeled back to us through others in the form of their
invalidation of our life. If we hold in mind that we are small and unworthy , we elicit those
kinds of responses from others, whose remarks tend to indicate that we are
small and unworthy . If we think we are only worth a crust of bread, then
that is what we will get. This is what the scriptures mean by the statement,
“The poor get poorer and the rich get richer .” Poverty on any level, not just
financial, comes from inner poverty , just as outer wealth comes from inner
wealth. If we want others to stop being critical of us and attacking us, the
answer is to begin letting go of guilt and all the feelings that have brought it
about. T o help clarify the role of emotions in interpersonal relationships, a
very quick way of learning is to presume that the other person is conscious
and aware of our inner thoughts and feelings. By doing this, we will not be
far from wrong, for they are indeed intuitively aware of our thoughts and
feelings, even if they are not consciously aware at a given moment. They
will respond to us as if they knew our inner feelings. The overall
r elationship will behave as though the other person wer e awar e of our inner
feelings. If we are still holding the fantasy that other people do not know
our thoughts and feelings, just notice that dogs quickly do! Do we really
think that the human psyche is inferior to that of a dog? If a dog can quickly
read our total inner attitude, we can be sure that the intuition of people
around us is picking up the same vibration. Apathy and Grief
The feelings of apathy , grief, depression, sorrow , self-pity , the blues,
hopelessness, and helplessness come from the inner program of “I can’ t.”
Their purpose is to elicit sympathy , to win back, to gain support, to make
others sorry , and to summon help. What is the ef fect of these feelings on
another person? Although there may be an initial attempt to help, eventually
this is replaced by pity and finally avoidance. Why avoidance? The
avoidance is because of the huge ener gy demand that we are making on the
other person. It is an attempt to drain them by throwing ourselves on their
doorstep. This results in the common saying, which sounds hard-hearted butis unfortunately so often true: “When you laugh, the world laughs with you;
but when you cry , you cry alone.”
Constant grief will drive others away . They begin to resent it unless
they are in a very high place themselves and capable of ef fortless
compassion. Chronic grief brings premature aging, a tiredness and
weariness about the person, and it can only be overcome when we have the
courage to allow it to come up under appropriate conditions and have the
willingness to surrender to it and let it go. Fear
The feelings of fear—whether tension and anxiety , shyness, self-
consciousness, caution, holding back, or distrust—have the purpose of
escape from the imagined threat, and to put psychological distance from the
feared situation or person. Paradoxically , as we have pointed out before,
because the fear is powerful, the very process of holding it in mind can
make that which is feared come into our life. It is like a self-fulfilling
prophecy . The ener gy of fear generates an inner focus on all the negative
things that could happen, and that focus can coalesce the appearance of the
very events that we fear the most. Fear in relationships, therefore, is giving away our power to another
person and enabling them to do the very thing that is feared. The way out is
to look at the worst possible scenario and look at the feelings they arouse
and begin to relinquish them. Like other emotions, fear can be unraveled to
its component parts, and the parts are then easily relinquished. For instance,
let’ s say that there is fear of critical attack. W e ask ourselves, “What is the
worst possible scenario?” W ith this question, we see that the basis of the
fear is pride. When the pride is recognized and relinquished, the fear
automatically dissolves. Again, in a relationship in which we are
experiencing fear , if we unravel the fear , we may find that it is really a fear
of discovery of our inner anger; the fear is that the other person will
retaliate against the anger . Again, when we relinquish the anger , the fear
will automatically disappear . The insecure person is fearful and prone to jealousy , clinging,
possessiveness, and attachment in relationships, an approach that always
brings frustration. The purpose of these feelings is to bind and tightly
possess the other , to achieve security by preventing loss and, at times, to
punish the other for our own fear of loss. Again, these attitudes tend tobring into manifestation the very thing that we are holding in mind. The
other person, now feeling pressured by our ener gy of dependency and
possessiveness, has an inner impulse to run for freedom, to withdraw , to
detach and do the very thing that we fear the most. These attitudes lead to
constantly wanting to influence others. Because people intuitively pick up
our wish to control them, their response is to resist. So the only way to
bring about relinquishment of their resisting us is to let go of wanting to
influence them in the first place. This means letting go of the inner fears as
they come up. Pride
Feelings of pride are often condoned in our society and take the form of
perfectionism, neatness, punctuality , dependability , “good personhood,”
excessive cleanliness, workaholism, excessive ambition, success, moral
superiority , and politeness. In its exacerbated forms, we see arrogance,
boastfulness, vanity , smugness, and prejudice; on the spiritual level, there is
the righteous killing of “nonbelievers.” The underlying emotional purpose
of these feelings toward others is to win their admiration, avoid criticism or
rejection, gain acceptance, be important, and thereby overcome our own
inner feelings of worthlessness. Unfortunately , the feelings that are aroused
in the other person are often those of envy , competitiveness, or even hatred
and easy exploitation. If we look at pride, we see that it’ s often a substitute
for genuine self-esteem. It is also of considerable interest to realize that the major relationship to
which many people apply these phenomena is the relationship to God. There is the belief, often unconscious, that we can elicit a certain response
from God: “God will feel sorry for me”; “God will retaliate against me”;
“God will punish me”; “God will be pleased with me”; “God will favor
me.”
When we have adequate self-esteem, we are motivated by inner
humility and gratitude and, therefore, we have no need for the constant
eliciting of strokes and pats from others (or God). When we stop wanting to
be liked, we find that we are. When we stop catering to others and trying to
manipulate their approval, we find that they do respect us. Self-denigration
in the forms of placating, flattering, deference, self-ef facement, and
passivity are all attempts to influence others by catering to their ego, so as
to get favorable treatment and get our own way . False humility merely saysto the other person, “I am a small person; please treat me that way” and, of
course, they promptly do. As is quite apparent, all of the above emotions are manipulative of the
other person and destructive of real relationship. They all diminish our self-
esteem for they are all positions of vulnerability . Thus, although we may
think that we feel well and secure at the level of pride, that pride is always
accompanied by defensiveness due to its basic vulnerability . W e puf f up
with pride whenever we feel insecure. The inflation of pride is easily
susceptible to the puncture of a passing remark or raised eyebrow . The Human Condition
All of the negative feelings are essentially forms of fear: fear of loss of
esteem by ourselves or others, or fear of not surviving and a loss of security . Because most of the negative feelings are accompanied by a negative value
judgment, they are suppressed, repressed, or projected.
