Letting Go of Attachment to Position

and finding wisdom and freedom instead

My personal experience with this process continues to be profoundly liberating. Have you ever noticed that when you are attached to a position about something - anything - you are ripe for contraction and reactivity? If someone disagrees with your position, or if they hold an “offending” position, or if you feel unseen or unheard when someone doesn’t respect your position…you may become rattled, unsettled or upset. Even if you are able to dodge those pitfalls, you have bound yourself in a narrow band.

The hardest part for me has been when I just KNOW something to be true, and people very close to me can’t or won’t see it. This has often caused me to get caught up in a thought-loop such as, “They don’t respect my wisdom, and therefore they don’t respect ME!” Or, “They are going to hurt themselves if they don’t understand the importance of this, and I am going to feel responsible somehow, for not doing a good enough job of convincing them!”

In the early years of all my healing discoveries and remarkable personal benefits adhering to a raw vegan diet, I wanted other people to have my experience! I wanted to help reduce what I saw as their unnecessary suffering, and I was sure I had answers for them. I must have sounded a bit evangelical, and that’s how I felt! I was so sure I had found the way and the truth and the light…and if they would only LISTEN! Not surprisingly, I scared some people away with my enthusiasm about my new discoveries. I wasn’t grounded in the wholeness of the space that contains it ALL. I was attached to my new positions, and I wanted other people to see what I saw.

People’s frequent resistance to my positions, their confrontations with me, and their lack of interest or self-discipline in following the transformational steps I laid out for them — this is what ultimately caused me to see the futility in my own attachments, not only to my positions but also to my seeking to convince or transform others. It was causing distortions in me, and in my relationships.

It was an intensive inner process to relax and release my perceived need to convince others of the answers I had found. I eventually made a conscious decision to be like Peace Pilgrim, who simply offered herself as an example of inner peace and simple living, and rather than pushing a message she waited for those who would be naturally magnetized to her vibration and ask for her guidance. It was her way of choosing flow over force, and it worked! Perhaps not as many people were exposed to her beautiful message, but those who were, were the ones it was meant for, in the right natural timing.

On a month-long water fast in my sixth year on a raw diet, I had a powerful direct experience of the invisible, spacious, wise and loving Presence that is always whole and available beyond all of our positioning, and losing sight of our true selves by attaching to identity and form. After a couple of weeks of complete rest and no food to digest, I began to feel a safe yet powerful “golden light of Presence” expanding and emanating from deep within my heart. It was so expansive, and so beautiful to behold and to feel a part of! With tears of joy and recognition streaming down my face, I felt this golden light palpating in everyone and everything around me. This went on for the duration of the fast, and the experience has stayed with me permanently.

Going into the fast, my one fear was that my old mental demons from the depression I had suffered in my past, would rise to the surface to torment me again. Imagine my surprise and joy when instead what arose was the pure golden light I am truly made of! This direct experience was a turning point on my spiritual journey, because this proved to me what is real about who I am, and who we all are. Stripped of my usual life’s focus on doings and thinkings and identities and outer responsibilities, and deeply at rest in the spacious emptying of a total fast, I readily accessed what resides permanently beyond all of life’s seekings and attachments. Here in this restful empty spaciousness there was no resistance, no reaction, no position, no seeking or needing - only Truth. And what a beautiful, liberating truth! There is a field of energy that I am made of that is invisible to the eye, yet always and forever invincibly whole. We just forget about it when we are so distracted in life.

I give a talk at raw vegan festivals in which I offer a simple exercise to provide a glimpse of this Presence behind the scenes. Participants choose a partner and sit directly facing each other, close enough that knees nearly touch. They close their eyes, and I guide them through a quick process of imagining layers, and yet more layers, of identities and attachments falling away. I ask them to imagine what is left when all of that is let go. Then, eyes opened, they gaze steadily and silently into their partner’s eyes for an uninterrupted 120 seconds. There are a few giggles, and some tears. It feels long! In the sharing afterwards, there are attempts to describe the indescribable - awe, soul-connection, God, Light, life-force, humility, Love, remembrance, reunion. Some participants feel self-conscious, as if they are intruding or being intruded upon. Others simply feel surprised and awed by the power of what they just experienced. Some want more…they long to go deeper.

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“The moment doesn’t need your commentary to be whole.” - Vireya

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We may believe that choosing a position connects us with others (who choose the same position), but it disconnects us from our wholeness, and of course it may appear to disconnect us from all those who choose a different position. Our attachment to a position not only disconnects us, it binds us and keeps us caught in a narrow focus, unable to feel what is truly REAL beyond all our human strivings. We are unwittingly stuck in temporary, unreal identity and form.

Choosing to root in Presence instead of positions is not detachment, it is returning to what is real, and more deeply connecting there. Positions and identities shift and fall apart over our lifetime. Presence remains whole, and peaceful. It is the light that we ARE, beyond all of the thoughts and things we experiment with in our human lifetime. When we remember this, and make it our sacred daily practice to consciously return to Presence by sitting in stillness and feeling the spaciousness, we can begin to hold our thoughts lightly, to hold our positions lightly, and to let emotions flow through us unobstructed by thought-stories we invent. We can discern with clarity what feels right for our own life choices, without feeling a need to defend, attack, contract, or seek agreement or approval. We can simply make our own life a living example of what matters most to us.

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I watch without becoming.

I release what binds me.

I choose flow over force.

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REMINDER FOR MICHIGAN READERS:

CD Release Celebration with the music of Leo K. Johnson

An evening of original music, contemplative presence & community connection.

Featuring an opening set by local duo Miko Fossum-Rowan & Jim Rowan

📅 Saturday, October 4th | 5pm – 8pm

📍 6363 Waters Road, Ann Arbor

✨ Free admission — or $10 donation includes a CD

Schedule:
Doors open 5:00 pm
Vegetarian Potluck & Community Connection 5:30 pm
Concert begins 6:30 pm

Leo K. Johnson is the author of The Emptying Path and Non-Reactive Intelligence. His music and writings weave contemplative presence, original songwriting, and spiritual practice.

This release celebrates his new album: Where the Ache Becomes the Sky — songs attuned to 432 Hz, carrying themes of stillness, presence, and healing.

Hosted with love by Ellen Livingston & Miko Fossum-Rowan.