When I write of the idea of cultivating the skill of ‘letting go’, some Scientologists react as if I am from the planet Farsec (the alleged origin point of the universe for all psychs, reference: Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior). On the one hand this is surprising because it is precisely what one does when one experiences a spiritual ‘release’ in a Scientology session. On the other hand, the idea of employing and refining that capability in life is looked upon as blasphemous. It is in a way since so much in Scientology implants precisely the opposite idea in believers.
To help get the concept across I have many times recommended folk read and attempt to think with Tao Te Ching (my recommended translation, The Tao Te Ching, an English Translation by Stephen Mitchell). A number of people have written to or told me that they have done so, and find the idea of ‘letting go’ liberating and useful in their quests for self- actualization (equinimity attendant to becoming who one really is and attaining toward one’s full potentialities). Still many want the ‘tech’ to it or an instruction manual of sorts.
I came across a good description of breaking ‘letting go’ down into a process on buddhanet. net. It is below for your perusal. I don’t know who the author is and I don’t even know what all is on buddhanet or who operates it. All that I know is that the following description of the process rings accurate in many ways and may communicate to, and be found to be useful by, some.
Letting Go from buddhanet
If we contemplate desires and listen to them, we are actually no longer attaching to them; we are just allowing them to be the way they are. Then we come to the realization that the origin of suffering, desire, can be laid aside and let go of.
How do you let go of things? This means you leave them as they are; it does not mean you annihilate them or throw them away. It is more like setting down and letting them be. Through the practice of letting go we realize that there is the origin of suffering, which is the attachment to desire, and we realize that we should let go of these three kinds of desire. Then we realize that we have let go of these desires; there is no longer any attachment to them.
When you find yourself attached, remember that ‘letting go’ is not ‘getting rid of’ or ‘throwing away’. If I’m holding onto this clock and you say, ‘Let go of it!’, that doesn’t mean ‘throw it out’. I might think that I have to throw it away because I’m attached to it, but that would just be the desire to get rid of it. We tend to think that getting rid of the object is a way of getting rid of attachment. But if I can contemplate attachment, this grasping of the clock, I realize that there is no point in getting rid of it – it’s a good clock; it keeps good time and is not heavy to carry around. The clock is not the problem. The problem is grasping the clock. So what do I do? Let it go, lay it aside – put it down gently without any kind of aversion. Then I can pick it up again, see what time it is and lay it aside when necessary.
You can apply this insight into ‘letting go’ to the desire for sense pleasures. Maybe you want to have a lot of fun. How would you lay aside that desire without any aversion? Simply recognize the desire without judging it. You can contemplate wanting to get rid of it – because you feel guilty about having such a foolish desire – but just lay it aside. Then, when you see it as it is, recognizing that it’s just desire, you are no longer attached to it.
So the way is always working with the moments of daily life. When you are feeling depressed and negative, just the moment that you refuse to indulge in that feeling is an enlightenment experience. When you see that, you need not sink into the sea of depression and despair and wallow in it. You can actually stop by learning not to give things a second thought.
You have to find this out through practice so that you will know for yourself how to let go of the origin of suffering. Can you let go of desire by wanting to let go of it? What is it that is really letting go in a given moment? You have to contemplate the experience of letting go and really examine and investigate until the insight comes. Keep with it until that insight comes: ‘Ah, letting go, yes, now I understand. Desire is being let go of.’ This does not mean that you are going to let go of desire forever but, at that one moment, you actually have let go and you have done it in full conscious awareness. There is an insight then. This is what we call insight knowledge. In Pali, we call it nanadassana or profound understanding.
I had my first insight into letting go in my first year of meditation. I figured out intellectually that you had to let go of everything and then I thought: ‘How do you let go?’ It seemed impossible to let go of anything. I kept on contemplating: ‘How do you let go?’ Then I would say, ‘You let go by letting go.’ ‘Well then, let go!’ Then I would say:
‘But have I let go yet?’ and, ‘How do you let go?’ ‘Well just let go!’ I went on like that, getting more frustrated. But eventually it became obvious what was happening. If you try to analyze letting go in detail, you get caught up in making it very complicated. It was not something that you could figure out in words any more, but something you actually did. So I just let go for a moment, just like that.