_OceanofPDF.com_Letting_Go_-_David_R_Hawkins.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        Understanding the process involved here is very
important, because it is quite dif ferent than the world’ s usual methods. The
approach that brings fast and easy results is the following: Don’ t look for
answers; instead, let go of the feelings behind the question. When we are
surrendered on the feeling behind the question, we can let go of any other
feelings that we might also have about what seems to be the problem. When
we are finally and fully surrendered on all components, the answer will be
there waiting for us. W e won’ t have to look for it. Consider how simple and
easy this is as compared to the mind’ s usual long, drawn-out, inef ficient
attempts at problem solving. Usually the mind hunts and pecks endlessly,
fumbling around with first this possible answer and then that one. The
reason the mind can’ t decide is because it is looking in the wrong place. Let’ s see how the system works with a common everyday example. Let’ s say that we disagree with our mate on which movie to see. W e look to
see what the feeling is behind the problem. In this case, let’ s say that we
find the feeling of anger and resentment, specifically that we feel resentful
about the lack of romantic time spent together. What we really want tonight
is af fectionate time spent together. As we let it be okay inside ourselves that
what we really want is af fectionate togetherness, it suddenly dawns on us
that we don’ t want to go to a movie at all. W e just want to be together. Or
the opposite might happen. W e might find that the feeling behind wanting
to go to a movie is fear, because we want to avoid spending the evening
talking to and being close to our mate. W e see that the feelings we have
built up are unpleasant. W e have resentment, so we let go of wanting to
modify that feeling, and we just let it be there. It’ s okay to have that
resentment. As we surrender our resistance to the resentful feeling, we feel
less guilty; we admit to our mate that we have had a resentment. A dialogue
starts going, and the other person’ s feelings are cleared up as well. W e both
feel relieved and closer, and we then say, “T o heck with the movies. Let’ s
stay home, make love, and go for a walk in the moonlight. ”
This approach is rewarding in all decision-making. When we first clear
out the underlying feelings, the decisions are more realistic and wise. Think
of how often we have changed our mind and regretted past decisions. That
is because there was an unrecognized and un-relinquished feeling behind
the decision. When the action that was decided upon is taken, the
underlying feeling shifts. Then, from the viewpoint of the new feelingspace, the decision turns out to be wrong. This happens with such regularity
that most people develop a fear of decision-making, because it turned out to
be wrong so often in the past. Problem solving using the mechanism of surrender can often be
lightning quick with problems of long standing. T o discover how fast it can
work, let’ s try it out. T ake several problems of long standing and stop
looking for the answers. Look to see what the underlying feeling is that
produced the question in the first place. Once that feeling is let go, the
answer will present itself automatically. Lifestyle
A lot of our activities and attachments are based on fear and anger, guilt and
pride. As these negative feelings are relinquished in any given area, we
move up to courage. On that level, changes in life begin to occur. Or, if we
choose to continue the same activity, the motivation is dif ferent and,
consequently, we will experience dif ferent results than in the past. The
emotional payof f will at least be dif ferent. Instead of grim satisfaction, we
may experience joy. W e may find ourselves doing the same activity as
before, but now we do it out of enjoyment rather than obligation. W e do it
because we want to, not because we have to. The ener gy requirement will
certainly be much less. One delightful discovery we will make is that our capacity for love is
far beyond what we ever dreamed. The more we let go, the more loving we
become. More and more of our life will be spent doing things that we love
to do, with people for whom we feel increasing love. As this happens, our
life becomes transformed. W e look dif ferent. People respond dif ferently to
us. W e are relaxed, happy, and easy-going. People are attracted to us
because they feel comfortable and happy around us. W aitresses and cab
drivers suddenly mysteriously become attentive and courteous, and we will
wonder, “What has come over this world. ” The answer to that question is
“ Y ou  have. ”
As we let go the negative, we come into our own power. It happens of
its own. Happiness was in there all along and now it shines forth after the
blocks to it have been surrendered. W e are now influencing everyone with
whom we come into contact in a favorable way. Love is the most powerful
of the emotional ener gy vibrations. For love, people will go to any lengths
and do things that they would never do for any amount of money. When the negative blocks and “I can’ ts” are removed, whole new areas
of life open up to us. Success stems from doing what we like to do best, but
most people are tied down to what they imagine they have to do. As
limitations are relinquished, whole new avenues of creativity and
expression become available. Let’ s take the example of a young woman with a lot of natural musical
talent who was spending most of her time at a boring job, which she felt she
had to stick to for financial reasons. What she really liked to do was play
musical instruments when she was alone at home. It was something that she
did strictly for personal enjoyment. Because of the lack of self-confidence,
she seldom played for other people, even close friends. After she began to
let go of her inner limitations—all of the low-ener gy feelings that were
blocking her expression—her abilities and confidence grew so rapidly that
she began to play in front of public gatherings. Her talent was well
received, and a busy musical career ensued. She made a professional
recording that was suf ficiently successful that she could cut back to
working part time, and she began to pour more time and ener gy into what
was now a blossoming career that brought her great joy and satisfaction. Although she had known nothing about business, she now started her own
musical business and, within a year, was distributing the recordings
nationally, then in Europe. T o her delight, she found that she was very
successful by doing what she liked to do best. Her increasing vitality and
happiness were apparent to everyone, and success spread to other areas of
her life. Another example is that of a middle-aged engineer with no creative
ability who had always hated poetry. After learning to let go of his negative
feelings, suddenly he found himself writing Haiku (a formal Japanese
poetry style). He began writing reams of it ef fortlessly and later developed
the capacity for automatic writing. Still another example is that of a sixty-year -old woman who decided to
return to college part time, even though she already had a full-time job. Eventually, she attained her bachelor ’ s degree, then her master ’ s degree,
and finally a Ph. D. , becoming an important executive with great
responsibilities. There are literally thousands of examples that could be cited of the
rapid expansions that take place in people’ s life when the “I can’ ts” aresurrendered. Life situations, often of long standing, may be suddenly
resolved. Paradoxically, such breakthroughs and expansions may be upsetting to
friends and family members because of the shift of balance. Things that we
had done out of constriction, fear, guilt, or a sense of duty may be suddenly
thrown overboard. New levels of consciousness change perception and new
horizons open up. Many of the motives that drive people may suddenly
become meaningless. Such things as money, fame, esteem, position,
prestige, power, ambition, competitiveness, and the need for security
diminish. They are replaced by the motivations of love, cooperation,
fulfillment, freedom, creative expression, expansion of consciousness,
understanding, and spiritual awareness. There tends to be more reliance on
intuition and feelings than on thinking, reason, and logic. People who are
very “yang” may discover their “yin” side, and vice versa. Rigid patterns
give way to flexibility. Safety and security become less important than
discovery and exploration. Personal lives pick up momentum, and
movement replaces stuck-in-a-rut life patterns. One surprising observation about the mechanism of letting go is that
major changes can take place very rapidly. Lifetime patterns can suddenly
disappear, and long-standing inhibitions can be let go of in a matter of
minutes, hours, or days. Rapid changes are accompanied by an increased
aliveness. The life ener gy set free by the letting go of negativity now flows
into positive attitudes, thoughts, and feelings, with a progressive increase of
personal power. Thoughts are now more ef fective. More is accomplished
with less ef fort. Intention is made powerful by the removal of doubts, fears,
and inhibitions. W ith the removal of negativity, dynamic forces are
unloosed, so that what were once impossible dreams now become
actualized goals. Resolution of Psychological Pr oblems: Comparison with
Psychotherapy
In general, letting go is often more rapid than psychotherapy. It is often
more liberating and stimulating to the growth of consciousness and
awareness. Psychotherapy, however, is better designed to elucidate
