18 June 2026
Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender – David R. Hawkins
Chapter 2. The mechanism of letting go.
Letting go is like the sudden cessation of an inner pressure or the dropping of a weight. It is accompanied by a sudden feeling of relief and lightness, with an increased happiness and freedom. It is an actual mechanism of the mind, and everyone has experienced it on occasion.
A good example is the following. You are in the midst of an intense argument; you are angry and upset, when suddenly the whole thing strikes you as absurd and ridiculous. You start to laugh. The pressure is relieved. You come up from anger, fear, and feeling attacked to feeling suddenly free and happy.
Think how great it would be if you could do that all of the time, in any place, and with any event. You could always feel free and happy and never be cornered by your feelings again. That’s what this technique is all about: letting go consciously and frequently at will. You are then in charge of how you feel, and you are no longer at the mercy of the world and your reactions to it. You are no longer the victim.
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We have had the experience of being totally absorbed in what we were doing, when we scarcely noticed the passage of time. The mind was very quiet, and we were simply doing what we were doing without resistance or effort. We felt happy, maybe humming to ourselves. We functioned without stress. We were very relaxed, although busy. We suddenly realized that we never needed all those thoughts after all. Thoughts are like bait to a fish; if we bite at them, we get caught. It’s best not to bite at the thoughts. We don’t need them.
Chapter 3. The anatomy of emotions.
The Map of Consciousness (see Appendix A) provides a linear, logarithmic view of this nonlinear energetic terrain. Each level of consciousness (or attractor pattern) is calibrated on a logarithmic scale of energetic power, ranging from 1–1000. The level of Full Enlightenment (1000), at the top of the Map, represents the highest level attainable in the human realm; it is the energy of Jesus Christ, the Buddha, and Krishna. The level of Shame (20) is at the bottom, close to death, representing bare survival.
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Peace (600): This is experienced as perfection, bliss, effortlessness, and oneness. It is a state of non-duality beyond separateness and beyond the intellect, as in the “peace that passeth all understanding.” It is described as Illumination and Enlightenment. It is rare in the human realm.
Joy (540): Love that is unconditional and unchanging, despite circumstances and actions of others. The world is illuminated by exquisite beauty, which is seen in all things. The perfection of creation is self-evident. There is closeness to unity and discovery of Self; compassion for all; enormous patience; the feeling of at-oneness with others and a concern for their happiness. A sense of self-completion and self-sufficiency prevails.
Love (500): A way of being that is forgiving, nurturing, and supportive. It does not proceed from the mind; rather, it emanates from the heart. Love focuses on the essence of a situation, not the details. It deals with wholes, not particulars. As perception is replaced with vision, it takes no position and sees the intrinsic value and lovability of all that exists.
Reason (400): This aspect differentiates humans from the animal world. There is the ability to see things in the abstract, to conceptualize, to be objective, and to make rapid and correct decisions. Its enormous utility is problem solving. Science, philosophy, medicine, and logic are expressions of this level.
Acceptance (350): This energy is easy-going, laid back, harmonious, flexible, inclusive, and free of inner resistance. “Life is good. You and I are good. I feel connected.” It meets life on life’s terms. There is no need to blame others or blame life.
Willingness (310): This energy subserves survival by virtue of a positive attitude that welcomes all expressions of life. It is friendly, helpful, wants to assist, and seeks to be of service.
Neutrality (250): This is a way of life that is comfortable, pragmatic, and relatively free of emotionality. “It’s okay either way.” It is free of rigid positions, nonjudgmental, and noncompetitive.
Courage (200): This energy says, “I can do it.” It is determined, excited about life, productive, independent, and self-empowered. Effective action is possible.
Pride (175): “My way is the best way,” says this level. Its focus is achievement, desire for recognition, specialness, and perfectionism. It feels “better than … ” and superior to others.
Anger (150): This energy overcomes the source of fear by force, threats, and attack. It is irritable, explosive, bitter, volatile, and resentful. It likes to “get even,” as in “I’ll show you.”
Desire (125): It is always seeking gain, acquisition, pleasure, and “getting” something outside oneself. It is insatiable, never satisfied, and craving. “I have to have it.” “Give me what I want, and give it to me now!”
Fear (100): This energy sees “danger,” which is “everywhere.” It is avoidant, defensive, preoccupied with security, possessive of others, jealous, restless, anxious, and vigilant.
