Surrender · “Let Go to Receive”
Taking Your Difficulties Into the Silence
Replace anxious mental churning over a problem with stilling, handing the difficulty to the deeper mind/the Infinite, and waiting receptively for the true answer.
Name the worry clearly, then stop churning it. Retire into the Silence — hush the surface mind and grow calm. Hand the difficulty to your deeper mind / the Infinite and release the anxious grip (“in quietness and confidence shall be your strength”). Wait receptively for the true answer instead of forcing one. When a clear leading comes, act on it — after checking it against reason. (Real relief from worry and better incubated decisions — but release the anxiety, not the responsibility.)
What it is
Hamblin’s specific remedy for fear and worry, and his most surrender-flavoured practice. The anxious mind grips a problem and churns it; Hamblin’s instruction is the opposite — stop straining, grow still, hand the difficulty to the deeper mind, and wait. “Take all your difficulties and perplexities into the Silence and let your great inner mind, drawing upon the Eternal Wisdom of all the Ages, give you the true answer that you need.” It is a particular application of his Silence practice, aimed at a named trouble rather than open listening.
The releasing move is essential: you do not solve the problem by force of worry; you quiet down and let the answer come. This is why it sits in surrender/release rather than meditation — the active ingredient is letting go of the anxious grip.
The Method
Faithful to Hamblin (Dynamic Thought, “Take Your Difficulties Into the Silence”):
- Name the difficulty, then stop wrestling it. Bring the actual worry or perplexity clearly to mind — and deliberately cease the anxious, repetitive churning over it.
- Retire into the Silence. Grow quiet inwardly, as in his Silence practice — hush the loud surface mind and become calmly receptive.
- Hand the problem over to the “great inner mind.” “Let your great inner mind… give you the true answer that you need.” Consciously turn the difficulty over to the deeper mind / the Infinite, trusting it rather than your straining intellect.
- Release the grip and rest in quiet confidence. Drop the felt urgency; “in quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” The point is to stop forcing — let go.
- Wait receptively for the true answer. Do not manufacture a solution; allow the answer or guidance to surface. “Whenever you desire inspiration or original ideas, seek them in your Subliminal Mind because there alone can they be found.”
- Act on what comes — and check it. When a clear leading arrives, act on it in the ordinary world. (Hamblin couples his metaphysics with the insistence that practical effort still matters.)
Source & Lineage
Dynamic Thought (1921), “Take Your Difficulties Into the Silence,” with the receptive frame from “Spend Time in Silence” and “Look within for Power”; the theme runs through Within You is the Power (1921).
It is Hamblin’s British-theistic version of the New Thought “turn it over” / “release and let the Mind work” practice — kin to Behrend’s “impress then release,” Collier’s “give thanks, then release,” and the biblical “casting all your care upon Him.”.
Common refinements
“Handing it over” as avoidance. Releasing the anxious grip is not abandoning action. Real debts, symptoms, and dangers still need practical steps; the silence clarifies, it doesn’t pay the bill.
- Forcing an answer. Straining to extract a solution re-creates the churning you were releasing. Let go and wait.
- Obeying the answer uncritically. What surfaces is intuition, fallible. Check it against reason and competent advice before acting, especially on health or money.
- Refinement: pair with for the general skill, and with when fear itself is the “difficulty” to be dissolved.