underlying patterns. The two may work well together. The mechanism of
letting go facilitates and speeds up psychotherapy, and it elevates its goals. Psychotherapy may be more gratifying intellectually because of its verbalnature and its focus on the “whys” behind behavior. However, that is also
its limitation. T oo often intellectual insight is all that’ s really achieved, and
the emotional working through is slow, often painful, and ultimately
avoided. The mechanism of letting go, on the other hand, is concerned with
the emotional “what” from moment to moment, without involving the
intellect. The “why” becomes apparent of itself once the “what” has been
relinquished. It’ s one thing to analyze the causal basis of depression and
quite another to enter fully into the depth of hopelessness by letting go of
your resistance to the feeling. By allowing the full feeling of it and by
letting go of every sensation, every thought, and every little payof f you are
getting from it, you are free. It’ s not necessary to probe the “why” of
depression to become free from the “what” of it. The goals of letting go are far beyond those of psychotherapy. The
ultimate aim of letting go and surrendering is total freedom. The goal of
therapy is readjustment of the ego to a more healthy balance. The two
systems are based on dif ferent paradigms of reality. The objective of
psychotherapy is to replace unsatisfactory mental programs with more
satisfactory ones. In contrast, the objective of letting go is the elimination of
limiting mental and emotional programs. It is the attainment of an
unconditioned mind and, ultimately, transcendence of the mind itself to
higher states of consciousness of love and peace. In therapy, there is dependence on therapists and their training and
techniques, and there is also reliance on a psychological theory to which the
therapist and the patient both subscribe. Scientific research reveals that the
results of therapy are not related to the therapist’ s school of psychotherapy,
training or technique; instead, the results are related to the interaction
between them and the degree of the patient’ s desire to improve, as well as
the patient’ s faith and confidence in the therapist. Therefore, psychic factors
are operating of which psychotherapy is unaware. W ith the mechanism of letting go, there is no patient role and no
dependency on another person or theory. The very wellsprings of neurotic
patterns automatically unfold as they are acknowledged, relinquished, and
disappear. Their basis is often at depths untouched by psychotherapy. Except for the few holistic frameworks (e. g. , Jungian analysis,
transpersonal psychology), therapy can be based on a limited understanding
of the total mind. It commonly addresses itself only to a portion of the ego. It ignores and does not comprehend the great forces that determine, drive,and control the mind. Since the purpose of most psychotherapy is a well-
adjusted ego, there is no conception of what is beyond the ego. The purpose of letting go, in contrast, is the elimination of the ego. The
ego is fearful and limited and, when it is surrendered, the inner Self stands
forth, and what was always more powerful is revealed. Many
psychotherapies have no real knowledge of the Self and are, therefore, blind
to Reality Itself. As for ef ficacy, psychotherapy is like a horse and buggy,
while the mechanism of surrender and letting go is like a space ship. In the
time it takes for therapy to slowly poke about a limited area, letting go has
already moved far beyond it into a whole new dimension. Letting go has a peculiar advantage in that the surrendering of one
negative feeling also relinquishes the ener gy behind many other negative
feelings, so there is a constant across-the-board ef fect. For instance, a
successful and well-educated man had a life-long terrible fear of heights, an
intense phobia. At the time that he learned how to utilize the mechanism of
surrender, he had many pressing problems in his life. After learning how to
surrender, he was busy with letting go of his feelings and fears about major
life problems and never got around to specifically working on his lifelong
fear of heights. When he was later in a situation involving standing on a
roof, he was amazed to discover that his fear had greatly lessened. He was
delighted and went to the edge of the roof where he sat dangling his feet. He was now able to get up on ladders and go on the roof for an hour with
no discomfort. This illustrates that, as one fear is relinquished, all fear is
diminished non-specifically. Psychotherapy aims at the amelioration of neurotic patterns. Letting go,
however, is designed to undo the underlying causes of all neurotic
formation. It undoes the basic structure of maladaptive feeling and
behavior. Psychotherapy seeks for an improvement in neurotic balance. Letting go, however, eliminates it all together. A limitation of most psychotherapeutic frameworks is that the therapist
is constricted to what the world calls a healthy, functioning ego with all its
restrictions. In this paradigm, a healthy patient is considered to be one who
shares the same illusions and limitations condoned by society and the
therapist. By contrast, the purpose of the mechanism of surrender is to
transcend the illusions of the world and reach the ultimate truth behind it—
which is Self-Realization—and to discover the very basis of the mind itself,
the source of all thought and feeling. The goal of letting go is the elimination of the very sour ce of all
suffering and pain. This sounds radical and startling and, in fact, it is. Ultimately, all negative feelings stem from the same source. When enough
negative feelings have been relinquished, that source reveals itself. When
that source itself is let go of and dis-identified with, the ego dissolves. The
source of suf fering, therefore, loses the very basis of its power. Each of us has a limit to the amount of negative feelings we have
stored up. When the pressure behind an emotion has been let go, that
emotion no longer occurs. For instance, if fear is constantly surrendered for
a period of time, eventually it runs out. It then becomes dif ficult or almost
impossible to feel further fear. It takes progressively more and more of a
stimulus to elicit it. Finally, the person who has surrendered a great deal of
fear actually has to search for it diligently. The ener gy of fear simply isn’ t
there anymore. Anger also progressively diminishes so that even a major
provocation fails to elicit it. A person with little fear or anger feels
primarily love all of the time and experiences a loving acceptance of events,
people, and the vicissitudes of life. The goal of surrender is transcendence. Psychotherapy accepts levels of
behavior as healthy that, from the viewpoint of total freedom, are
unacceptable. For instance, in psychotherapy, minimal fear, anger, and pride
might be considered necessary or acceptable levels of functioning and
perhaps even “healthy. ” But as we have seen, the innate destructiveness
behind those lower states is ultimately not acceptable—given the power of
surrender to transcend them totally. Beyond the “acceptable level of
functioning” awaits our greater destiny: total freedom. CHAPTER
17
T R A N S F O R M A T I O N
Although letting go seems simple and easy, its ultimate ef fects are
profoundly powerful. A quick little surrender done in an almost of f-handed
manner can sometimes bring about a major change in our life. W e can
picture it being similar to the wheel of a ship. If we make even a one-degree
change in the ship’ s compass, we will notice very little dif ference; but, as
the ship sails over the sea hour after hour, day after day, a one-degree
change in the compass will end up taking us to a very dif ferent place many
miles from where the original course would have taken us. In this chapter we want to look at the ef fect that the mechanism of
surrender has on those areas of life with which most people are concerned:
health, wealth, and happiness. W e will discuss these areas as they are
usually experienced by the majority of people, and make a contrast to the
changes that will occur as the practice of letting go progresses. These
changes are quite obvious when we watch the lives of others who use the
technique. They will become obvious in your own life as well. Sometimes
you will not be aware of them; therefore, it is suggested that you keep a list
of goals and check of f the gains as they occur, so that you remain conscious
and aware of the progress. This self-awareness step is to circumvent a
peculiarity of the mind. When we decide on a specific technique to improve
our life, and when improvement occurs, the mind has a peculiar tendency to
discount the very technique that brought about the change. It is as though
the mind’ s ego is so vain that it doesn’ t want to give credit where credit is
due. This proclivity of mind to discount inner progress is sometimes quite
comical. For instance, a man who had been stuck in the same job position
for 23 years began using the technique of letting go. W ithin a couple of
months, he suddenly jumped to the position of V ice President and, by the
end of the year, he was President of the company. When asked if he was
pleased with himself about what he had accomplished by using the inner
technique, his mind totally discounted it and ascribed his gains to “shifts in
business patterns. ” His marriage had also improved and the mind, again,
ascribed the improvements to external reasons: “My wife’ s attitudes finally
changed. ” The relationship with his son also improved, and the mind again
circumvented the inner transformation and said it was due to the fact that
