Shanti, Shanti, Shanti…A Journey of Letting Go
Shanti, Shanti, Shanti
A Journey of Letting Go
This article was originally written by Jutta Hecht and first published on www.agaguru.com
Most of us recognize the Sanskrit word Shanti as meaning “peace”. It’s a word often spoken or chanted in yoga classes, prayers, ceremonies, and even casual conversations to invoke a sense of peace. When we feel at peace, we are relaxed and at ease with ourselves and others, often tasting life with a sense of joy, creativity, and abundance.
It seems so easy to feel peaceful and happy when everything goes our way and life aligns with our desires and expectations. But why does it seem so fragile, so easily disrupted by situations that challenge our beliefs or clashes with our expectations and desires? These continuous moments of inner conflict ripple through our personal lives, our communities, and even the world, contributing to personal health issues—physical, emotional, and mental—and global challenges. Clearly, true peace must run deeper than fleeting harmony or intellectual concepts.
How do we find a sense of Shanti amidst life’s inevitable ups and downs or the uncertainty of the ‘unknown’?
A particular translation of one of Rumi's poems deeply resonates with me:
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
So beautiful, isn’t it? But where is this field in our daily lives? And why does it feel so difficult to be in this space, or even get a taste of it?
What is peace, really?
About 30 years ago, while studying and practicing yoga in India, my teacher told me that Shanti means “letting go”—and that letting go leads to peace. Those words deeply touched me. So all our yogic practices, where done with mantra, lengthening the exhalations and holding the breath after inhalations and exhalations in asana and pranayama, to reach a sense of ‘letting go’, finding peace and the Divine.
At that time, these practices were profoundly helpful to me. Yet as my personal journey unfolded, I began to experience limitations with it.
Many years later, I met my Siddha teacher, Pal Pandian. In my first class with him, he too emphasized: “Just drop it.” Once again, the message of letting go was right there again.
This time, however, his Siddha lineage offered a different approach. It wasn’t about achieving a blissful state, cultivating peace during practices, or understanding concepts intellectually. Instead, it was about sensing and recognizing my limitations and cultivating a sense of allowing.
Through the various embodiment practices guided by Pal Pandian, I became aware of pain, tightness, and limitations— areas in my body, emotions, and mind where I had been bypassing, avoiding, or controlling. Some of these were so deeply buried that I only began to sense them as I relaxed with awareness more deeply in my practice. Instead of trying to fix, correct, or override these sensations, the practice was to accept them, allowing spaciousness and a natural sense of laxity to emerge.
When we habitually try to fix, control, or override, we subconsciously cling to the very patterns and habits that created the tension, staying stuck in the same loop and generating even more strain, tightness, and a sense of doership. The Siddha approach encourages awareness and release through the body as a whole, moving away from fragmented efforts, fixing and doership, toward a more integrated sense of letting go, unwinding and immersing into it.
As Pal Pandian shared:
“Letting go, also non grasping (Aparigraha) - is a big part of it, because this awareness is capable of connecting us to the essential and intrinsic nature that is available to all of us. If we can move inward to a pre-verbal, pre- conceptual state and learn to listen in another way. Here is pure existence at a Universal level.”
Letting go of expectations and perfectionism is not a fixed state or static achievement but a fluid, alive journey of experiences. We often cling to the need to be right, to control, or to know the answers and the outcomes. We hold onto idealistic ideas and concepts of how things should be. But when we let go of staying stuck in the binary approach of “right or wrong,” we become more present, start to listen differently, and be in a space of more openness and softness.
In that space, there is less struggle, less anxiety, we feel more flow and creativity. Even our health benefits.
Albert Einstein said:
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
This dropping or letting go needs to happen organically, through greater acceptance, allowing life to flow. For this life flow to occur, there must be some spaciousness and softening. Softening is the opposite of rigidity. When something becomes rigid, it tightens, stagnates, causes pain, and eventually dries out, cracks, and breaks.
The Siddhas, Masters of Nature, align with its principles and offer tools and practices to cultivate more sensitivity towards the organic flow of life, the natural life force.
For example, trees—some of the oldest species on our planet—naturally showing resilience and longevity by staying strong yet supple. They naturally let go of their leaves when no longer needed. Pal Pandian shared that one reason trees maintain this balance is the oil (lipids and fatty acids) in their bark, which helps them retain moisture and protect and adapt to the changing seasons.
Similarly, for us to become more supple, adaptable and healthy, we need to retain moisture in our bodies, and for this we need oil to retain it. We can learn from the trees—not just to maintain our physical vitality but also to let go in a natural way of what is no longer needed, creating more spaciousness for allowing an organic flow of life.
So we can mimic and follow this principle. One of the essential lifestyle practices my teacher recommends is a weekly Oil Bath* (Self-Abhyanga). It is not only beneficial for softening and retaining moisture but also offers numerous health benefits.
It’s simple, easy, and something you can do right at home. Why not start this week?
As Lao Tzu, one of the early Siddhas, said:
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”
The journey toward letting go, cultivating openness, and embodying peace —and with it, happiness or contentment—begins with small, personal steps, not by waiting for a grand solution or change.
*How to do an Oil Bath (Self-Abhyanga) according to my teacher, Pal Pandian:
Oil your entire body, including your head, once a week.
Leave the oil on for 20-40 minutes, allowing yourself to relax during
this time.
Apply the oil during the daytime while the sun is up, ideally before 11
am.
Always use warm oil and apply it on an empty stomach, followed by a
warm shower.
Sesame oil is suitable for most people, but consult a Siddha doctor or
practitioner for specific oils.
According to Pal Pandian, the following days are ideal for aligning with the rhythms of the cosmos. If this schedule is difficult, any day will suffice:
Women: Tuesday and Friday
Men: Wednesday and Saturday
Avoid the following on your Oil Bath (Self Abhyanga) day:
physical exercise, direct sunlight, daytime sleep, cold or carbonated beverages, and sexual activity on the day of your oil bath.
In deep gratitude to my Siddha Master and Teacher Pal Pandian