Grief (75): There is helplessness, despair, loss, regret, and the feeling, “If only I had … ” Separation. Depression. Sadness. Being a “loser.” Mournful, as in “I can’t go on.”
Apathy (50): This energy is characterized by hopelessness, playing dead, being a “drain” to others, being immobilized, and the feelings: “I can’t” and “Who cares?” Poverty is common.
Guilt (30): In this energy field, one wants to punish and be punished. It leads to self-rejection, masochism, remorse, “feeling bad,” and self-sabotage. “It’s all my fault.” Accident-proneness, suicidal behavior, and projection of self-hatred onto “evil” others are common. It is the basis of many psychosomatic illnesses.
Shame (20): Characterized by humiliation, as in “hanging your head in shame.” It is traditionally accompanied by banishment. It is destructive to health and leads to cruelty toward self and others.
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For example, there was the case of a man who misplaced his passport shortly before going to a foreign country. (...) He sat down and asked himself: “What is the basic feeling that I’ve been ignoring?” To his surprise, the basic feeling that came up was grief. The grief was associated with not wanting to be separated from someone he dearly loved. There was also an associated fear of loss of the relationship, or at least the weakening of it due to his absence. As he let go of the grief and the associated fear, he suddenly felt at peace about the matter. He also concluded that if the relationship couldn’t handle a two-week absence, it wasn’t worth all that much anyway; so, there was really nothing at risk. As soon as he felt at peace, he instantly remembered where the passport was.
The emotion can be reduced in intensity by sharing the feeling with close friends or mentors. By merely expressing the feeling, some of the energy behind it is reduced. It is also alright in this circumstance consciously to utilize escape mechanisms, such as going out in a social situation to get some distance from the upset, playing with the dog, watching television, going to the movies, playing music, making love, or whatever one’s habit is under the circumstances. When the feeling has been reduced in its sheer quantity and intensity, it is best to start letting go of small aspects of the situation rather than the overall situation and the accompanying emotion itself.
Handling a crisis from the emotional rather than the intellectual level will shorten its duration dramatically. In the case of someone who loses a job, handling it from the intellectual level will produce thousands of thoughts and hypothetical scenarios. The person suffers through many sleepless nights due to the racing thoughts about the situation as the mind reviews it over and over again. All of this is fruitless. Until the underlying emotion is surrendered, the thoughts will be engendered endlessly. We all know of people who have had an emotional crisis many years ago and, to this day, have not recovered. It has totally colored their life, and they have paid a big price for their lack of know-how in handling the underlying emotions.
It is said that most people spend their lives regretting the past and fearing the future; therefore, they are unable to experience joy in the present. Many of us have assumed that this is our human fate, our lot, and the best that we can do is “grin and bear it.” Philosophers have sometimes made hay out of this negativistic, pessimistic approach and developed whole systems of nihilism. These philosophers, some of whom have become celebrated over the years, are obviously mere victims of painful emotions that they did not handle and which triggered endless intellectualization and elaboration. Some spent their entire lifetime constructing sophisticated intellectual systems to justify what is glaringly obvious as a simple suppressed emotion. One of the most effective tools for handling the past is the creation of a different context. What this means is that we give it a different meaning. We take on a different attitude about the past difficulty or trauma, and we acknowledge the hidden gift in it. The value of this technique was first recognized in psychiatry by Viktor Frankl. He explained the approach—which he called “Logotherapy”—in his famous book, Man’s Search for Meaning. His clinical and personal experience demonstrated that emotional events and traumatic occurrences will change considerably and be healed if a new meaning is placed around them. Frankl told of his own experience in the Nazi concentration camps wherein he came to see his physical and psychic suffering as an opportunity to achieve inner triumph. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way” (Frankl). Frankl re-contextualized the horrific circumstances to hold profound meaning for the human spirit. Every life experience, no matter how “tragic,” contains a hidden lesson. When we discover and acknowledge the hidden gift that is there, a healing takes place.
Had the man not learned the technique of letting go, he might well have gone to his grave with the same resentment. So the question is, “How long do we want to go on suffering? When are we willing to give it up? When is enough enough?”
Chapter 4. Apathy and Depression.
Behind all of the “I can’ts” are merely “I won’ts.” The “I won’ts” mean “I am afraid to” or “I am ashamed to” or “I have too much pride to try, for fear I might fail.” Behind that is anger at ourselves and circumstances engendered by pride. Acknowledging and letting go of these feelings brings us up to courage and, with that, finally acceptance and an inner peacefulness, at least as it regards the area which has been surmounted.