his son was “getting older. ”
In the discussions that follow, it will be noted that the transitions from
one state to a higher state are not dif ficult to make. They may only seem
“dif ficult” to us because of current perceptions. It’ s important to keep in
mind that, as we surrender, our perceptions will change. Our goals will
automatically be elevated. What now seems impossible will become old hat
after we have been practicing the technique a while. W e will also notice that, as the mind contrasts the lower level of life
with the higher level, a peculiar resistance to the description of a higher
level of functioning will occur at times. The mind will get critical and try to
save face by ridiculing a higher state. This is a golden opportunity because
this is the very attitude that prevents a person from reaching that higher
state of life. The very process of reading this material is invaluable, for it
will reveal precisely what the blocks are and exactly why these goals are
impossible at the present time. As resistances, criticisms, and
disparagements come up, we can begin surrendering them and letting them
go right now in the process of reading about them. It is a great opportunity
to identify the inner blocks to fulfillment. As Pogo said, “W e have
identified the enemy, and it is us. ”
As a professional psychotherapist and psychiatrist with many decades
of clinical experience and training, these higher levels of functioning were
considered to be impossible for most people. However, learning how the
mechanism of surrender works on the practical level and watching hundreds
of families, friends, patients, and ex-patients transform their lives has totally
changed this view. Now, higher levels of functioning are seen to be
automatic, easy to achieve, and available to everyone, often in asurprisingly short period of time. As a matter of fact, some of these levels
of success and happiness will seem impossible, but the higher level will
already have occurred by the time you have finished reading this book. Y ou
can tell yourself right in the beginning that these high levels of functioning
are not only possible, but they are an inherent birthright. They are the
natural state of which you have been deprived by all the programming that
the mind has been subjected to since birth. Before reading on, it is advisable to sit quietly and make an inner
decision to let go resisting higher levels of functioning. This means to make
a decision to stop denying the higher levels to yourself, and to make a
decision to let go of all blocks to happiness, success, health, acceptance,
love, and peace. By doing this, the deed is already done, for you have set
the whole experience into a context that will automatically begin to unfold. Health
The average person is preoccupied with the body, its functioning,
performance, appearance, and survival. The average mind is beleaguered
with worries, fears of sickness, suf fering, disease, and death; therefore, the
mind sets about defending the body in a great variety of ways. This leads to
over -attention to diet, weight, exercise, and the health of the environment. W ith such inner tension, by the end of the day the average person frequently
feels like a victim: drained, empty, and exhausted. One consequence of this preoccupation with the body is self-
consciousness. W ithin the field of awareness, the body’ s presence is
prominent, and there is a mental fixation with what it is doing, its
whereabouts and movements, its survival, the attitudes and approval of
other persons toward the body, its appearance and behavior. Underlying all of this concern is the unconscious equation, “I am a
body. ” This is a very limited level of consciousness. In fact, in the spiritual
world this is called “being unconscious. ” Because it is a false identification
due to a marked narrowing of awareness, it is like wearing blinders. It is
like having a pimple on the nose and thinking that the whole world now
revolves around that pimple, and going through the day with that pimple
most prominent in our mind. Be aware of how much ener gy is drained by this constant
preoccupation with the body. Our mind has been continuously programmed
with a countless variety of belief systems about the body: what it needs,what will be good for it, and its infinite number of vulnerabilities. This
leads to constant preoccupations with all kinds of health preventive
measures, including health food fads, the endless reading of labels for
potentially poisonous ingredients, the fear of being near someone smoking a
cigarette, the fear of dusts and pollens and all of the supposed contaminants
of the environment. There is an obsession with of fsetting all of these
“dangers” by various countermeasures. As we have seen from previous discussions, these vulnerabilities are
merely the product of the mind, and the body will react to what is held in
mind. This was demonstrated in our discussion of multiple personalities
where the body reflected in each instant what that particular personality and
mind believed. As we begin letting go of all these fears, cancelling the belief systems
and reaf firming that our true Self is Infinite and not subject to limitations,
we move into a higher state of health, wellness, and vital ener gy. A helpful
way to phrase it to ourselves is, “I am an Infinite Being, not subject to
____________. ” W e put into the blank space whatever disease or substance
that the mind has been programmed to see as a possible “danger” for us. After letting go of the endless variety of bodily fears, concerns and
belief systems, physical illnesses begin to resolve automatically. There is an
increase in the feeling of aliveness and personal freedom. In the state of
total surrender, the body is barely perceived at all. It is only peripherally in
awareness, and there is no preoccupation with it. It functions ef fortlessly,
smoothly, and with very little attention. A surrendered person can eat anything or go anywhere and is no longer
subject to fears of contaminants, pollutants, drafts, germs, electromagnetic
frequencies, carpet, smoke, dust, animal dander, poison ivy, pollen, or food
dyes. Our perception of the body shifts, and it now seems to be like a
puppet or a pet. This shift of perception is from “I am  the body” to “I have  a
body. ”
It becomes progressively obvious that the body is not experiencing
itself at all. On the contrary, it is the mind that is experiencing the body. W ithout the mind, the body cannot be perceived at all. The arm cannot
experience its arm-ness. Only the mind can experience the arm-ness. This,
of course, is the very basis of anesthesia. When the mind is asleep, the body
has no sensation. It slowly dawns on us that, in fact, the body doesn’ t have
any sensation; only the mind is capable of that function. This is a very important shift of consciousness because now the
preoccupation is not with the body and defending it. The focus of attention
now shifts to the mind, which is where the greater power lies. As we shift
our thoughts, feelings and perceptions, we begin to notice that the body
follows suit. W e recognize that people are not really responding to our body
at all but to our inner attitudes, our ener gy state, and our level of awareness. One day it dawns on us that everyone and everything in the world are
responding to our level of consciousness, our intention, and to the inner
feeling we have about them. W e register the magnetism of saintly people
such as Mother T eresa, the Dalai Lama, and Mahatma Gandhi. W e see that
they are beloved not because of their physical appearance, but because of
the inner radiance of love and peace they emanate. The shift of focus from
the physical level to the level of consciousness begins to bring rapid results. The persistent surrender of negative feelings and attitudes means that
the associated guilt is also being constantly relinquished. A consciousness
that is not guilt-ridden tends no longer to attract disease. In the unconscious,
guilt requires punishment and sickness, with its attendant pain and
suf fering, as the mind’ s most frequent means of self-retaliation. This self-
retaliation may take the form of an accident, cold, attack of the flu, arthritis,
or any of the multiple diseases that the mind has invented. These diseases
take epidemic forms due to television and media publicity. When a
prominent figure shares with the public some serious illness, there is a
sudden jump in the incidence of that illness. The unconscious grabs hold of
a disease and utilizes it to settle the score. W ith the constant surrender of
inner guilt, there is less and less of a score to be settled. Therefore, a person
who is free of negativity and guilt tends to be free of disease and suf fering. The healing can be dramatic. There was the case, for example, of a
magazine publisher who was in a hopeless state of advanced multiple
sclerosis. The medical profession had done what it could and had given her
up as a terminal, hopeless case. At that point, she came upon a technique of
relinquishing guilt by studying the “W orkbook” of A Course in Miracles. In
working with this home-study course, which consists of contemplating
exactly one short lesson a day for 365 days, she began to undo all of her
guilt and resentment through the mechanism of for giveness. By constantly
for giving and undoing the negative feelings, and therefore undoing her
inner guilt, the disease of multiple sclerosis reversed itself. As of thiswriting, she has been recovered for years and is in radiant glowing health,
happy with her life. Health and well-being, then, are generally the automatic consequence
