Part of the iKE ALLEN “InnerViews Series”
iKE: Peter, your blending of scientific and spiritual principles is what lead me to featuring you in Leap! A Quantum Awakening and The Tao of Quantum Physics. In my own seminars, I frequently get asked about the paradox of doing and not doing to awaken. Can you share your thoughts on this?
Peter:
This question of whether we need to do anything to wake up is definitely paradoxical iKE because ultimately no, it’s the letting go of all doing that allows you to wake up, it’s the letting go of holding onto whatever you think you should be, how you should be, where you should be going, whether you should be letting go of everything, there comes that complete ease and relief that we’re looking for. I think that’s what so many teachers are pointing towards. And letting go isn’t just about a spiritual condition, whether you see it as forgiveness, surrender, non-attachment, it’s all about releasing, letting go.
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And letting go is not something you can do, although we try to. We say or if only I could let go, I should just let go. But it’s not something you can do because the holding on is what we’re doing. The letting go is an undoing of holding on. It’s a releasing. So it isn’t the doing. And yet, this is where the paradox is, there’s a lot of things you can do which may help you do the not-doing. If you’re really holding on.. here’s a good example. I may be holding onto muscle tension in my body and certain muscle may be fixed I don’t even know it.
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I can’t do letting go of that tension, but maybe becoming aware of that muscle and it may start softening of its own accord and releases, that release happens because I stopped the tension, whatever it is that’s creating the tense. And when that release happens, there’s this experience of wow, I never knew that muscle was tense but it feels so much better when I let go. I think it’s the same really with the mind because it’s the mind that’s holding on to our belief systems, our expectations, how we think things should be, how we think the world is, we have all these things we’re holding onto, what my spiritual practice should be or is. When you do that real letting go, there’s that same thing. Ahh I didn’t realize I was holding on until I stopped. So yes there are many circumstances which would point us towards letting go. Many things we can do that will point us towards the not-doing. Sometimes, as you know iKE, it’s said there’s no path, but there’s a path to discovering there is no path.
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