Doing the math of enlightenment
Why the spiritual path is one of subtraction and not addition
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Every day single day, you are changing. If you're on a spiritual path, then hopefully you're doing something every day that helps you transform and grow. Physically, though, you're also changing daily. Your body replaces about 330 billion cells every single day – the equivalent of about 1% of all of your cells.
Most of those cells are in our blood and in our gut and are very small. Tiny cells in our blood are replaced every three to 120 days and the cells lining our gut are replaced every week. In addition, we lose about 30,000 to 40,000 dead skin cells from the surface of our bodies every single minute or about 500 million skin cells per day.
Imagine if our bodies did not let go of all of these dead cells? Imagine if the body said to itself, "I worked hard for these cells. I can't just let them go. They've protected me, they've helped me to survive. How can I just let them go?"
The Holy knows that the true spiritual path isn't one of addition – of adding more beliefs and ideas – but in subtraction, the surrender of the ideas and beliefs that hold us hostage to the past, or keep us convinced that our separation from God and everyone else is real.
If we can be brave enough to start the spiritual journey of subtraction – the path of letting go – then we'll find that the more we let go, the lighter our load becomes in this world and eventually, we're so light, that all we become in the world is just that – light – a source of brightness that heals our feeling of separation.
Our bodies are often wiser than we are. It knows when it's time to replace dead, useless things like cells that are no longer serving a purpose. However, we - the consciousness that inhabits this body - love to hold on to things from our past such as old thoughts, old habits, old patterns, old beliefs, old traditions, old grievances, old wounds, old grudges, and yes, even old joys, victories and celebrations. We are often emotional antique collectors, combing through our collection to relive the emotions we've amassed around these thoughts, feelings and beliefs.
We hang on to all of this, according to A Course in Miracles, because we value them. We believe that we are nothing without these things because they have become the building blocks of our very identity. They give our lives meaning. They define who we are. In Reality, though, these things are as useless as dead skin, blood and gut cells. They are no longer serving us and often they simply keep us stuck in small-self, egoic patterns – unable to even fathom our higher, Divine Self, much less do the spiritual practices necessary to shed anything that keeps us from living into it.
Carrying around all of this baggage from our past, the Course says, causes us to feel guilty. The Course uses the word "guilt" in a specific way. We feel guilty, it says, because we feel like we are separate from others, from ourselves and from God, because we have chosen to leave our true home of unity with God to become this human being. We believe that was a sin and that God will punish us for it – so we project that guilt out into the world. We "attack" others by seeing them as the source of all of our suffering and shame.
This is what we value in this world – an illusion of security that our body gives to us. It is this guilt, the Course says, that we must bring to the light of love and truth. We only perceive darkness in ourselves, it says, because we value it – and we give it power to run our lives – to become our identity.
We think that letting go of this darkness – letting go of our sense of guilt and unworthiness – will result in our actual death. The opposite is true, according to the Course. Letting go of the things that no longer serve us is the path to life. All we need to do is nothing – we simply look, "open-eyed," the Course says in chapter 15, "for ugliness such as this belongs not in your holy mind. This host of God can have no real investment here." (Full reading here: ACIM, T-15.VII.3:3-7)
Our bodily hosts are wise enough to know that they can have no real investment in dead cells, so the body lets them go.
In this moment, your body is letting go. At the rate that your cells are dying and regenerating, there is a brand new you produced every 180 days. Spiritually speaking, though, a brand new you can be created in every present moment, but only if you're willing to let go of the you that you were, even just a second ago, to become the you that is emerging.
“My dad didn’t choose me …”
One of the old patterns I recently let go of was a feeling of unworthiness that sprang from my parents' divorce way back when I was 9-years-old. Because of that event, I developed a pattern of anger and cynicism that helped me survive the very real sense of abandonment I felt from my father. He left and that was it. I am the last of five children and my three siblings are a bit older than my brother and I – we are two years apart. We were the only kids left at home when dad dashed and he told my mom, "Barbara, Linda and John are my kids, Doug and Candace are your kids."
At a recent two-day meditation retreat I attended the leader did an exercise with a man who had a similar event in his childhood. The leader made the point that by not fully accepting the statement: "My father did not choose me," as completely true without judgment or explanation, the man was refusing to let go of a pattern of unworthiness that has continued to plague him.
