On Letting Go – and thus Knowing Deeply – Christ

When I say “let go of Christ” or “let go of A Course in Miracles” what I mean is: let Christ be. Let A Course in Miracles be. Let God be. I don’t mean have or don’t have, possess or don’t possess. I mean simply give attention to Christ, or God, or A Course in Miracles and see what happens.

In a sense, to “let go” is to be curious. It is a state of openness in which one releases to the maximum extent possible their expectations and investments. Rather than insist Christ be this or that, or have this meaning rather than that – which is to insist on Christ as a certain kind of experience conforming to expectation and desire (which is unloving) – we simply attend the experience or Christ as it actually is for us, in that moment.

When we do this in a sustained and gentle way, we begin to see how “Christ” or “A Course in Miracles” or “God” or “Spiritual Term of Your Choosing” are really just forms of conditioning. They are descriptions of experience – often that we want to have, or expect to have.

Giving attention – rather than describing – is a way of discovering what is actually present, rather than what may be present, or was present in the past, or what we hope or fear will be present.

For me – which is not to say for you – letting go of Christ means that Christ sort of . . . floats away. It is like releasing a balloon. The balloon is vivid and beautiful but once my grasp on it lessens, it gently slips my hold and slowly rises and drifts away.

In its place is something closer to Michel Henry’s observation in I am the Truth – here paraphrased – that Christ is the light in which all things, including “Christ”, are seen. Henry approximately equivocates Christ with Awareness or Consciousness, and thus divests it of its personal and historical connotations.

The coming of Christ into the world is subordinate to the coming of the world itself, to its appearance as the world. Because if the world had not first opened its space of light – if it had not been shown to us as that horizon of visibility cast beyond things, as that screen against which they are detached – then Christ would never have been able to come into the world or show himself to us . . .

In this way, we might say that Christ is Love, just as we might also say that God is Love. And then we give attention to Love and see what happens. We become curious about Love. We let go of Love.

Allowing life to be – to appear as it is, without insisting it be something else or something different – is very liberating. It is clarifying. And we are always sufficient unto it, for we are it. When we are free, we notice that we are life giving attention to life. There is nothing to lose; there is a lot to share.

There is a lot of joy to be tasted in this simple clarity, a lot of peace. The ups and downs that inhere in the body’s adventures and misadventures don’t cease, but our attachment to and investment in them relaxes. We are less distracted by them, because there is another way, one that is given to us as us.

That way is the calm and quiet stillness of being itself, which includes us – which gently dissolves us – in itself. It is like the pleasure of holding another’s hand. Nobody teaches us to want this or be happy with it; no instruction manual is needed. It simply is.