When it comes to awakening, the point is not "self-improvement" or simply a change in status. Changing one’s fate means awakening to another way of seeing and being. Not simply doing things differently, but becoming a different person, both more aware within and more alert to the mystery of life. The point of change is to become as another, to become the other that was hidden inside all along. In order for such a thorough change to happen people must let go of who they think they are. Letting go of one’s habitual self turns out to be one of the greatest difficulties in life. If that were not so, many more people would escape the common traps that keep life small and self-confining.
Any meaningful change must begin with recognizing and letting go of what entraps us. Yet the little self feels it will lose what it holds so dear. Even when life begins to feel like a trap and the pain becomes undeniable, the monkey-minded little self will not simply let go. Often enough it seems better to cling to a familiar pain than suffer a genuine change of state.
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