Let Go & Let God

By Saleem Rana

We like to believe that our minds will help us solve our problems.  When we refer to mind, we actually refer to that small part that we call our conscious mind.  Since this is the mind that is aware of itself, we think of it as the whole. 

The conscious mind can only process about 7 bits of information per second.  Below that mind is the subconscious mind.  This processes not only all your biological functions, which involves some trillions of processes, but it is also a reservoir that has perfect memory, or panmensia.  Everything that you have ever experienced is remembered by your subconscious mind.

Yet, if this is impressive, there is still something even bigger.  This is the awareness that processes the entire universe.  It is the consciousness in which everything lives, moves, and has its being.  Pure consciousness is perfect and complete.  Since it is infinite in its capacity, it is incomprehensible to the conscious mind.

Through the ages, this super-conscious mind has been referred to as God, or "the good."  In other words, the highest good.  Since it is incomprehensible, it has been personified into a pantheon of beings, or into a single, grand being.  This interpretation of God has helped cultures control their people, and in fact a lot of heinous crimes toward humanity have been perpetrated under its supposed sanction.  This is why Karl Marx referred to religion as the "opium of the people."

Here is an analogy to explain the structures of the mind.

Imagine stepping into a big room.  The room is as huge as a country.  This is the conscious mind.

Then when you step out of the room, you find yourself is as huge as the world itself.  This is the subconscious mind. 

Yet, when you step out of this second room, you will see the entire universe before you.  This is the super-conscious mind. 

A few mystics through the ages, however, have proclaimed that God is not a person.  It is instead the totality of all that can be known and it appears to be unlimited.  It is not personal to a person or a culture, but seeks the well-being of everyone and everything.

While the conscious mind filters everything through the lens of duality, this super-conscious mind aims only at unification of all that exists into a harmonious whole.

Because the super-conscious mind is in everything, it is also in you.  In fact, you exist only because it exists.  Your conscious and subconscious mind are subsets of this super-conscious mind.  It is, no pun intended, the universal set. 

When we have problems of any kind, it is only because we have a limited perception about something.  We are viewing it from the perspective of the conscious mind.  Because this is fairly impressive, we believe it is capable of solving the problem, but often there is too little information for it to work on, and it tends to work on the information that it does have is processed poorly.  This is why problems tend to linger and get worse.

Sometimes problems can be solved by turning them over to the subconscious mind.  If you are able to do this then the results are remarkable.  Most of humanities breakthroughs are due to some kind of subconscious insight.

However, the ultimate way to solve problems is simply to pass them over to the super-conscious mind.  The way you do this is to take a leap of faith and declare your intention to pass it over.

This is what is meant by "Letting go and letting God."  It is the ultimate solution to any problem.  But it takes courage to completely relinquish any attachment to controlling the method and the outcome.