I burst into tears about the same time this guy did. I have done a lot of forgiveness work around my dad, and I did let go of that angry, cynical identity many years ago as part of that transformation. This, though, was the final step I needed to let go of all that pain around my dad.
It's absolutely true that my father did not choose me. He walked away, he disowned me and my brother. He said it out loud.
I can either be upset about that, or I can accept that as a fact and let it go. The real breakthrough moment for me though was when I replaced that fact with better facts. My mother DID choose me and there came a time when she had to explicitly choose my brother over a second marriage proposal. But, the biggest recognition of all was this: "I choose me."
I choose me every single day when I see the old patterns that no longer serve me and I make the space for them to be seen, loved, healed and released. I choose me every single day when I refuse to store more junk in my body by releasing thoughts and emotions that tempt me to turn them into grievances – or even memories of my "glory days" of happiness and joy. I choose me every single day I remember that I am the light of the world and my only function here is to be an open channel for God's love in this world.
Barriers to Love
Every single pattern, thought, belief or grievance that you hang on to is a barrier to love. It stands in the way of the true grandeur that is trying to emerge from you. You can call it your "purpose" or your "calling" but we all have something amazing to contribute to this world that is just trying to emerge from us in every moment – and we're there blocking it with worries about whether or not we're good enough, or smart enough or if people really do like us.
We have to be willing to take this "inner voyage," as Richard Hawkins calls it in his book Letting Go, and then be willing to "discard one illusion after another, one falsehood after another, one negative program after another." If we do that, we will find that the darkness that we have invested so much in will start to fade. What replaces it, he says, is "the awareness of the presence of love." As that presence of love become stronger, he says, "We will feel lighter and lighter. Life becomes progressively more effortless.
It's effortless because we have finally let go of our guilt – that thought, belief or feeling that we are not worthy of our true function as the light of the world. "Being freed from guilt brings about a renewal of life energy," Hawkins says. In short, letting go of anything that no longer serves you – like our body shedding old, dead cells – brings new life and instantly creates a brand new you.
"Let go of your worries," that ancient Muslim mystic poet Rumi wrote, "and be completely clear-hearted, like the face of a mirror that contains no images. If you want a clear mirror, behold yourself and see the shameless truth, which the mirror reflects. If metal can be polished to a mirror-like finish, what polishing might the mirror of the heart require? Between the mirror and the heart is this single difference: the heart conceals secrets, while the mirror does not.
I invite you to take time today - and every day - to polish the mirror of your heart. This is, indeed, the whole purpose of meditation, to see clearly the secrets that our hearts conceal, make space for them and love them so they can be released and healed. The goal of life, my friends, is simple: "Let go of your worries and be completely clear-hearted."
Sometimes it’s helpful to go into meditation with a question in mind and spend time listening deeply for Spirit’s response. Some of those questions could include:
What is trying to emerge from me in this time? What am I unwilling to see? What brings me joy? How can I become lighter in this moment? What do I need to let go of in this moment?
What question comes up for you?
Here are some guidelines to remember as you meditate:
- There is no right or wrong way to meditate. However you find to connect with the Holy is the right way.
- Allow you mind to wander – we're not trying to empty our mind but simply observe it
- If thoughts come up, label them but don't use "I" or "me" or "mine" statements. Instead say, "anxiety arises," "doubt arises," "hunger arises." By not making thoughts personal we don't judge them or think we need to do anything about them. Just label them and let them pass like a cloud in the sky.
- Don't be afraid of silence. Some find it uncomfortable. The point is simply to listen – to be willing to hear spirit speak to you – and remember spirit is the still small voice that comes when we're open and receptive to the silence
- Practice inclusive meditation – allow the sounds around you to simply be without allowing them to distract you. Make them part of your experience.
Let me know about your experience in the comments.
Music for the Journey
“I Release,” by Rickie Byars
About the Motley Mystic:
The Motley Mystic is an online community for people who have realized that the truth speaks with many voices. There is no one religion, philosophy, institution or dogma that captures the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth. No one needs to swear allegiance to one line of thought or belief to discern Truth, because Love is the only thing that’s real. That’s what we explore at the Motley Mystic - all the tools and strategies we need to remove our barriers to Love and live fully as our true, Divine Self.
Candace Chellew is the founder of Motley Mystic as well Jubilee! Circle, an interfaith spiritual community in Columbia, S.C. She is also the author of Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians published in 2008 by Jossey-Bass. She is also a musician and avid beer drinker.