of the letting go of guilt and other negativities, as well as the letting go of
our resistance to the positive states of health and wellbeing. Through the
surrender mechanism, the whole gamut of illnesses can be resolved into
wellness. As was said earlier, there may be uncommon cases in which illness or
infirmity continues unabated due to unknown factors, such as karmic
proclivities. Continual surrender brings healing at the level of inner being
so that, even while the body appears to suf fer limitation and others may see
it as “tragic,” the person is at peace and radiates an inner well-being that
uplifts others. Through surrender at great depth, such persons have let go of
self-pity, guilt, and resistance to life circumstances. They have transcended
the view that their illness is a barrier to personal happiness and see it as a
vehicle of blessing to others. In recent years, public examples of this
phenomenon have included the late Pope John Paul II, who approached his
unremitting Parkinson’ s disease as a spiritual opportunity to become one
with, and even to take on, the suf fering of others. W ealth
This is an important subject, not only because it has such a direct ef fect on
our life, but also because it so quickly and easily makes obvious our
feelings, thoughts, and attitudes about money. T o the mind that holds
limiting belief systems and negative thoughts and feelings, money is a
“problem. ” It is a source of endless worry and anxiety, hopelessness and
despair, or of vanity, pride, arrogance, intolerance of others, jealousy, and
envy. At its worst the end result of all the negativity is a feeling of financial
limitation, lack, and deprivation. In this area, the feeling “I can’ t” due to
fear and limitation is often skirted by simply avoiding the whole issue of
money and resigning oneself to a low social economic status as
“inevitable. ”
The unconscious brings to us what it thinks we deserve. If our view of
ourselves is small, limited, and miserly—due to accumulated guilt—then
the unconscious will bring those economic conditions into our life. Our
attitudes about money can be discovered when we look at the many things
that it means. For example, we see the degree to which it stands for security,power, glamour, sexual attraction, successful competition, self-worth, and
our value to others and the world. It is very useful to sit down with pencil and paper and, under the
heading “Money,” begin to delineate what its real meanings are in all the
various avenues of life. Then, write down the feelings that are associated
with each area and begin to surrender on each negative feeling and attitude. As we do this, we have the surprising discovery that money in and of itself
is not the most basic issue. More important than money itself are the
emotional gratifications that we hope will be ours with the use of that
money. Let’ s say that, behind the desire for money, we discover that one of our
goals is to be respected and valued. In that discovery, we have just found
out that it isn’ t money itself that we are interested in; rather, it is our self-
respect and a feeling of inner worth. W e see that money was just a tool to
achieve something else and that, as a matter of fact, it isn’ t money that we
want at all but the self-respect and esteem we thought it would bring us. It
will also dawn on us that the goals which we thought money would bring us
can be achieved dir ectly. The higher our inner self-esteem, the less we need
the approval of others. As we uncover these awarenesses, money takes on a
dif ferent meaning in each area of life. Money now becomes subservient to
higher goals rather than an end unto itself. W ithout being conscious of what money means to us emotionally, we
are at the ef fect of it. W e are being run by our unconscious beliefs about
money and all of its associated programs. It is like the millionaire who
keeps piling up more and more millions. There never seems to be enough. Why is that. It is because he has never stopped to look at what money
really means to him. If we obsessively chase after money or other symbols
of wealth, it is because our inner self-worth is so small that it takes a huge
amount of money to compensate for it. The inner insecurity is so extensive
that no amount of money can overcome it. It might be said that the smaller
we feel inside, the greater amount of power, money, and glamour must be
accumulated in order to try and compensate for the inner smallness. When we are in a surrendered state, we are free from that inner
smallness, insecurity, and low self-esteem. Then, money becomes merely a
tool to achieve our goals in the world. W e have an inner security, knowing
that there will always be suf ficient abundance. W e will always get what we
need when we need it, because we have an inner feeling of completion,fulfillment, and satisfaction. Money, then, becomes a source of pleasure
rather than a source of anxiety. On a certain level, we may even appear to be indif ferent to money. When we need it to complete a project, it just magically seems to appear
from somewhere. W e feel nonchalant about it because we are connected to
the source of our own power. When we re-own the power that we have
given to money and see that it is our own power, we are no longer
concerned about money, nor do we need to accumulate a great deal of it. Once we have the formula for gold, we don’ t need to carry a bag of it on
our shoulder with all of its attendant worries and anxieties. The problem with excessive accumulation of money, of course, is the
constant fear of losing it. It is tragi-comic to watch someone who is worth
50 million dollars practically have a nervous breakdown because, through a
business oversight, he lost 10 million dollars. The man was actually in a
panic. Emotionally, he was frightened that he would not be able to survive
on the planet with only 40 million dollars. The person who suf fers from
inner poverty is relentlessly driven to accumulate on the material level. W ith this inner poverty, there is the whole attitude of selfishness or its
correlates of vanity and false pride. It is very common for people who use the letting go technique suddenly
to come into abundance. Struggling actors now have starring roles in
Hollywood. A playwright on the edge of poverty becomes the producer of a
smash Broadway hit. Paradoxically, some people have grown so nonchalant
about money that they have chosen to get rid of a lot of money and live a
much simpler life. They are no longer interested in money; they have
mastery over it. The inner satisfactions that they had sought by means of
money are now satisfied directly, so that inner happiness is independent of
outer wealth. In this state of inner freedom, one is independent of the outer
world and no longer at the ef fect of it. This is because one transcends that
which one has mastered. Happiness
In the sections on Health and W ealth, we have already touched upon
important areas relating to overall happiness. Now we will focus more on
inner emotional life because that is where we all really live. The purpose of
health and wealth is, after all, merely because we presume, and to some
extent it is true, that they result in happiness. Happiness can be experienceddirectly, however, and on this level it is relatively independent of health or
wealth. Let’ s take an objective look at the average view of happiness. T o begin
with, the happiness is extremely vulnerable. A chance remark, a critical
comment, a raised eyebrow, or a car cutting into line ahead of us are all
suf ficient to blow the average person’ s happiness in an instant. The threat of
a job loss, a feeling of distrust in a relationship, a foreboding remark by a
doctor, or an impertinent cab driver, are suf ficient to ruin the day for many
of us. Why is our happiness so fragile that commonplace occurrences can
“ruin” the whole day. In the section on the anatomy of emotions, we have already looked at
the reasons for this. As a result of negative feelings, thoughts, and attitudes,
together with the constant judgment and criticism of other people, we often
feel separated from others. Because of this feeling of inner aloneness and
separation, relationships take on the form of attachments, with all the fear,
anger, and jealousy that accompany any threat to those attachments. The
inner negativity results in such commonly held beliefs as, “Y ou are born
alone and you die alone. ” Nothing, in fact, is farther from the truth. As
recent books on near -death experiences reveal, it is during life that one
often feels alone and, at the moment of death, there is an absolute feeling of
oneness and connectedness (Eadie, 1992; Neal, 2011). Because of attachments, dependencies, and inner smallness, we may
feel weak and limited. The guilty intolerance of our inner thoughts and
feelings are projected onto the world, making the world look like a fearful
place. Because these fears are held in mind, fearful events and experiences
are literally brought into our life experience. Fear results in chronic anger
and makes us prone to attack and to inner emotional chaos. Pain and
suf fering occur, with periodic despair and proneness to emotional upset. The ego-mind, which sees everyone as separate, is envious of anyone else
who appears happier, more successful, or with a better relationship, a better
body, or better connections. Soon, because of a lack of inner clarity about
goals, there is confusion leading to self-pity, envy, and further resentment. Self-condemnation gets endlessly projected onto the world, taking the form
of condemnation from others, which increases further the guilt and feeling
of smallness. For some of us, the only escape is through grandiosity, intolerance,
