Craig Hamilton
Episode 6 The Life-Changing Power of Letting Go (Part One) | Craig Hamilton
Craig Hamilton : May 13, 2025 7:50:46 AM
In This Episode…
Surrender is central to every spiritual tradition. But what does it actually mean to surrender—and how do we begin to practice it in a real and grounded way?
In this episode, Craig invites us into a direct exploration of that question. Rather than approaching surrender as a lofty ideal, he points us toward a lived experience—something we can discover for ourselves through conscious attention.
The episode includes a short guided meditation to help you step into this deeper orientation and see what unfolds when you stop trying to control the moment.
To access the full transcript of this episode and to discover more resources, visit the episode page on MeditationChangesEverything.com. You can also sign up there for Craig’s weekly newsletter.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Surrender is fundamentally about giving up. If we think about the traditional metaphor of surrender or the traditional idea of surrendering, it’s a battle metaphor. We wave the white flag, we lay down our arms, we say we will fight no more, we give up. In battle someone usually surrenders because they realize they don’t have a chance. When they realize they’re helpless, they’re not going to fight their way out of this, that’s when they finally give up trying and say, okay, I’m going to save my life because I’m not going to be able to win this battle.
Surrender in the Context of Awakening
It’s an interesting thing in the literature of spiritual awakening. Often this spiritual surrender happens for people when they are literally at the end of their rope in life. Many mystics, many people describe it as having profound experiences of surrender and awakening occurring just at the moment when they were either so depressed or in such profound grief, experiencing a sense that life wasn’t worth living anymore, that if this is how life’s going to be, I can’t bear it, and then suddenly they just gave up struggling and experienced a profound depth in opening and surrender to this grace and this mystery that showed up at the moment that they gave up.
Surrender as an Active Practice in Meditation
Yet, none of us want to wait for life to take us that far and we would not wish that on anyone else, that they would have to come to a point of inner pain or inner grief, of inner giving up because life was so unbearable. So, we can take up this posture of surrender as an active practice in meditation.
We don’t need life to force our hand, because obviously when life gets that bad, people often make other bad choices that aren’t merely just spiritual surrender, but to give up completely on life. We’re certainly not advocating trying to make your life so bad that you’ll spiritually surrender. But it’s just interesting to note that because it helps you get a sense of how big the gesture of surrender is.
I was thinking about this helplessness that is so often a catalyst for surrender, the sense of helplessness that leads to it. I was realizing there’s also a helplessness we can come to through our own reflection on reality.
Controlling Our Experience Is an Illusion
What I mean by that is … let’s take our meditation practice and be content no matter what occurs. What that practice reveals is how much of our time we spend trying to change what is, trying to change the moment into something else, trying to change our experience, trying to control it.
But part of what this practice reveals is that controlling our experience is really an illusion, that we really never can change the moment. The moment is always as it is. There might be things you could do now that would influence the unfolding of the future, of things in the future. But in meditation we’re just practicing being in right relationship to this moment. We’re practicing being fully here in this moment and what it is to be free in this moment.
If you look at this moment, the one that’s happening right now, there’s nothing you could possibly do to change it in any way. The moment is always just as it is. There were actions maybe you took in the past prior to this moment that had an influence on what’s happening in this moment. Sure. I’m not saying the moment is as it is means it was predestined to be this way. It’s not that at all. Or that change isn’t possible and that we have no power or influence over that. It’s nothing like that. I’m not saying anything like that.
I’m saying, right now in this moment there is absolutely nothing you can do to influence this moment. You are helpless before the reality of this moment. It is always just as it is. You can either continue struggling along in the illusion there’s something you can do about it or you can let go and just allow the moment to be exactly as it is.
You can surrender to this moment.
Surrender Means Giving Up Any Attempt to Control Your Experience
Give up any attempt to control your experience, any attempt to influence what’s arising right now, which is to be content. But now we’re being content not just because we’re choosing to be content. We’re being content because we realize there’s nothing we could ever do anyway.
So we give up control, we give up the illusion of control of our experience.
We stop struggling with reality. And we let it be.
Guided Meditation: Letting this Moment Be
So this is the practice I want to invite us into now.
So just find yourself in a relaxed comfortable position, leaving behind all the cares and concerns of the day, and allowing yourself to bring your full energy and attention into this moment.
Having recognized our helplessness before the moment, and having surrendered any idea that we could influence this moment, we simply let this moment be. We let it be.
[SILENCE]
Letting the moment be as it is, means letting yourself be as you are. Just as there’s nothing you can do to change the moment, there’s nothing you can do to change yourself in this moment.
[SILENCE]
Whatever state your consciousness is in, whether it feels expansive and free or contracted and tight, whether you’re feeling upsetting emotions or love and bliss and peace or anything in between, that is exactly how you are right now and there’s nothing you could do to change that and there’s nothing you need to do to change that. There’s nothing missing. There’s nothing lacking.
[SILENCE]
Letting things be as they are doesn’t mean you have to like the way things are. It doesn’t require you to feel any particular way about reality. It just means you’ve given up resisting and struggling to control or change what is.
[SILENCE]
Whatever’s happening in your experience right now, just let it be.
There is nothing in your way. There is nothing that could arise that could be an obstacle to freedom. The moment is already whole.
Just be content with this as it is.
[SILENCE]
[MEDITATION BELL]
Now I want to invite you to gently let go of the meditation practice. Just allow this ease of being, this contentment, just allowing it to flow on in whatever way it does naturally.
