Goodbye
I love Smokey Robinson. I’ve had a man crush on him for over 40 years. I’ve seen him in concert 3 times in different decades. Each time, he reached in and touched my heart strings until the lump in my throat appeared. Like most men of my generation, I was conditioned not to come to tears quickly but Smokey adeptly picked that lock and grabbed my heart and massaged the tears out of it.
One of Smokey’s songs was not a big hit but I loved it. It’s called, “What’s So Good About Goodbye?” I guess I’m not the only one who appreciated it because it was covered by 2 other artists – The Temptations and Quix*O*Tic. Here are some of the lyrics as I remember them:
What’s so good about goodbye
All it does is make you cry
Well if leavin’ causes grievin’
And depart can break your heart
Tell me what’s so good about goodbye
A few years later The Beatles came along and had a song called, “Hello Goodbye” which I wasn’t a big fan of, but the title invited me to explore the old axiom of one door closing and another one opening. All this leads up to personal revelation I received from The Grasshopper. His exact pronouncement was:
“I found life in goodbye.”
These words also brought tears, but of a different kind. These were the tears of revelation whereas Smokey’s words activated an emotion in me allowing the accompanying tears to wash out the thoughts that were stuck in my head.
The revelation was that “Goodbye” allowed me to let go of attachment and say “Hello” to life. It’s the attachment that causes the pain. This in no way should be confused with indifference and not caring, nor is it a recommendation to renounce your possessions. This release of attachment lives on another level and is not subject to a conscious declaration like, “I’m letting go of attachment.” Like forgiveness, letting go of attachment has to visit you, not the other way around. You can open the door to invite it in, but you can’t lead it to water and make it drink.
Attachment is always accompanied by the word “My.” My job, my car, my husband/wife, my children, my social standing, my reputation are some of the phrases that we use all the time. When we open our eyes to the folly of “My,” we see the myopia of attachment.
Possession is always temporary and the more possessive we become, the longer the pain of “Goodbye” lingers when something goes away. This is really an addendum to the blog post I wrote awhile back called MY-ism. Your life situation, by conditioning, is chuck filled with attachment. The life that lives you is on a deeper level where there is no attachment, only connection.
Think of attachment as a puppet on a string. We are puppets with our ego manipulating the attachment strings. Then consider life to be a wireless connection to everything. There is a major difference. Attachment keeps us joined at the hip to suffering, and connection allows us to say hello to the freedom of life.
Start slowly. Begin saying “Goodbye” to attachments in small doses. You can monitor your language for the possessive words that act as glue to the underlying attachment. It could be as simple as saying, “let’s take the Maxima,” rather than saying, “Let’s ride in my car.” This does not mean to stop using the word, “My.” It’s merely an exercise to illustrate how attached we are. Just the noticing of your language causes the strings of attachment to weaken.
Finding the life beneath your life situation causes you to feel the unfettered connection to the common source of everything. All you have to do to get there is cut the strings.
All the best,
John
http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan
http://www.cafepress.com/grasshoppernote/3580301
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