bigotry, arrogance, and anger, which take the form of cruelty, over -bearingness, brutality, and insensitivity to the feelings of others. Often the
insensitivity comes with self-excuses, such as: “I am an upfront person who
speaks my mind,” or “I am the frank type; you always know where you
stand with me. ” These comments are a cover -up for insensitivity, which
might be better described as gauche. The low self-esteem results in
criticism of self and others, constant competition and comparison,
analyzing, contempt, intellectualization, doubt, and fantasies of revenge. When all of those mechanisms fail, there is the recurrence of apathy and
feelings of hopelessness and victimization. In such a state, we become
progressively alienated because there is so much of ourselves that we must
hide. Our behavior leads to isolation from others and an imbalance due to
over -valuation of the areas of life that do seem to work. Because of this inner chaos, the average person must of necessity stay
unconscious at all times. It is interesting to watch the means that the mind
has invented to accomplish this end. W e watch as a person gets up in the
morning and flips on the radio or the television to immediately get the mind
of f the self and its mental chatter. Despite the extra amusement, thoughts
and feelings tend to arise until the mind becomes preoccupied with the
projects of the day, work, and various schemes of accomplishment or
pleasure. It starts the preoccupation with the body—all of the brushing,
washing, perfuming, powdering, deodorizing and carefully selecting the
clothes for the day. The choosing of clothes brings up all the schedules of
the day, its busyness with activities that have all been crowded into the day:
the endless appointments, phone calls, errands, social engagements, home
responsibilities, and emails. On the way to work or the day’ s activities,
there is the chatting with companions, listening to the car radio, making the
cell phone calls, sending text-messages, and reading the morning newspaper
on the subway. Once at the destination, there follows the preoccupation
with the external events of the day: the business, the deals, the bar gains, the
arrangements, the worries, the manipulations, the endless search for power,
the quest for “strokes,” and the ever -present fear of survival. All of this is
motivated by the desire to somehow derive meaning and security, and to
increase our self-esteem and ensure our self-worth by whatever means. The franticness of the struggle is not really realized until we are
suddenly forced to discontinue it by some external event. Then, we are
confronted with the internal emptiness. This calls for the incessant ingestion
of novels, magazines, television, and websites. Or, the emptiness is avoidedby the constant going to parties, escaping through drugs, numbing out with
a few drinks, watching movies, and pursuing other amusements. W e tend to
do just about anything to avoid facing that feeling of inner emptiness. There is nothing wrong with any of these activities, in and of
themselves. What we want to examine is only the state of consciousness,
the state of awareness, and the manner in which the activities are perceived,
pursued, and experienced. In a state of inner freedom, these same events
and experiences take on a totally dif ferent significance. The identical activities can stem from an inner sense of happiness, self-
worth, and completeness. The same goals can be fulfilled through the
realization of our inner achievement rather than competition with others. Relationships become sharing and loving rather than jealous, competitive,
and driven by the seeking of “strokes” and approval. When we are free of
negative drives, we enjoy gratifying relationships because we love people,
not because we are attached to them. W e can allow the other person to be
free, not subject to jealousy and threat. W e are not the victims of
manipulation by others because we have already found an inner fulfillment. As negative thoughts, feelings, and attitudes are relinquished, we re-
own the power that we had given over to the world. Much of the attraction
of the world is due to the glamorization that we have projected onto it. Questions arise for self-reflection: “Is it really all that money that I want, or
is it the glamour that I have attached to it. What is it that I want from that
job title or from that designation of “Dr. ” and “Esq. ” and “Rev. ”. Is it the
responsibility and activities that go along with it, or is it the glamour and
esteem associated with it. Do I really love that person, or am I in love with
the glamour I have projected onto him or her. ”
The more we let go, the more we de-glamorize the world. The more it
is de-glamorized, the less it runs us. W e are not at the ef fect of glamour and
can no longer be manipulated by it. W e are no longer vulnerable to the
professional programmers of the media and the political and social arenas. W e are no longer at the ef fect of an inner need for approval from others. W e begin to love people for what they are, not for what they can do for
us. W e no longer need to exploit others or try to win them over. As our own
level of guilt decreases, our self-esteem expands. Relationships are now
based on integrity, and we are no longer subject to emotional blackmail. As
a corollary, we stop trying to blackmail others with emotional pressure. Because relationships are based on honesty, and they exist and function on ahigher plane, there is no longer a fear of alienation or feeling of aloneness. The surrendered person no longer needs others for personal fulfillment but
is with them out of choice because of love and enjoyment. Compassion for
others and for their humanness transforms life and all relationships. The State of Inner Fr eedom
What does life become when one continuously surrenders. What is
possible. In the surrendered state, we are independent of the outer world as a
source of satisfaction because the source of happiness has been found
within us. Happiness is shared with others so that, in relationships, the
surrendered person is supportive, sympathetic, encouraging, patient, and
tolerant. There is an ef fortless appreciation of the worth and values of
others and a consideration for their feelings. Power struggles, being “right,”
and proving our point have been relinquished. There is an automatic
nonjudgmental attitude and the supporting of others to grow, learn,
experience, and fulfill their own potentialities. There is an easy-going,
nurturing acceptance of others. W e feel relaxed, vibrant, and full of ener gy. Life events flow automatically and ef fortlessly. W e no longer respond from
a motive of sacrifice or “giving up” something for others; instead, we see
ourselves as being of loving service to others and the world. Life events are
seen as opportunities rather than challenges. The personality is gentle and
open with a willingness to let go and surrender nonstop because of the
unfolding and ongoing inner process of continuous revelation. As the process unfolds, we feel an inner transformation. This leads to a
consistent feeling of gratitude, pleasure, and certainty about our goals. There is a living in the present rather than a preoccupation with the past or
the future. There is a trusting defenselessness because the power that was
projected onto the world has been re-owned. There is an inner feeling of
strength and invulnerability leading to an inner serenity. At first, there is the identification, “I am the body. ” As the mechanism
of surrender continues, it becomes quite obvious that, “I am the mind that
experiences the body, not the body. ” As more feelings and belief systems
are surrendered, there eventually comes the awareness, “I am not the mind
either, but that which witnesses and experiences the mind, emotions, and
body. ”Through inner observation, there is the realization of something that
remains constant and the same, no matter what goes on in the external
world or with the body, emotions, or mind. W ith this awareness comes a
state of total freedom. The inner Self has been discovered. The silent state
of A wareness that underlies all movement, activity, sound, feeling, and
thought is discovered to be a timeless dimension of peace. Once identified
with this A wareness, we are no longer at the ef fect of the world, the body,
or the mind, and with this A wareness come an inner calmness, stillness, and
a profound sense of inner peace. W e realize that this is what we were
always seeking but didn’ t know it, because we had gotten lost in the maze. W e had mistakenly equated ourselves with the outer phenomena of our
hectic life—the body and its experiences, the obligations, the jobs, the titles,
the activities, the problems, and the feelings. But now we realize that we are
the timeless space in which the phenomena are happening. W e are not the
flickering images playing out their drama on the movie screen, but the
screen itself—a nonjudgmental witness of the unfolding movie of life, with
no beginning and no end, infinite in its potential. These progressive
realizations of our true nature prepare the ground for the Ultimate
Realization of the identity of Consciousness with Divinity Itself. CHAPTER
18
R E L A T I O N S H I P S
Because they are so intimately connected with our basic desires for love
and security, relationships quickly bring up our innermost feelings. For that
reason, they are extremely valuable, no matter whether the relationship is
classified as good or bad. In the process of emotional emancipation,
everything is equally valuable. It is necessary to remind ourselves that