Now with personal problems and obsessions, to let go of them is just that much. It is not a matter of analyzing and endlessly making more of a problem about them, but of practicing that state of leaving things alone, letting go of them. At first, you let go but then you pick them up again because the habit of grasping is so strong. But at least you have the idea. Even when I had that insight into letting go, I let go for a moment but then I started grasping by thinking: ‘I can’t do it, I have so many bad habits!’ But don’t trust that kind of nagging, disparaging thing in yourself. It is totally untrustworthy. It is just a matter of practicing letting go. The more you begin to see how to do it, then the more you are able to sustain the state of non-attachment.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 
False data stripping does wonders.
I have found that things cease to be a situation when I realize that I am the one creating the energy pattern of that situation and I cease creating it.
Simple and Elegant. Just let go. Thank you.
Damn, I like that. Not familiar with that site but I soon will be. Thanks, Marty.
To me it is like the cognition I had about problems themselves. I made them , I can unmake them (as-is). So many times inversion pops up and to look at it and twist it back with understandind remedys them.ARC Bill Dupree
sorry my spellchecker missed understanding
I think that covers letting go quite nicely.
It is an ability that I have been working with lately.
Probably there are some who will view it as mixing practices, mostly those who don’t duplicate very well…
Nice article.
Letting go only works in the now.
So if I’m at a party for instance and people are eating junk food, and someone offers me some, by being totally in the now I can let go of my desire to eat pizza, then I’m fine; all desire leaves.
But half an hour later if someone offers me cake, I have to come back to the now again, let go of my desire for cake (again) in the now, then I am fine again.
I find that it is really a moment by moment process, this letting go.
So if I am out of present time, say having an argument with my husband, and I was offered junk food then, I might eat it without thinking (without coming into the now). I didn’t give myself a chance to let go of desire because I was totally out of the now.
Practice of letting go can actually be a practice of being here now.
Thanks for the reminder…I needed that.
And it seems that it is nearly, if not impossible to have an argument with someone if one is really in the now.
You naturally just “let go” of your opinion or viewpoint.
Marty,
Is this not what happens with perfect duplication? And, in auditing with really viewing it and then it’s gone? And, in the handling of a ‘problem’?
I love this post!
I’ve been carrying around The Tao, and The Prophet since pre-Scn.(mid-70’s) and my first experience in meditation was very freeing, I became a dew drop on the leaf of a tree, it was exhilarating! I don’t even know what happened, nor did I care-it was better than any exteriorizing I’d done (and I’ve had the fortunate ability to be exterior all my life). But, seems to me now, it was simply the process of ‘letting go’! Very cool!!!
I love the parallels you’ve made here. Haven’t yet read the book but, it’s on it’s way and really look forward.
ML, Midge
Wow, this has unleashed an array of emotions, a total blow-down!
One of my favorite pastimes is what I call ‘doing nothing’ but, it’s really a concentration of letting go of all the material stuff to become pure spirit. I liken it to Native State, but, words don’t do justice here. It’s simply being, nothing else. It’s one with the universe, pure love!
Feel me?
Love, Midge
Nice one.
I found that simple reach and withdraw (also with looking alone) can raise ARC and the level of acceptance – in that way, letting go comes more easily.
If there is really something I can’t let go of (ideas, memories, concepts, what ever) I try to take some time, take a walk and inspect it (or work it out in drawing or writing if it is a concept or a plan). Once grasped it doesn’t bother me anymore.
ARC and the phenomenon of space is indeed part of it (letting go).
Many Scientologists will remember the release in training while doing a demo in clay. Understanding arises (insight) and the confusions (sometimes even masses) blow off.
Thanks again for the assay.
Reading this just had a funny thought: I wonder if there’s a Scientology process for “running out” Scientology!
Anyway, very thoughtful post. I do believe that time is also a great healer, and as one just gets on with life and the things that actually matter to one – in my case my children – the need to hang on to things and rigid concepts from the past get less and less. I still enjoy OSA-baiting as a fun game though, but more like a hobby than anything else.
The greatest relief found is letting go of the need to control the “outcome”. The AA bumper sticker of “let go-let God” speaks to ones stopping to control others or outcomes and being harmed by it. This speaks to co-dependence as well. Letting go is something every person could benefit from, wherever they find the wisdom. The 12 steps of the anonymous groups are excellent guides. Buy and read the Big Book of AA for a lesson in life. That book belongs on anyones reading list of great guides. Those who cannot look for wisdom in anything connected to AA have something to run in their next session.
