Let it all go

The complete eradication of the ego is indeed very hard when even in the case of Kannappa, whose love for Lord Shiva was so great that he plucked out his own eyes and planted them on the Lord’s face, there remained [until that moment] a trace of body attachment [i.e. ego] in the form of his pride concerning his beautiful bright eyes.

 - Verse 164, Guru Vachaka Kovai 

Kannappa was proud of his eyes, which were very beautiful, so, according to the divine saying, “I will forcibly deprive my true devotee of all his possessions so that his mind may always cling to me”, Lord Shiva tested Kannappa by making him offer even his treasured and enviable eyes to the Lord. Thus even his slight attachment to his body was removed and he was absorbed in Shiva. 

The real glory of Shiva Bhakti is the salvation of the devotee from the damnation caused by the delusion “I am this filthy body”. This is the reason why Shiva accepted Kannappa’s eyes when he offered them.

- Verse 165, Guru Vachaka Kovai

Kannappa had intense vairagya and Bhakti, so he did not even think twice before plucking his eyes and offering them to Lord Shiva, but what can a highly immature and helpless devotee do when something they foolishly cherish is forcibly taken away from them by Bhagavan? How should we behave in such situations, what should we pray for from Bhagavan? Michael James was asked this question in the context of the intense devotion of Kannappa in one of his videos, and his answer, which is a great help and an invaluable treasure, is as follows.

We should thank Bhagavan and ask him to take away everything else. In Tirukkural there is a verse [verse 341], 

யாதனின் யாதனின் நீங்கியான் நோதல்

அதனின் அதனின் இலன். 

yātaṉiṉ yātaṉiṉ nīṅkiyāṉ nōtal

ataṉiṉ ataṉiṉ ilaṉ.

Which says, from whatever from whatever one withdraws oneself, or one gives up, one is free from the trouble of that thing. So if Bhagavan takes anything away from us, he is freeing us from the trouble of that thing. If he takes away this ego, he is freeing us from all troubles altogether. So we should thank Bhagavan for whatever he takes away from us, and we should pray to him to take away this ego. If we feel suffering because something has been taken away from us, then we should pray to him, take away this one who is suffering, in other words, ego. 

He blesses us by taking away from us, not by giving us. Because the one thing he can never take away from us is our own being, so if he takes everything else, what remains is our being, that is the fullness of perfect happiness, he himself is our being. 

The more he takes away from us, the better it is for us. We lament in this life if we lose something, if we lose our health or if we lose our wealth or this or that, we lament about it, but we all know very well that one day death is going to come, we are going to lose everything, this body, this mind, this whole identity that we have now, we are going to lose it all. So why should we be weeping about the loss of our health or the loss of our wealth or this or that. It all has to go, let it all go, the more that goes the better for us. 

Yes, true, we are immature devotees so we are still reluctant to let go. But whatever he may remove, what will we find? “Oh, I’ve lost my health, I’ve lost my wealth, but I’m still here”. So the one thing that we can never lose is our own being, and our own being is itself infinite happiness. So when everything else is removed, our own being will reveal itself to us as the infinite happiness that it always is.