
The spiritual value of relaxation is dramatically underappreciated. It is the most powerful superpower you have. I believe it would be well worth your time to devote an entire year to exploring the spiritually transformative power of relaxation. And if you did, the first thing you would realize is how important it is not to turn relaxation into an activity.
Meditation simply means being relaxed. And I don’t mean relaxing. Relaxing is a verb. When you sit in meditation, don't be busy relaxing, just be relaxed.
If you are actively relaxing, you will never get any closer to being relaxed and you will probably conclude that you need to try harder. The harder you try, the less relaxed you will be.
If, on the other hand, you are simply relaxed, the quality of your relaxation will deepen, not because you are working at it, but simply because it is expanding inside you.
Be relaxed.
Why is being relaxed so spiritually powerful? Because there is nothing keeping us from realizing our full potential, except holding on to less than that. There's nothing in the way except our own holding on.
By being relaxed, we let go. As soon as we let go, we start to expand into our full spiritual potential. That's how simple the formula is. In the end, everything I teach and everything that could be taught about this, comes down to one thing. Let go. Be relaxed. Everything else will happen automatically.
Allow me to repeat myself. The only thing keeping you from realizing your full spiritual potential is that you are holding on to less than that. The spiritual path is whatever it takes to come to the point where you finally let go. That's it.
Everything else, all the teachings, practices, retreats, programs, workshops, study, all of it comes down to whatever it takes to get us to let go of our smaller self-identity. As soon as we do, we naturally expand into our higher self.
In meditation, be relaxed. Don’t make any effort, because the effort you make to try to let go is really just a way to continue to cling to a small self-identity that thinks it needs to make effort to let go.
When you finally get this, your mind will stop. We cling to a smaller self-identity by continuing to try to liberate ourselves as if it won’t happen unless we force it to. There is no effort you need to make to realize your full spiritual potential. The only thing you need to do is let go and be relaxed.
That is the gospel of relaxation.
The only thing keeping us from realizing our full spiritual potential is our own holding on to a smaller sense of self. Let go, be relaxed, and your full spiritual potential will be realized.
