Letting go

Sometime ago, I listened to a spiritual master through a Youtube link that someone had sent me. A story from the Puranas (I think) that he shared touched me deeply and has been coming to me often and repeatedly, every time a fear of letting go grips me. Letting go has been the biggest challenge for me and it still is.......but it has become easier once I started doing it.

The story he shared was about a parrot and goes something like this:
There was a parrot who was caught by a man and trained....he carried it on a stick. But the parrot, although it was a bird by nature and could fly away anytime, could not......because it had forgotten how to fly! It was scared....and every time it felt fear, it gripped the stick more tightly instead of letting go.....the process of just letting go of the stick (here we could liken the stick to our ego, conditioning or anything else that we hold on to dearly) would have given the bird the freedom it so badly wanted. Why should it hold on to something so dearly when it knew deep inside that it could fly away wherever it wanted and whenever it wanted to? Why did it not let go?

Let go......let go......this is what echoes in my mind and heart these days......and like the parrot, I do find it hard to let go of some things.......but that is the ONLY way out for me! I know that....I want that....and I am trying to do that with everything in my life.....trying to break free and find myself.

Letting go.....

If only I could let go....

of love

of fear

of anger

of everything 

that I think is ME

I know I would find myself.....

the light

the shadow

the mirror

the abyss

and set my soul free......