I enjoyed this post and found much truth in it. It also alligns nicely with the concept of being pan-determined or closer to the tip top of the tone scale. I just saw this video on another site and it fit’s nicely. http://www.audioacrobat.com/playv/Wd9Ms1S9
You sent me an email a few years back and gave me that very piece of advice. To let go. I did – not in ways I thought but in ways that completely freed my mind from all earlier agreements. It was sound advice 🙂
I have belonged to a 12 step program for Quite awhile. People comeinto that program full of anger, resentment, self loathing, self pity and a whole host of other non desireable traits. One of the things we are told almost from the beginning is we have to let go. Actually the saying is ” let go and let god, but “, but I will leave the god thing up to someone else. We learn that if we dont let go of these things they are likely to lead us back to more sybstance abuse and most probably death. We learn this from example, not through abstract data. I was sure when I discovered LRH and scientology that it was the answer. I am still sure it would have been if anyone would have been interested in actually handling my case, but of course that did not happen. Just alot of money down the drain. Anyway it made me wonder, how does one let go ,pull themselves up and out of this mess. I started studying everything I could get my hands on since scientology was lost to me or so I thought. I have been meditating every day for 2 years now. Not a long time in the scheme of things and pretty slow going ,but just recently I noticed that I have let go of alot.It kind of just happened. I am no longer a victum. If I start to feel self pity I can change my mind and go somewhere else instead. For all you mentally healthy people out there this may not sound like much ,but for me its a huge win. I cant put my intelectual finger on exactly why this happened,but I know reading some of Martys reccomended books helped and martys books themselves too.One of the funny things that happened is every where I go and read LRH pops up. The data HE discovered is everywhere out there. Kudos to him for being well read as well as the tech of course. Thanks for letting me rant.It has been a long time since I have had any one to listen to me who shares the same path and has also experienced scientology.
I like that.It’s kind of like practicing “Fuck it!” a book by John C. Parkin.
This is it, this is the essential practice. This is what the Christians mean “in the world but not of it.” The Buddhist view of the process is such great wisdom.
This very process is the way to neutralize all obsessions, fears, self doubt and judgements and stuck expectations.
It is the mental formula for personal peace and happiness.
To master this process is to become a master of living.
I work on it everyday of my life. Especially helpful when life is kicking your butt.
Funny, but the very nature of this struggle and practice,when done successfully, makes problems into growth opportunities, relationships into classrooms, fears into doors of perception, self doubt into self confidence.
What great wisdom to share with us all Marty. Thank you.
This one process done successfully puts us in total charge of our happiness.
Once the dichotomy is neutralized by this process, the fulcrum of self is established.
And it is free! Have a great day all!!
Love, Brian
“Letting go” …always brings to mind the story that Geoffrey Lewis tells. On a blog post a while back I posted a comment referring to this story. At the time, I could not recall the name of the story nor could I find it on YT. Today, though, I did. Here it is:
This “letting go” could also be used in much larger situations.
What about the Middle East? It has now gone on for what?
70 years?? It is now so complicated with such force and
equal counter force that the resolution seems unsolvable.
45 years ago i thought a team of Scientologists would be
the mediators and solve this conflict. Ha!
🙂
Yes 🙂
Marty,
Thanks for plowing through these last few posts and commentaries. I still feel as though I’m digesting Tom M’s evaluations that, by the way, reminds me of John Allander’s Squirrel Buster performance on your porch.
Then there are Warren Marston’s contributions that left me shaking my head until I felt I experienced whiplash.
Phil Spickler sheds a lot of light on Letting Go. My comment is that if one wants to know where you’re going, it might help if you know where you started.
What I’m trying to get across is that LRH didn’t have a monopoly on wisdom.
Gretchen, I was happy to read you benefitted from letting go. The processes which the 12 steps cover provide the relief. Control, pride, forgiveness, resentments, amends, etc, are all addressed of the process. Invariably, the person who completes a 12 step program is humbled and stronger. Not bad for next to no cost.
Although, that’s what was ultimately marketed, packaged and sold.
This bridge to total freedom has some metaphorical origination in Brooklyn.
I love the simplicity. Thank you for posting. 🙂
Marty, this also goes along with what you can get out of
your new book. Straightening out of the time track of my
scientology experience with all the questions of what occured
behind the scenes and whys, helped me let go of attention
on questions I’ve had for a long time. Not necesserely what
your above blog is about but it helped a lot. Plus the book
is absolutely a pageturner. Love the last chapter!
Your chapter 14 is excellent Marty! ( I know this is off topic, but your book, I’d agree is NOT getting the attention and discussion it deserves!)
I hope your book draws more of the ex leaders into discussing their views and additional thoughts about the events you detail in Chapter 14.
