When you let go of the so-called past, present, or future, you have let go of a lodged idea. When you let go, you feel tremendous ease. When you let go, you have surrendered. You haven't given up anything but a preconceived idea. That's what surrender is. You surrender your demands, and you accept peace.

When you hold on so tight as you tend to do, you get headaches and other symptoms. Holding on constricts. Letting go seems to be hard for you to do, but it is one of the easiest things in the world. All you do is open the fist of your mind. But whether you let go or not, you do not in any case control all that you tell yourself you would like to. Control is a myth anyway.

But if you could have control of every step, would you really like to decide everything for yourself? The fact that you cannot control as you imagine you would like to gives you something to fight against, and that's what you like to do. That's what resistance is, and that's what letting go is not. If I told you could have your way all the time, you would stop short and ask, "What shall I do? Father or Mother God, which way shall I go? I don't know what to do. Guide me. Stop me and prod me. Show me the way. What is the best route to take? Do I go this way or that? Tell me, and I will follow Your every step."

You are innocent. Do not pretend to yourself that you are not. You cannot follow an action or a thought to its conclusion. You don't know up from down. You are not clever nor sophisticated. The cleverest of you may be the most innocent of all, especially if he believes in his own cleverness.

You think you have to have something, that you must have it, that you can't live without it. What you really think is that you must have your way, that life has to be what you say it has to be. But you don't have to have your way, beloveds. Your way is short-sighted, and Mine is vast.

Please do not think that I seek to thwart you, test you, throw objects in your path. I am not out to get you. I am not out to reform you. I am not out to improve you. I am not out to recreate you. I created you. I created you in My image, not yours. Your image is inaccurate. You have greater power than mere control. Control is such a little thing. It can't do much. It can't even let go of itself. Control is not mighty. Letting go is. Control is ego's brother. Give up control, and you will have let more of that pompous little ego go.

Transcending the need to control does not make you passive. It makes you vibrant and alert. It makes you an explorer and discoverer. An explorer who reaches a river does not say: "Look, by my calculations, this river should not be here. This river must be moved. Let's get it out of the way. It's a mistake that it's here. Let's move it."

Nor does an explorer who comes to an unexpected river say, "Well, we must retrace our steps. We took a wrong turn somewhere. Let's go back to the beginning and see what we could have done to avoid this river."

An explorer who comes to an unexpected river says: "Well, men, let's find a way to cross it."

Perhaps life is like a river you cross. Perhaps that is as much as you need to know.