feelings are programs; that is, they are learned responses that often have a
purpose. That purpose is directly related to achieving an ef fect on the other
person’ s feelings and, by doing so, to influence their feelings toward
ourselves and to fulfill our own inner goals. W e will look at common emotional reactions and examine what their
real purpose is. Emotional reactions have nothing to do with love, for love
is a state of oneness with another. Love is not just an emotion that comes
and goes. What often passes for love in common human understanding is
primarily attachment, dependency, and possessiveness. Negative Feelings
As we shall see, all emotions toward others involve the basic belief that we
are incomplete within ourselves and, therefore, others are viewed and
utilized as a means to an end. Although we may not be able to influence the
other person in the way we would like, the utilization of the other person
still occurs on the level of fantasy and expectation. W e also discover that
much of what we experience in a relationship is happening only in our
imagination. Let’ s start first with the most negative emotions; we willdiscover what their underlying purpose is and the other person’ s likely
response. Anger
The first feelings we will start with are the most negative: feelings of hate,
malice, anger, rage, revenge, and violence. It is obvious that the underlying
fantasy here is to eliminate, banish, kill, destroy, injure, hurt, frighten, and
intimidate. The other person’ s likely response is to avoid us, to hate us in
return, and to bring about a counter -attack. Lesser forms of anger are
criticism, criticalness, resentment, sulking, stewing, and negative judgments
about others. The emotional purpose is to punish others, make them feel
sorry, try to force them to change their feelings or behavior, make them
suf fer, get even with them, diminish and devalue them. This, of course, also
results in the other person’ s response of counter -criticism, counter -
resentment, and avoidance. T o handle this area, we have to realize that almost everyone has these
fantasies. Playing ostrich with them, thinking that they are wicked or that
we are guilty, will not resolve them. W e have to come up to the level of
courage and look at our worst feelings, admit that they are part of the
condition of being human, and remember that we are only held accountable
for what we do with them. It is obvious that these negative feelings take an
enormous emotional toll on our own inner selves. That reason alone is
suf ficient to warrant looking at them and letting go of them. Looking at the feelings on the level of interpersonal relationships, we
now discover another law of consciousness. Our feelings and thoughts
always have an effect on other persons and affect our r elationships,
whether these thoughts or feelings ar e verbalized, expr essed, or not. W e
will not, at this point, go into the discussion of the mechanics of exactly
how this comes about, but it is currently an area of research of modern
advanced quantum physics, especially that area concerned with high ener gy
subatomic particles and their relationship to thoughts and thought forms. W e can likely intuit the truth of this law of consciousness from our own
experience. W e generally know, for example, when someone is angry
toward us, even if they say nothing about it. Sensing their repressed angry
feeling, we might ask, “Is something wrong. ” Even when they reply, “Oh
nothing,” we are still aware of the ener gy of anger and upset. It is somewhat dismaying to discover the truth of this interfacing at the
ener getic level, but anyone can discover it by inner investigation. The
overall attitudes we hold about another person are influencing that other
person’ s feelings and attitudes about us whether we express them or not. W omen in our society are more intuitive than men; they are generally more
consciously aware that their thoughts and feelings are known by others. T rue psychics, of course, are merely people who are experts at intuition. When first discovering the truth of this, we might go through sort of a
mild paranoia. Most everyone is brought up to believe that our thoughts and
feelings are private af fairs and nobody else’ s business, that all minds are
separated, and that emotions happen only within the confines of the body. As we begin to investigate this area, we find that often the set of feelings
we hold about another person is mirrored back to us by their attitude and
that, when we change our inner attitude about them, their attitude changes
abruptly. W e are unconsciously influencing others all the time because of
the feelings we hold about them. As we become more intuitive, we will
laugh at our former naïveté. And, if we research further into the world of
psychics and parapsychology, we will discover that thoughts and feelings
can be read by expert psychics, even from the other side of the globe. The only way to get over this initial paranoia is to clean up our own
act. Finding out what needs to be cleaned up is simple and easy. Just look at
what you would not want others to know about you and begin to surrender
it. W ith observation, it is quite clear that these intensely negative feelings
reverberate and boomerang back to us, and profoundly af fect our
relationships. The other person merely mirrors back what we are projecting
onto them. People who carry a lot of hatred find that they are living in a
hateful world and that lots of people hate them. They see external situations
and the world as hateful. What they fail to see is that this entire situation is
self-created. W e have the secret hope that our angry feelings towards others will
punish and make them suf fer. Actually, we are just providing them with
justification to hate us back. W e have to live with the fear of their retaliation
and our own unconscious guilt, which often results in physical sickness. It
will be discovered that all of our anger and resentment are due to our
perception, that is, to the way in which we are viewing a given situation. When the inner feelings are relinquished, the way in which we see thesituation changes, and we are often surprised by the abruptness with which
feelings of for giveness suddenly arise and the relationship becomes
transformed, even though on the external level we did or said nothing to
express this inner change. This happens with great frequency when our intention is to overcome
our resentments. A Course in Miracles  is based on that precise process of
changing our view of a situation by the willingness to see it dif ferently and
to be for giving. This is what was meant by Jesus Christ when he spoke of
the miraculous power of for giveness. Interestingly enough, there is a scientific basis for Jesus Christ’ s
admonition to bless and love our enemies. On the level of ener gy, the lower
feelings have a lower vibration frequency and lower power. When we are in
lower ener gy state such as anger, hate, violence, guilt, jealousy or any other
negative feelings, we are psychically vulnerable to the other person. In
contrast, for giveness, gratitude, and loving-kindness have a much higher
ener gy vibration and much greater power. When we shift out of a lower to a
higher ener gy pattern, we create a protective shield on the ener getic level,
as it were, and we can no longer be psychically vulnerable to that other
person. When we are in a state of anger, for instance, we are vulnerable to
the ener gy depletion brought about by the other person’ s counter -anger. Paradoxically, if we really want to af fect other people, then we ought to
really love them. Then, their anger at us will boomerang back upon them
with no ef fect upon us. This was the wisdom of the Buddha’ s statement in
the Dhammapada, “Hate is not conquered by hate. Hate is conquered by
love. This is an eternal law. ”
Guilt
The next “heavy” area of negativity is guilt. Here the underlying purpose is
to placate, to assuage, to escape punishment by self-punishment, and to
elicit for giveness. The most important of these is the wish to elicit
punishment from another person, combined with self-punishment. This is
not a conscious wish; nevertheless, it is the unconscious purpose of guilt. W ith a little investigation, this can easily be verified. The next time we are
feeling guilty about something particular regarding another person, watch
what happens in the next encounter. Almost inevitably, they will bring up
the very thing we are holding in mind. For instance, if we are feeling guilty
because of lateness to an appointment, that guilt will frequently elicit acritical response from the other person. By the holding of guilt, we bring on
to ourselves all the criticalness of others and their belittlement of us; our
low self-esteem is channeled back to us through others in the form of their
invalidation of our life. If we hold in mind that we are small and unworthy, we elicit those
kinds of responses from others, whose remarks tend to indicate that we are
small and unworthy. If we think we are only worth a crust of bread, then
that is what we will get. This is what the scriptures mean by the statement,
“The poor get poorer and the rich get richer. ” Poverty on any level, not just
financial, comes from inner poverty, just as outer wealth comes from inner
wealth. If we want others to stop being critical of us and attacking us, the
answer is to begin letting go of guilt and all the feelings that have brought it
about. T o help clarify the role of emotions in interpersonal relationships, a
very quick way of learning is to presume that the other person is conscious
and aware of our inner thoughts and feelings. By doing this, we will not be