It must be remembered that we are free to acknowledge and surrender our feelings, and we are free not to surrender. As we examine our “I can’ts” and find out that they are really “I won’ts,” it doesn’t mean that we have to let go of the negative feelings that result in the “I won’ts.” We are perfectly free to refuse to let go. We are free to hang on to negativity as long as we want. There is no law that says we have to give it up. We are free agents. But it makes a big difference in our self-concept to realize that “I won’t do something” is quite a different feeling than to think that “I’m a victim and I can’t.” For instance, we can choose to hate somebody if we want. We can choose to blame them. We can choose to blame circumstances. But being more conscious and realizing that we are freely choosing this attitude puts us in a higher state of consciousness and, therefore, closer to greater power and mastery than being the helpless victim of a feeling.
But, because in the unconscious mind there is no such thing as time, we can choose at any time in the present to heal the past event. As we go through our own emotional healing for our own sake, that past event now begins to take on a different meaning. Our Higher Self begins to create a new context for it. We can see the hidden gift. We can end up acknowledging with gratitude that it gave us a new opportunity to learn, to grow, and to acquire wisdom. One of the most common areas in which we see this emotional crippling is after divorce. All too often it is followed by bitterness and the impaired capacity to create a new loving relationship. The unwillingness to let go of the blame continues the emotional crippling, which can go on for years, or even a lifetime. When we come upon bitterness, what we have really discovered is an unhealed area in our own emotional makeup, and the effort that we put into healing it will bring enormous rewards. In any situation which involves suffering, we have to ask ourselves: “How long am I willing to pay the cost? What were the karmic propensities to begin with? How much blame is enough? Is there a time to call an end to it? How long will I hang on to it? How much sacrifice am I willing to pay to the other person for their wrongs, real or imaginary? How much guilt is enough? How much self-punishment is enough? When will I give up the secret pleasure of the self-punishment? When does the sentence come to an end?” When we really examine it, we will always find that we have been punishing ourselves for ignorance, naïveté, innocence, and lack of inner education.
Chapter 5. Grief.
Grief is an experience common to us all. In grief, we feel that things are too difficult; we’ll never make it; we are unloving and unlovable. We have thoughts such as, “All the years I’ve wasted.” It is a feeling of sadness and loss. Loneliness. The feeling of “if only.” Regret. Feelings of abandonment, pain, helplessness, and hopelessness. Nostalgia. Melancholy. Depression. Longing. Irretrievable loss. Heartbrokenness. Anguish. Disappointment. Pessimism.
There is a crying for someone to help because we can’t do anything about it, and we feel that maybe someone else can do it for us. This is in contradistinction to apathy, where there is a feeling that no one can help.
Grief is time-limited. This fact gives us the courage and willingness to face grief. If we don’t resist the feeling of grief and totally surrender to it, it will run out in about 10–20 minutes; then it will stop for variable lengths of time. If we keep surrendering to it every time it comes up, then it will eventually run out. We just allow ourselves to experience it fully. We only have to tolerate an overwhelming grief for 10–20 minutes, and then all of a sudden it will disappear. If we resist the grief, then it will go on and on. Suppressed grief can go on for years.
A well-known and widely-practiced teaching is the Serenity Prayer of the 12-Step groups: God, Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference.
It becomes apparent that severe mourning, loss, and the pathological reactions that may ensue can be prevented by early recognition, and by preemptive surrender of the associated feelings while they are still mild and can be handled without excessive suffering. As we have seen, the basis of all mourning and loss is attachment, plus the denial of the transitory nature of all relationships. We can begin by looking at our lives, identifying those areas of attachment, and asking ourselves: “What internal needs are they satisfying? What feeling would come up if I were to lose them? How can my inner emotional life be balanced so as to decrease the extent, degree, and number of attachments on external objects and people?” The greater our attachment to that which is outside of ourselves, the greater is our overall level of fear and vulnerability to loss. We can ask ourselves why we feel so incomplete. “Why am I so empty within myself that I have to search for solutions in the form of attachment and dependency on others?” We can begin to look at our own inner areas of immaturity. Specifically, we need to examine: “Where am I looking to get love rather than to give it?” The more loving we are, the less vulnerable we are to grief and loss, and the less we need to seek attachments. When we have acknowledged and let go of all negative feelings, and we have graduated from smallness to the recognition of our greatness so that our internal joy comes from the pleasure of giving and loving, then we are really invulnerable to loss. When the source of happiness is found within, we are immune to the losses of the world.