Your 3rd book is well edited, and definitely your best book yet.
Midge, I had the same “reaction” to this post. Not really a reaction, per se. But definitely “feeling you”. Yes. It got me thinking about a non metered self-audited process by LRH I have used called “Take Ten Minutes of Nothing”. As a matter of fact the description of “letting go” in this post pretty much describes what “Take Ten Minutes of Nothing” does for me. A full description of it can be found in the index of the Scientology Tech Vols under “Six Steps to Better Beingness”.
But here is a partial description from the author:
“This process means oh, so literally what it says. It isn’t ten minutes of “relaxation” or “relief” or “rest.” It isn’t ten minutes of you, a body. It isn’t ten minutes of somatics. It means 10 minutes of no body, no engrams, no walls, no MEST universe, no sound, no thought, really nothing. All one’s life he is trying to get, to work, to be, to perceive SOMETHING. Now for ten minutes let us have utterly NOTHING. The gettingness of something makes a one-way flow. Also the dwindling spiral. Also, the one thing the analytical mind cannot be, it thinks, yet all it is is nothing.”
Thanks Chuck.
Thank you Lars.
Marty, I agree that your latest book, “Memoirs…” is amazing. It was such a page turner. And I even felt my heart racing during the drama of the court cases etc. I think this could easily be turned into a movie. A great movie.
A very wise post, connecting what scientologists call release to the Buddhist/Taoist idea of letting go. One day I blew a castle full of oh-so-precious possessions that I’d been lugging around for billions of years. I let it go on realising I could mock it all up again if I ever wanted.
But there’s a view that we should even let go of letting go, be free to have as well as to not-have. Total responsibility might be seen as a dichotomy with letting go. I’m not recommending that anyone tries running this as a para-scientology process, but its rather like what some tantric Buddhists like the Dalai Lama do in their regular meditation. Voidness and compassion, with no contradiction between them.
Phil, maybe when you let go it doesn’t matter if you are mixing practices…. maybe the ‘practice’ is to follow your inner compass.
My favorite line in the book was when Mike Rinder looked up at you and said ” Marty I dont want to play this game anymore” in essence let it go.
I agree with the concepts of letting go. Nikos Kazantzakis was the author of a book called “The Last Temptation of Christ.” I believe Nikos was a Greek (Cypriot) Christian communist philosopher.
His epitaph reportedly reads: “I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.” (Δεν ελπίζω τίποτα. Δε φοβάμαι τίποτα. Είμαι λέφτερος.)
Those are words that resonate for me. Though from a Christian writer, I believe they tap into the same wisdom and truth that Buddhism grasped, that Scientology in some ways tried to grasp, and that the concepts of letting go gets.
I believe that Scientology pointed to the same letting go in this way: by reducing the mental “charge” on a topic, incident, etc., we can let go of it. In other words, by accepting and witnessing, we no longer have to grasp or resist.
This is amazing. I had searched on You Tube regarding Letting Go this morning! And then …. today’s post. Starting to practice this a bit. Funny, I still get that little voice…mixing practices? Ha! My answer, let go. Very cool Marty! Ah, freedom.
Let it go.
I have commented on this blog with different handles since the Truth Rundown. I have been so rough on Marty, that my comments was discarded and I was even disbarred from commenting at times under different handles.
It takes time to decompress from it all.
I just read your book, and it is a release to say that finally I can:
Let it go.
Marty Rathbun is forgiven.
David Miscavige is forgiven.
L Ron Hubbard is forgiven.
But most of all:
I am forgiving myself.
We were warriors in the endless stream of travelling through cosmic space and time.
And we will continue, not necessarily a war, but the quest for truth.
Thank-you for everything.
Love to all.
Farewell.
I see it as a gradient. One may erase a portion of case and let go of the rest that was interlinked with that which got erased. But ultimately all can get as-ised, not necessarily bit by bit.
But I have seen a ‘dark’ version of it as well –to let go of something in order to avoid it…part of the black panther mechanism. Like when somebody let’s go of somebody because he is told he is PTS to them and such stuff. That’s a different kind of letting go….there is no responsibility included –there is reduction of responsibility. And that phraze I keep hearing “if you love somebody let him/her go”…sounds like apathetic !@$#@ to me…especially if you consider the definition of love as to reduce distance…
Spyros said: “if you love somebody let him/her go”…sounds like apathetic !@$#@ to me…especially if you consider the definition of love as to reduce distance…”
Perhaps you aren’t viewing this from what I understand this to mean: It means If you love someone, you are able to LET HIM/HER BE —
You let go of your need to own that person, or less harshly desire to change that person or to be joined at the hip.
