I know. It’s sacrilege.
Many of us have spent a whole bunch of time, energy and money on therapy to “work through our issues.” To find the root.
But the very wise Ram Dass has another idea.
Don’t work through your issues. Instead give them up.
What?
Working through them is making them something, he says. Giving them power. Maybe it’s the belief that we’re righteous. Hanging on to our being right and that we have a right to be, well angry, he points out. Or troubled by the issue. We hold on to it and that’s not healthy.
So just give up the issue, he suggests. “If you don’t get what you want, it’s more interesting than if you get it,” he says. “You grow from that.”
What?
His point is that there’s a lesson in the issues that crop up for us. There’s transformation there, if we allow it to happen.
I can’t disagree. I’ve been called upon to forgive significant wrongs a number of times. To me, they were significant. And I thought I had worked through to forgiveness. But when I look at it through Ram Dass’ filter, maybe what I did was just give up my need to be right about the wrong that was done me.
Maybe I don’t do that all the time–I’m not perfect, of course. Far from it. But for me, that release of attachment, that thing I’ve called forgiveness, has always sneaked up on me. I’m unaware it has dissipated until one day I try my issue on for size and, well, it’s gone. Poof! It’s disappeared.
I won’t pretend to know how it happened, although I can tell a story about it that makes perfect sense.
But here’s the bottom line:
Everything that happens to us is a lesson. We can choose to look for the lesson and learn it.
Or we can reject it and go on with our issue.
I love how Ram Dass turns things on their head and gives us a new perspective, one that will live on long past his life on this earth.
Interesting perspective. I agree, don’t give power to those “wrongs.” Put them in the past. Or as they say, living well is the best revenge.