You can let go of what no longer serves you with gratitude and kindness.
That’s a lot of stuff. Big stuff. The other day I realized how much I’ve left behind in the last few years — my country, a marriage, a full-time job, a wonderful home, my favorite car, friends of twenty years, and a spiritual teacher.
Leaving things behind opens up new possibilities. Sometimes it’s hard to walk away. Sometimes it’s not.
It often depends on what’s out in front of you. But, mostly, it depends on what’s going on in your head.
A coffee shop is an excellent place to listen to your internal chit chat.
I started this piece in my local Java joint — friendly peeps and vibe, good coffee, and reliable internet. There wasn’t much seating, so I had to sit next to a large group of people with two small children. My first thought was wishing they would bring down the volume or someone would realize they had a bus to catch.
Then, I told myself to leave the idea of quiet behind.
So before pecking away at my keyboard, I enjoyed the moment.
I watched a young mother spoon-feed some mush into her child’s mouth. I noticed the hand gestures of a guy talking animatedly to his friend, speaking a language I didn’t understand. I smiled and made eye contact with the child after he finished eating the mush. The kid gave me a quick smile and then returned to staring at his iPhone. (Another kid getting addicted to electronic devices at 3 years old).
I felt good accepting things as they were and leaving behind the idea it would be better if they were different.
Leaving things behind creates more space for new things, freedom, and growth. And, just because you leave something behind doesn’t mean you have to do it begrudgingly.
You can leave behind what no longer serves you with gratitude and kindness.
For example, I dreamed about my former spiritual teacher, Prem Rawat, a few nights ago, which I will describe in a moment.
Prem was a central figure in my life from my twenties into my forties. However, over the past ten years, I’ve slowly separated from him, coming to terms with my belief that he misused his power and position for personal gain.
I had to leave behind the notion that he was enlightened, which he heavily promoted during the 1970s and 1980s. Leaving that idea may sound easy, but my experience is when you develop a strong belief reinforced for many years, the roots run very deep in your psyche.
After careful research, my own experience, and eyewitness accounts, I know he’s as flawed. Very flawed in fact. He’s had serious ups and downs and is way far from squeaky clean, something I’d like him to admit publicly. Sadly, I don’t see that in the cards.
I’d also like him to speak about his journey from child God to peace ambassador. There’s nothing like a leader being authentic and telling the truth about his growth on the spiritual path.
Talk about real, gritty, hero’s journey-type inspiration.
In his defense, he didn’t ask to become the Master when he was eight years old. There are various stories about his ascension to the throne. I believe he was thrust into it by opportunistic followers in a power struggle after his father, the Master, passed away.
His job as an eight-year-old Master? Simply bring peace to the world one person at a time. No big deal. Not.
But in his late teens and early twenties, when he realized the job was way bigger than his ability to handle it, he could have and should have changed his approach by backing down the notion he was a divine being. But he didn’t. Instead, he drank excessively and doubled down on more devotion to him.
More devotion meant more financial donations, which meant bigger houses, cars, planes, and God knows what.
And by doubling down on the devotion thing, he pretended to be something he wasn’t. That’s called deception. Another word for it is lying.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m deeply grateful that fourteen-year-old Prem came to the West and introduced me and thousands of others to meditation. My experience of what he called “Knowledge,” the inner experience of knowing one’s higher self, has grown significantly in richness and depth after years of practice. It’s an essential part of my life.
But I don’t look up to him any longer. I can’t do it now that I know even more about how he conducts himself in his private life.
Back to my dream now. He came to me, and I stood before him and said, “I love you.”
I watched myself in the dream and was shocked those words came out of my mouth. I love him. What?
Later, after waking up, I thought about it, realizing some part of me might still love him. All the history, all the time with him, all the prayers to him, all the beliefs that he was the Chosen One to bring peace to a troubled world. They’ve burned themselves into my neural pathways and aren’t easily undone.
The part of me that yearns for peace and goodness, perhaps deep in my psyche, still appreciates him for the good he brought to my life. But it certainly doesn’t love him for the games he’s played. I accept he’s a traveler on his journey, just like you and I are travelers on ours.
I might respect him if he were truthful about who he is and what he has done. But forgiveness is hard if someone won’t admit their mistakes and won’t apologize.
So, I’m at peace leaving him behind as my spiritual teacher and accepting the truth about who he is. It was scary at first — opening myself up to the fact that the person to whom I dedicated my life at one time wasn’t what he was cranked up to be.
There was a lot of untangling to do — it took time and a lot of psychic work.
At first, I wanted to ignore all the noise about him and write it off as gossip, lies, and tales of disgruntled losers. But my intuition kept telling me something was off. So I continued to seek out the facts. And the more I did, the easier it became for me to leave behind the beliefs I once had.
For me, this is the biggest leaving-behind story I have.
But most of the time, the importance of leaving things behind is in daily life.
Every day we’re faced with holding on to and getting agitated about things or quickly leaving them behind — the loud person in our local coffee shop, the fact someone hasn’t answered the emails we’ve sent, getting stuck in traffic on the way to the airport, or dealing with someone trying to scam us on the internet.
But we can handle all those things by not getting hooked, staying poised and balanced, and making intelligent decisions. Most of the time, it means leaving behind our idea of what we think should be happening. Nothing can be gained from being bitter, resentful, or upset about something not going our way or not working out as we hoped.
We can always be grateful for what we have, appreciative of what we learned, and thankful for the good times.
The good, bad, weird, and surprises are all part of the ride.
I’ve got a new country now, a new home, a new wife, a different car, new friends, a new career, and no spiritual teacher.
I’m happy and content. And I know my time will come someday when I’ll leave everything behind.
So until then, I’m going to do my best to live in peace, tell the truth respectfully and with love.
-Don Johnson
First published on Medium.com