Om Namah Shivaya

(A response to a friend, following an ongoing discussion of this sense of "renunciation" I've felt since India...)

You asked me what I’m renouncing, and my mind (after its initial period of emptiness) was a flood... But the simple answer is – everything. But not every thing, rather, every mental construct of things. ...All the “shoulds” that keep me from knowing pure-beingness. All the fears and limitations that have kept me from believing in life, in beauty, in the perfect blessedness and deservedness of being-here on this planet. Everything that I’ve “learned” over the years that has tried to direct me away from pure innocence. Anything that keeps me from knowing the essence of true love. And especially the grasping mind. Each time I feel a thought painfully reaching out trying to control something, get something, or achieve something, I allow it to retract into the heart of pure love. I am left wretchedly empty yet peacefully full – no achieving – yet totally at peace.

At this point it feels I am to the bare bones – all that’s left is tender innocence, if even that – perhaps that’s the last thread. Empty. I feel “Om Namah Shivaya” - all attachment dissolving... ...and it’s fine. Because I trust. I trust life, and I trust that life beyond life, that perfect truth that is so much greater than “I.”

And I’ve seen how I’ve suffered – chasing after this want, this fulfillment, this thing I think I “need”... And I realize that I already have everything. I am so entirely blessed, in spite of myself :-) And so I give in, I let go to this blessing, because it is the only thing that is alive – it is life. It’s the pure grace of Spirit. It’s the only thing I can truly receive. It is Peace. And whether it gives or takes from the outward-show of my life is irrelevant – if I am truly in the grace of spirit, it is perfect either way. And so the renunciation is simply surrender. It is a stopping, at the same time as nothing stops, the world keeps spinning, my actions never cease, I keep living...

All I know is it is a great relief. Inwardly I relax, even as I keep moving...