If you want to be exceedingly powerful, one of the most powerful things you can do is to let go. One thing to let go of is imagined need for power over anyone else.
Pull back. Soften. Let go. Let go of resistance. This is what Gandhi did. He did not injure. Was he not strong in his letting tension go? He would not increase tension in himself. He would not fight for tension in others and, so, onto the world.
He was looking for a melting of positions taken. He understood. He persisted in his dream, yet he did not fight, nor did he concede. He was not a zealot, nor was he weak-kneed. Yet a nation that insisted on owning another nation and keeping it servile – that nation wound up on its knees. As an aside, the man who sought peace and found it wound up shot by someone who didn’t know him at all. Surely the world can use more tenderness.
You are aware that this is the same kind of release that happens in various martial sports. The purpose of this release isn't to show off or to make a point or prove a point. If the so-called opponent has nothing to push against, he has nothing to fight, and you are both closer to peace, for you together deflected a battle.
We are not speaking of winning over someone.
Sometimes it is valiant that you desist. Now you walk away in order to rest. This is not in any way defeat. It is putting down your fists.
You don’t have to announce this change in your stance. This is working on the more subtle levels. Put your dukes down. Whether you speak out loud or not, you are saying: "Let's take a break from all this fussing."
In a situation where you are angry, pause from your anger. You can see the advantage to you. You do not ask permission for a truce. You give a truce.
I will tell you again that letting go of is one of the most powerful arrows in your quiver. Of course, it is not an arrow in your quiver at all. It is a blessing you give.
Perhaps you have experienced this Story of Truth I speak of. Perhaps you were rigid and resentful of someone who offended you. You could not stomach his offense, and you turned away from your once friend. Perhaps twenty years passed before he was in your neighborhood again. You discovered that your heart was eased when you saw him, and a smile came to your face and a smile came to his face, and you embraced like long-lost friends which you, indeed, were. Neither of you could remember the cause for the great gully between you. Now, how foolish you feel for having ever turned your back on your friend over some silly thing of such unimportance that you can't even think of what it was that caused the breach. You did become friends again despite whatever the offense had been.
Before you met again, you had forgotten the offense. This is another way to say that you forgave the offense. Rather, dear ones, I will call the offense yours, and it is you who loosened. It is yourself you forgave.
There are many stories, both true in the world and in fiction, where hard feelings eased. Gentleness replaced fury, and nothing more made of what was in the past. It was let go of.
Can you imagine that when you rejoin family and friends in Heaven that any of you will remember to hold on to any vestige of hard feelings? Hard feelings vanish on their own. What are you left with when you no longer know the supposed source of heartache?
No matter what someone has said or done, the source of animosity is always from something within you. You reacted to something that arose from within you. There is no good reason for you to be quick to accept offense except as you tell yourself that your honor was at stake. You saw a sliver in your own eye. Fortunately, unlike Humpty Dumpty, the egg who fell from the wall and broke and could not be put back together again, broken friendships can be put back together, the sooner the better.
Hold no hostages.