In other words — if you truly love someone, you grant them the beingness to be, do, have their life.
Doesn’t necessarily mean away from you. You could be in a successful marriage with someone and if you love them you aren’t going to monitor, watch their actions and thoughts.
OR you could be separated from the person – not living with them, not married or otherwise — but you can still love them. And let them be/go.
IMHO
Letting go then is not letting go of the Object of desire but letting go of the attachment to it without developing or falling into a backlash of aversion. To be neither attracted nor averted but to be present with awareness and equanimity. The wings of wisdom and compassion arise. But how? Where’ the tech? In the Pali canon there is a word that current scholars translate as meaning “sensation.”. The Gotama Buddha ( who was just one of a long tradition of buddhas) described how we first notice objects of the world through our senses, which send signals to the mind. The mind instantaneously does a search of its memory bank to see what is this? It tries to associate and to identify through what it already knows (a process of diminishing returns with respect to enlightenment but necessary if you are an just animal in an unpredictable and dangerous world.) when the mind makes an identification it then makes a judgment – this is good, this is bad – a judgment is made and felt in the body as sensation(s). We act and react on the basis of these sensation (s.) It is we who produce them but the tend to blame the object which we cannot even see for what it in itself. To break this cycle is to become aware of sensation(s) and to become equanimous, whether pleasant or unpleasant. Sensations are ongoing, not permanethey changing. Sometimes about the no longer existing past or the not yet existing the future. Sensations about these do not help me. No reason to be attached to sensations.
Certain meditation techniques, not all, have a specific purpose of becoming aware and equanimous with sensations which carry out to living in the world, creating a time lapse between perception and reaction, allowing one’s behavior to improve, less reaction, less judgement, more happiness.
I often wonder if the e meter is not an out of the body way to become aware that you are creating sensations and reacting to them.
In order to let go I must first consider that I have something to let go of. And if I have something that I want to let go of then I must have considered that I wanted or needed to hold on to it. I desired ‘it.’ But to desire something means that I have first considered that I don’t have it. I believed I was lacking and from that belief sprung my desire. Desire fortified with value and meaning that I had assigned to the object of my desire. Then, emerging out of my desire, came goals, purposes, plans, hope, action, reaction, possibilities and probabilities (the future), failures (the past). In achieving my goals, in coming to acquire that which I desired there came yet another desire. The desire to protect, defend, guard and keep what I now had because I now had a fear of losing that which I had obtained. And, of course, that which I had obtained always existed and exists, as a scarcity.
A critical part of letting go of something seems to require that I let go of the misperception about it i.e., the erroneous and arbitrary value and meaning that I have assigned to ‘it.’ But, if my decision to ‘let go’ is impelled by a desire, am I not just going to stay in the spin of believing that I’m in a state of lack? In other words, does letting go become the new lack that I am desiring to fill? And around and around we go…where we end up nobody knows but down the rabbit hole we continue to go.
The ‘trap’ I am beginning to suspect…came into being because I chose to deny that I had everything and decided to believe in a dream. A dream wherein I was in a condition of lacking. I’m not sure about this, but I do think that this is how I first made and then entered the proverbial hamster wheel. Perhaps what I really need to let go of is my belief that the dream is real. Perhaps I just need to wake up and recognize who and what I really am. That I am Love, I am constant, I am in a state of always and everything and there never was nor ever will be a concept of lack or desire.
At this point, it does seem that I am beginning to wake up ‘in’ the dream. And in my waking up ‘in’ the dream maybe I can now use the dream itself to wake me up ‘from’ the dream.
Yes Gretchen, and Marty’s reaction. What an incredibly
intense moment!
Totally, Jane! I had to put down the book several times
just to take 3 deep breaths, contemplate and digest what
I was reading. Riveting!
LRH commented on this:-
The quote is from: 520303 HCL 1 – Scientology – Milestone One. You also can find it in New R&D-Volume 9, p. 456
“If you will just stay with me on this line, up to the first
milestone in Scientology, and bring yourself up to a high level of ability
and apply yourself to that, you will be free – free from me and from
Scientology too!” Milestone 1 – LRH
I got what you mean. Whether I love or not somebody I wouldn’t try to possess him/her, with the meaning of forced control, as I think it is a gross overt. I like to possess objects, but I don’t see spirits as objects. To go from there to ‘can’t have’ though, is a different thing. A desire to reduce distance can be made a need if that desire is unfulfilled. The solution, from my perspective, isn’t to not-is the whole package and blow everything up (always, assuming there is love) but to as-is the charge.
