Letting go

Judi said,

What do you think this means: "The whole path to love could be described as learning to let go..."? Let go of WHAT? Ourselves, perhaps? That is, our minds and egos and our personal realities?

How does this work in practical terms in our relationships with other people (not dogs)? With God? The Universe?

I recently have interpreted letting go as letting the other person go but perhaps it means our own egos. I certainly think love is not possessive and allowing our egos to become involved suggests possessiveness. Originally, long ago, I thought letting go meant not having anything more to do with the other person, in other words, kicking them out of my life and then waiting for them to come back. Ummmm....

In practical terms it makes for freedom in our relationships with other people. I haven't thought about God and the Universe or how it affects our relationships with those rather ineffable entities, but as far as other people are a reflection of our relationship with God and the Universe (think Allah Ben Abdul and the angel...he loved his fellow man and his name led the list!)...then I think letting go allows the 12 Step saying to be truer for us, "Let go and let God". Maybe some don't understand that but I think a person with addictions perhaps has to learn that in order to stay sober or whatever the addiction of choice may be...the Universe is perhaps easier to understand and comprehend than God, unless we have a small vision of a small God. God and the Universe being somewhat the same.

So letting go IMHO may be necessary for freedom, and freedom of choice as we understand it in Genesis, or "free will"...to understand there are other realities out there besides ours and respect them. Certainly letting go implies respect for the other person, too. And also I'm thinking of vitriolic people whom we do have to let go in every sense of the word because otherwise they'll poison us. There's no room for toxic people in a healthy relationship.

It also implies that we can't change other people. We can't even serve as good examples.

I think letting go of one's ego essentially might mean letting go of one's exclusive rights to a single reality.

And that begs the question of the old concept of absolute truths such as Beauty, Truth, etc. that the ancient Greek philosophers held so dear. Is there such a thing as an absolute Truth? As absolute Beauty? I used to think there was. Now I'm not so sure. I think absolute Truth, if there is such a thing, would be God or the Universe, and we'll never find it unless we do let go of our own egos and our own limited realities.

I might talk about this some more with my friends, but I know certain fundamentalists believe in their version of the Truth and no one else's. That's scary and again begs the question, are these toxic people? Or simply very selfish? I've tended recently to think of them as toxic and avoided them, but I might try to open a dialogue with some of them about it and find out for myself. After all, my own version of reality could use some alternate universes, as well. And an alternate universe may very well be simply an alternate reality.