Anticipation of the inevitable and preparing for it now bring relatively minor discomfort compared to traumatic grief and loss at a later date. We can look at our major love relationships and honestly examine them. To what degree do they subserve our selfish inner needs? To what degree are we really using the other person to exploit them for our own gain? To what degree are they merely subserving our happiness? To find out, all we need to do is ask ourselves: “If their happiness were best served by leaving me, how would I feel about it?” This reveals the degree to which we are trying to restrict and control the other person—which is attachment and not love.
Chapter 6. Grief.
To understand how fear is self-reinforcing, we have to stop and look at another one of the laws of consciousness: What one holds in mind tends to manifest. What this means is that any thought which we consistently hold in mind and consistently give energy to will tend to come into our life according to the very form in which our mind has held it. Thus, fear engenders fearful thoughts. The more we hold these thoughts in mind, the more likely the feared event will happen in our life, which again reinforces our fear. As a medical intern, there was a fear of public speaking. At the very thought of getting up in front of medical colleagues to present a patient’s case, the voice would fail out of sheer fright. Because of holding that fear, the inevitable situation arose that necessitated having to present the case of a patient to the staff meeting. After reading a few paragraphs of the case history, the voice began to falter and get weaker and eventually stopped. The very fear that had been held in mind came to pass and, of course, that occurrence reinforced a fear of public speaking and brought on apathy about it. Henceforth, for many years, the limiting belief system operated: “I can’t speak in public. I’m just not a public speaker.” Any and all speaking occasions were avoided, with the consequent loss of self-esteem, avoidance of activities, and limitation of vocational goals. As the years passed, the fear took a somewhat different form. The belief system was: “I don’t want to speak, because I might be a boring and bad speaker.” Finally, an occasion arose where it was necessary to speak in a public meeting. There was the opportunity to sit down and find the courage to face the fear. The inner dialogue was: “What’s the worst possible thing that could happen? Well, you could be terribly boring.” This brought to mind all the boring speeches given by others, and then it became possible to accept that a boring speech was actually common and certainly not the end of the world.
This love is the mechanism of reassurance, and very often we can quiet another person’s fears by our mere physical presence, and by the loving energy that we project to them and with which we surround them. It is not what we say, but the very fact of our presence that has the healing effect.
We could take the same protective actions out of love rather than out of fear. Can we not care for our bodies because we appreciate and value them, rather than out of fear of disease and dying? Can we not be of service to others in our life out of love, rather than out of fear of losing them? Can we not be polite and courteous to strangers because we care for our fellow human beings, rather than because we fear losing their good opinion of us? Can we not do a good job because we care about the quality of our performance and we care about our fellow workers? Can we not perform our job well because we care about the recipients of our services, rather than just the fear of losing our jobs or pursuing our own ambition? Can we not accomplish more by cooperation, rather than by fearful competition? Can we not drive carefully because we have a high regard for ourselves and care for our welfare and those who love us, rather than because we fear an accident? On a spiritual level, isn’t it more effective if, out of compassion and identification with our fellow human beings, we care for them, rather than trying to love them out of fear of God’s punishment if we don’t?
Appendix A. Map of Consciousness.
God-view Life-view Level Log Emotion Process
Self Is Enlightenment 700+ Ineffable Pure Consciousness
All-Being Perfect Peace 600 Bliss Illumination
One Complete Joy 540 Serenity Transfiguration
Loving Benign Love 500 Reverence Revelation
Wise Meaningful Reason 400 Understanding Abstraction
Merciful Harmonious Acceptance 350 Forgiveness Transcendence
Inspiring Hopeful Willingness 310 Optimism Intention
Enabling Satisfactory Neutrality 250 Trust Release
Permitting Feasible Courage 200 Affirmation Empowerment
Indifferent Demanding Pride 175 Scorn Inflation
Vengeful Antagonistic Anger 150 Hate Aggression
Denying Disappointing Desire 125 Craving Enslavement
Punitive Frightening Fear 100 Anxiety Withdrawal
Disdainful Tragic Grief 75 Regret Despondency
Condemning Hopeless Apathy 50 Despair Abdication
Vindictive Evil Guilt 30 Blame Destruction
Despising Miserable Shame 20 Humiliation Elimination