Now that’s an authentic letting go Let It Go!
Of course it’s only my view of it, based on my considerations. I don’t equate love with need. The animal’s impulse to get laid, is not the same as affinity, for me. So, I don’t treat love as sickness –as something to be ‘gotten over’.
Also there’s difference between the ability and willingness to waste something, and to fall in apathy about not being able to have something. The first doesn’t imply the one has to waste it –it is knowingly self determined, the other is apparently not. So, it needs to get discharged.
letting go is the the most fundamental concept in any form of meditation. after i moved away from scientology in 86 i did at least 4 10 days silent retreats.in the beginning my body ached all over,after a few days i just was able to be there and accept the pain and it went away, i had a more difficult time with letting go of wanting a particular out come. wanting to wakeup,be exterior etc. when i let go of that,i was able to be there and again accept what is.it is different then tro. you realize I Am THAT I AM. I have realy seperated from the mind and let go in auditing, big let goes from Power, L11 AND L12. IF someone is serious about finding out who they are it is possible and there are many paths,it is all in side you just have t look, and letting go is a huge start.
this past weekend i was at a Buddhist celebration with 70 forest monks from thailand,most of the monks have been living in the forests of thailand 10 to 30 years. there very happy people. now with thai people moving to america the monks have opened over a 100 temples in the last 5 years to help the tahi community here. they are expanding much faster then any scientology group . they are giving a needed service to there public.
HCOB 8 June 1963, “The Time Track and Engram Running by Chains,” defines “charge” as “an impulse to withdraw from that which can’t be withdrawn from” — in other words, the inability to let go. Therefore, every properly delivered Scientology auditing process is about letting go.
thanks monty for posting that, i have seen jeff tell several stories, my favorite was a story he tells sitting on his veranda, would love to find it.
this story is great. love it.
Very thoughtful post.
Here is what I often use to let go.
It is simple, and It works for me.
HOMAGE TO THE BLESSED ONE, THE WORTHY ONE,
THE FULLY ENLIGHTENED ONE!
George M. White
Marty that description of letting go is amazing. The words kept resonating within me all day yesterday and I woke up to them.
It has got to be one of the best and most user friendly explanation.
It is just fabulous.
Great post .
Huge blow down , and moving on up:)
Monte, that was a beautiful post, I hope you are living in that world.
I think that to have and to waste are considerations of a valence and are lies. The primary state of beingness has no time and no viewpoint (unless it creates) so to have and to waste doesn’t make sense. It creates and perceives.
Thank you Marty. The key is `state`. With TRs and auditing I`ve had, this is all easily possiable as long as I dont get overwhelmed. Your blog is un-overwhelming me 🙂
“Letting go”…I am leaning this on a daily basis and welcomed this article, thank you Marty. Your book was by far the type of book that got me hooked until the end. I really enjoyed it and many things I had thoughts about came together and I let go!!!
Thanks a lot Carol.
Lynne, well said! for some this is not something that is even in their vision!
The letting go for me is very difficult. Quite early in my Scientology beginner days I encountered some phenomena I could not really handle. Sample: I find a women attractive and reached for her. Exactly then at this point in time she basically disappeared or literally turned around and ran away. So I had the idea I had been reaching too hard. Then I tried to control my reach and put not so much intention on that reach. Result had been the same. So then I figured out that maybe I see the energy flow mechanics at work and tried to find out how flows interact. But no different pattern. Replace women with money, good job, catch a train or whatever. The harder I tried the better the chance that I cannot reach may goals. So, my conclusion had been to not intend something. Stupid indeed but had no other solution. So I did go into a disco and made very shure that I do not intend to reach for a women. Then I found out, that no reach or no intention towards attaining a goal is also not a good solution. At this point I am stuck.
Lets make another example. Especially with machinery I do have not this problem. Therefore I can repair machinery, use it and have it. I have so to speak no problem letting go machinery. Scientolog language would be „I have no charge“ on that subject.
On the chargy subjects it is very different. Here I am caught in plus and minus or flows left and right. The one side would be „I want money or women“ as samples and the other side is „I do not need it and therefore I can let go“. Let go or not trying to force or intend. But a desire or wish or urge is called that way as it is a desire. Let go would require to not desire it. My attempts in this life failed as I had not been willing to not desire it but to say to myself or lie to myself that I could or did „un desire“ it.