far from wrong, for they are indeed intuitively aware of our thoughts and
feelings, even if they are not consciously aware at a given moment. They
will respond to us as if they knew our inner feelings. The overall
r elationship will behave as though the other person wer e awar e of our inner
feelings. If we are still holding the fantasy that other people do not know
our thoughts and feelings, just notice that dogs quickly do. Do we really
think that the human psyche is inferior to that of a dog. If a dog can quickly
read our total inner attitude, we can be sure that the intuition of people
around us is picking up the same vibration. Apathy and Grief
The feelings of apathy, grief, depression, sorrow, self-pity, the blues,
hopelessness, and helplessness come from the inner program of “I can’ t. ”
Their purpose is to elicit sympathy, to win back, to gain support, to make
others sorry, and to summon help. What is the ef fect of these feelings on
another person. Although there may be an initial attempt to help, eventually
this is replaced by pity and finally avoidance. Why avoidance. The
avoidance is because of the huge ener gy demand that we are making on the
other person. It is an attempt to drain them by throwing ourselves on their
doorstep. This results in the common saying, which sounds hard-hearted butis unfortunately so often true: “When you laugh, the world laughs with you;
but when you cry, you cry alone. ”
Constant grief will drive others away. They begin to resent it unless
they are in a very high place themselves and capable of ef fortless
compassion. Chronic grief brings premature aging, a tiredness and
weariness about the person, and it can only be overcome when we have the
courage to allow it to come up under appropriate conditions and have the
willingness to surrender to it and let it go. Fear
The feelings of fear—whether tension and anxiety, shyness, self-
consciousness, caution, holding back, or distrust—have the purpose of
escape from the imagined threat, and to put psychological distance from the
feared situation or person. Paradoxically, as we have pointed out before,
because the fear is powerful, the very process of holding it in mind can
make that which is feared come into our life. It is like a self-fulfilling
prophecy. The ener gy of fear generates an inner focus on all the negative
things that could happen, and that focus can coalesce the appearance of the
very events that we fear the most. Fear in relationships, therefore, is giving away our power to another
person and enabling them to do the very thing that is feared. The way out is
to look at the worst possible scenario and look at the feelings they arouse
and begin to relinquish them. Like other emotions, fear can be unraveled to
its component parts, and the parts are then easily relinquished. For instance,
let’ s say that there is fear of critical attack. W e ask ourselves, “What is the
worst possible scenario. ” W ith this question, we see that the basis of the
fear is pride. When the pride is recognized and relinquished, the fear
automatically dissolves. Again, in a relationship in which we are
experiencing fear, if we unravel the fear, we may find that it is really a fear
of discovery of our inner anger; the fear is that the other person will
retaliate against the anger. Again, when we relinquish the anger, the fear
will automatically disappear. The insecure person is fearful and prone to jealousy, clinging,
possessiveness, and attachment in relationships, an approach that always
brings frustration. The purpose of these feelings is to bind and tightly
possess the other, to achieve security by preventing loss and, at times, to
punish the other for our own fear of loss. Again, these attitudes tend tobring into manifestation the very thing that we are holding in mind. The
other person, now feeling pressured by our ener gy of dependency and
possessiveness, has an inner impulse to run for freedom, to withdraw, to
detach and do the very thing that we fear the most. These attitudes lead to
constantly wanting to influence others. Because people intuitively pick up
our wish to control them, their response is to resist. So the only way to
bring about relinquishment of their resisting us is to let go of wanting to
influence them in the first place. This means letting go of the inner fears as
they come up. Pride
Feelings of pride are often condoned in our society and take the form of
perfectionism, neatness, punctuality, dependability, “good personhood,”
excessive cleanliness, workaholism, excessive ambition, success, moral
superiority, and politeness. In its exacerbated forms, we see arrogance,
boastfulness, vanity, smugness, and prejudice; on the spiritual level, there is
the righteous killing of “nonbelievers. ” The underlying emotional purpose
of these feelings toward others is to win their admiration, avoid criticism or
rejection, gain acceptance, be important, and thereby overcome our own
inner feelings of worthlessness. Unfortunately, the feelings that are aroused
in the other person are often those of envy, competitiveness, or even hatred
and easy exploitation. If we look at pride, we see that it’ s often a substitute
for genuine self-esteem. It is also of considerable interest to realize that the major relationship to
which many people apply these phenomena is the relationship to God. There is the belief, often unconscious, that we can elicit a certain response
from God: “God will feel sorry for me”; “God will retaliate against me”;
“God will punish me”; “God will be pleased with me”; “God will favor
me. ”
When we have adequate self-esteem, we are motivated by inner
humility and gratitude and, therefore, we have no need for the constant
eliciting of strokes and pats from others (or God). When we stop wanting to
be liked, we find that we are. When we stop catering to others and trying to
manipulate their approval, we find that they do respect us. Self-denigration
in the forms of placating, flattering, deference, self-ef facement, and
passivity are all attempts to influence others by catering to their ego, so as
to get favorable treatment and get our own way. False humility merely saysto the other person, “I am a small person; please treat me that way” and, of
course, they promptly do. As is quite apparent, all of the above emotions are manipulative of the
other person and destructive of real relationship. They all diminish our self-
esteem for they are all positions of vulnerability. Thus, although we may
think that we feel well and secure at the level of pride, that pride is always
accompanied by defensiveness due to its basic vulnerability. W e puf f up
with pride whenever we feel insecure. The inflation of pride is easily
susceptible to the puncture of a passing remark or raised eyebrow. The Human Condition
All of the negative feelings are essentially forms of fear: fear of loss of
esteem by ourselves or others, or fear of not surviving and a loss of security. Because most of the negative feelings are accompanied by a negative value
judgment, they are suppressed, repressed, or projected. Section summary: 

Please summarize briefly

**Section Title:** [Insert relevant topic name]

Summary:


[ Brief Summary ]



Make accurate statements concerning specifics mentioned throughout the passage. Use concise language ensuring readability and maintain relevance accuracy. Example output format:



    **Relationship Shift**

*   We should prioritize acknowledging hidden feelings driving questions, addressing root issues. We're encouraged to explore alternative solutions. Let's choose 'Understanding' as the main heading for summarising the provided content. Here’s a rewritten version adhering to guidelines specified below:

**Understood**

These passages explain unconventional approaches aimed at resolving difficulties efficiently. To attain immediate outcomes, refrain from searching for explanations. Instead, release pent-up sentiments linked with queries. Once freed, the solution emerges naturally. Typical scenarios illustrate effective implementation – illustrating transformations via meditation practices. \

Key aspects include identifying concealed sensations fueling inquiries and reframing perspectives. Effective communication commences subsequent conversations. Lifestyle alterations emerge swiftly amid shifting behaviors. Transformative adjustments manifest gradually amidst embracing constructive energy sources. New choices align according to novel principles guiding daily actions. '',
'More significant steps require overcoming ingrained habits. '

Additional insights emphasize focusing inward recognition ('look deeper').
Letting go of the feelings behind the question or problem.
What is the key to achieving fast and easy results in problem-solving, according to the author?
To transcend the ego and achieve Self-Realization, which is the elimination of the source of all suffering.
What is the ultimate goal of the mechanism of surrender, according to the author?
The author believes that guilt is a way to manipulate others and is not a healthy or sustainable way to maintain relationships.
What is the author's perspective on the relationship between guilt and relationships?
The author recommends acknowledging and letting go of the negative feelings, rather than trying to manipulate others or change their behavior.
How does the author suggest one should approach negative feelings in relationships?
The author suggests that holding onto negative emotions can lead to physical illness and suffering, and that letting go of these emotions can lead to a state of inner freedom and peace.
What is the author's view on the relationship between negative emotions and health?