For me I have to admit that it is totally (by experiece of my last 50 years or so) impossible for me to not desire something I do desire. I made the mistake that I tried to hide my desires or fake an un-desire or not intending something in order to be able to reach it. That failed completely. To be honest, the for me important points I cannot let go. Completely impossible. But anyway your article made me cognite exactly that. I should be more honest to myself regarding what I want.
Tony Ortega – Tonight on Channel 4: “Scientologists at War”
http://tonyortega.org/2013/06/17/tonight-on-channel-4-scientologists-at-war/
In the UK the documentary can also be watched live at:
http://watchlive.channel4.com/C4
From the comments section on Channel 4:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/scientologists-at-war/episode-guide/series-1/episode-1
“C4 Community Manager on 17 June 2013 at 04:50
Thank you for your comments regarding the upcoming film FIRST CUT: Scientologists at War. Our First Cut strand, which showcases new directors, covers a diverse range of subjects which we feel viewers will find both interesting and informative, further highlighting our commitment to new talent and providing our audiences with an alternate point of view. This particular documentary examines the Independent Scientology movement and the high level defectors who have publicly renounced their membership from the Church of Scientology including Marty Rathbun (a former Inspector General of Ethics in the Church of Scientology). We believe that this is a legitimate topic for an investigative documentary on the Church of Scientology and the recent developments affecting it; particularly how it treats former members who have decided to leave the organisation. We appreciate you writing in with your comments, however, might we suggest that you take the time to watch the programme before you make any judgements as to the content. The programme will screen on Monday 17 June at 9pm on Channel 4. Thank you. ”
.
Just watched a documentary here in the UK about you called “Scientologists at War!”, i don’t follow any religion, though i’ve had a run in with Scientologists before when i stupidly said i was going to do something, a completely baseless comment made in anger…6 months later i had the police and MI5 (or FBI, not sure) at my door…i then became the first person in the UK to be cautioned under the Prevention of Terrorism Act for sending a threatning e-mail…i’ve learn’t my lesson! Though i do still like to bait the Scientologists outside their little walk-in centre here in London…it keeps them on their toes!
Sorry, this is ‘off topic’, but I’ve just watched the Channel 4 documentary ‘Scientologists at War’ over here in the UK.
I just want to say that Monique was awesome!
You are a very lucky man, Marty.
It was a great documentary – hopefully it will be available for everyone to watch very soon.
Don’t give up Marty, the world is a better place with you.. Ron Hubbard (a man no different to you in any in form) wanted to save the world via his information.
Just about every individual see the world today as a place that is very much in a mess, as he did on 1950. A world with far, far slower global communication. We don’t need to build big flash complexes to get the world moving in a better direction, just the right people. And I can see that you are made for this role.
Keep your brilliant fantastic individuality, it’s what makes you Marty!
Hi Marty, I just saw the CH4 documentary about you. Interesting but not surprising. Kudos to you pal for getting out. Letting Go is a great practice – I use The Sedona Method quite a bit – are you familiar? Anyways, I’ve just signed up but I have a couple of questions: 1. Why did it take you so long to leave when you knew its practices were deplorable? 2. Did you ever really believe in all the Xenu stuff, in fact do you still? Take care. Stu 🙂
Good job with the C4 doc, Marty. Mosey, too. You guys were amazing. Very touching in parts. Tony O also rocked. Big respect to all.
Just watched the Channel 4 documentary on your work.
Really interesting and nice to see such a happy couple.
All the best
LRH some wonderful truths on this, the first of which is in “Find a goal, find a terminal” so that we are letting go of other people’s desires. I am not a hundred percent sure that I have the right interpretation but this has what it has meant to me.
The other thing that he does beautifully is the data series in which he gets people to look at where do things come from and why all the insanity, mostly because there was not proper evaluation and interpretation of the things in life.
So, I love the idea of letting go and love the Tao, one of my favorites, but like the idea of enlightened sloughing off of the old and seeing life in a new way.
Thanks for your writings.
I want to comment on something, a sort of letting go experience that I personally experienced recently for the first time. My experiences with Scientology at one point were just one huge stuck mass of MU’s, lack of ethics, false data. Just recently for the first time the whole entire mass, INCLUDING my coming out in 2002 and stating the church had stolen thousands of dollars from me, the whole 9 yards just floated away, drifted off back out to the universe of its orginiators. I never quite looked at like that before, I was never quite able to, but it is just gone. I anticipate, very soon, some startling events will begin to take place, in the Churches of Scientology I used to go to. But what about the feeling I have from letting go. I have one. Try to picture the Church of Scientology as a bunch of people making believe they are auditing and training people for a joke on others. Then picture maybe someone like myself that actually shows up and would truly benefit from auditing and training if it had been going on. Would you forgive someone for doing that to you? I wouldn’t. I am a much much stronger individual since seeing the Church of Scientology for what it is, a pack of lies! 🙂 To me, that’s letting go! 🙂
Tony Ortega: “SCIENTOLOGISTS AT WAR,” the Channel 4 Documentary
http://tonyortega.org/2013/06/17/scientologists-at-war-the-channel-4-documentary/
Excerpt: “As we predicted, a version of Channel 4′s documentary, “Scientologists at War,” has appeared on the Internet. We don’t know who’s responsible for it, but we’re embedding it here so our readers not in the UK can get a look at it.
We also asked some ex-Scientologists in the UK to give us their impressions of the show after they got to see it when it first aired.”
Just watched the UK programme about what happened-your partner was heaven sent-always put her first.
The funny thing is, in my opinion, this “letting go” is well covered in Scientology. The concepts of acceptance level and havingness, indeed would mean that you can just let go of something and allow it just to exist. In Modern usage it seems havingness has come to mean “the ability to control lots of MEST” but if you truly look at what it means and completely grok it, it certainly would mean you can accept anything, and just let it be with no emotional attachment and therefore no suffering. My two cents worth.
Link posted here in lastest blog post too.
roger, I know the one you’re talking about. I like that story a lot too. I’ve searched but have not found it. While searching, though, I did come across a music video that jeff’s son, Lightfield Lewis, produced. Jeff is in it. On YT search SATELLITE – “Ring The Bells” Lightfield is quite talented.
Thank you gretchen. You write: “I hope you are living in that world.” At this point, gretchen, it’s only in slivers and fractions of slivers that I do. But, I must say, the fractions are increasing. The more I let go at the core i.e., the belief in a lack that was the foundation of desire, the larger and more frequent the fractions of ‘that world’ become. With each illusory belief in an illusory lack that I let go of (I’m using the unreal to wake from the unreal), I move up a little higher. And in moving higher, in moving forward, I am actually returning to what I have always been.
Terril, I read that recently in a piece of promo and it wasn’t clear to me, from what had been excerpted from the lecture, exactly what LRH meant by “the first milestone in Scientology”. Will you please explain.if you can.
TR-0
Hey, Marty. Was just in San Antonio (Sea World) and thought of you. Maybe one of these days I’ll catch up with ya. 😉 Hope all is well with you!
Keep going, Bud. You’re doing just fine. 😉
Damn, wish we could have met.
Hello I am writing from the uk. I have just watched the documentary ” scientologists at war” on channel 4. I just want to say please don’t give up on what you are doing I admire you and your partner in your commitment to what you believe in. I am 35 years old and feel that the documentary portraited Scientology in a very bad way. Here in the uk we find it to be a bit strange because of the filming aspect and harassment and don’t quite get it so generally laugh at it. Tom cruise is kind of known to be weird now and is laughed at. I think you shouldn’t be harassed at home and should be allowed to live and let live. So you know what Marty keep doing what you’re doing and all the best!
Marcus
“Let Go” is the wrong indication. The only thing that makes sense is “Take Hold!” and I mean that with full enthusiasm.
Letting Go…beautiful! I love this and when I have applied this concept it has been very successful and rewarding.
The trouble with all other beliefs, practices and techniques that I have seen so far is that to really benefit from them you would have to be a well trained Scientologists or have already had a lot of auditing. The Release Technique as developed by Lester Levinson (a former Scientologist or at least and early PC) and promoted by the Sedona Method and Larry Crane’s Release Technique group and probably others is a great example of this. I have seen numerous non-Scientologist try this technique with very little or no results but I myself have benefitted from it because through my training in Scientology I fully understand how it works and how to best execute the technique.
Your article reminds me of one of my favorite poems by e.e. cummings:
let it go – the
e.e. cummings
let it go – the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise – let it go it
was sworn to
go
let them go – the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers – you must let them go they
were born
to go
let all go – the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things – let all go
dear
so comes love
This is where the article “Letting Go” comes from. I came across the ebook today and remembered reading it on this blog. I thought I would leave this link here for anyone interested. http://forestsanghapublications.org/assets/book/The_Four_Noble_Truths_-_Ajahn_Sumedho.pdf p.22