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Acceptance - an Introductory
Exercise
If you have not read about acceptance as a means of stress reduction and
mind detoxification, please click
here
to read in health section
before continuing to read this section.
The purpose of this mental exercise:
We might often wonder why most of us are not successful
in expressing our talents. As Mata Amritanada Mayi Devi, said "The
greatest tragedy in life is not death, but dying without realizing our
talents is the tragedy of life".
What prevents us from realizing our talents?. Why is that
we do not achieve what we desire?. Why I am not happy like others?. These
are the questions that many of us ask ourselves. We often justify that
others or situations in life are the cause for our failures and unhappiness.
Here is one simple but most powerful exercise that alone will help you
not only success but also happiness and content in life. This exercise
might sound contradictory and seems difficult to practice that you have done
like learning swimming or driving a car. But the more you practice, the
better you feel and offers endless opportunity to realize our
potential.
This magical exercise is Acceptance. Acceptance is
about letting go of unrealistic expectations, large and small. It’s
about coming to terms with reality no matter how unfair or unpleasant it may
be. Acceptance is what we do when we acknowledge that no matter how
hard we try, we can’t control everything, people or situations in life.
However acceptance does not
means accepting failure and to give up trying or a do not care attitude.
Here we are doing this mental exercise to free our mind
from stress of brooding over a fact or event that is unpleasant for us.
How can acceptance be
practiced?
We react internally and externally to an unpleasant
situation or to an unacceptable person's behavior. There are two means of reacting
to such situations. One is emotionally and the other way is with intelligence. Emotions work
on the basis of one fact, our likes and our dislikes.
When we says some one is "Emotional" it means he is
reacting based on his or her likes and dislikes. Emotions are not wrong.
Emotions are needed to express the degree of our feelings. We express
through our emotions only the degree of our pain and based on that A doctor
decides the dosage of the pain medication. So there is nothing wrong
expressing emotions. What is hurting is the strong likes and dislikes we
express which may not be in reality correct.
Intelligence is the fact giver or the reality projector.
Intelligence throws light on the true nature of things. The true nature of
things whether likeable or dislikable for us is the fact or reality of it.
Understanding the "Reality" of a person or the nature of the situation is
Intelligence.
Expressing our emotions to the reality of the facts is the
correct approach as taught by Krishna to Arjuna in Gita. When Arjuna
hesitated to fight the war based on his likes and dislikes, Krishna taught
him to react to the situation based on Intelligence. This is the essence of
Gita.
There is nothing wrong in expressing our emotions, but you
as the subject should express it with understanding of the true nature of
the object. This will leave the subject less agitated through the
process of reaction and also after the reaction process.
If we react with emotion based on our strong like and
dislikes, we waste time and energy brooding and
complaining over it and inturn causing stress to ourselves.
Process:
Acceptance means instead of reacting emotionally (that
it displeases us) react with intelligence. That is first accept the reality
of the fact is that the event is happening in front of me or to me or
against me. It is not agreeable to me or unpleasant to me. Instead of
reacting out my un-acceptance (dislike), I think what is the best to do to
handle the current condition and also think the ways to avoid that in future.
Most importantly how can I transform myself to think more intelligently.
This Self-Transforming attitude strengths not only Intelligence but also
Awareness.
Acceptance does not mean that you accept the situation
or the person's bad behavior is correct. Acceptance is for your mind only to
accept the reality of the event and the person. Changing the event and
person is only secondary possibility of the future. The person may change or
may not. The situation may change or may not,. Both are not in your control.
You understand the Truth that at present moment
change can happen only to you. This is acceptance. This relieves your
mind from the Person's behavior and also the unpleasant nature
of the situation.
Examples - 1:
If you are in a
traffic jam, accept the situation instead of boiling yourself with the
thought why this is happening. We cannot do anything about it. IAccept the reality that you cant do anything about it.
Instead of disliking the event, think what is the best to
overcome the consequence of being late by traffic jam and
also how to prevent getting into this situations in future.
Example-2 - : If a person behaves in a
rude manner, accept the person as he or she is. Accept the truth that you
are facing the reality of the person whether you like it or not. Understand that you cannot change the person just by showing your disliking,
but see how you can change yourself to avoid unpleasant reactions in your
mind. Most importantly analyze what makes the person to behave in that
manner. You "be" the person and understand how you will react to
such a situation. What is not acceptable to you naturally will be not
acceptable to the other person.
This
understanding of another person as oneself is
Compassion.
By this approach you bring slow transformation in the other person
also. But change should begin from you and cannot expect the change from the
other person. Without your inner transformation you cannot expect a change
in another person. This non-acceptance is the reason for fight and war.
With this acceptance and inner transformation make the the other person also understand how his or her behavior is
inappropriate. This will take time.
Do not judge that the other person
will not change. Give chances for the other person to change. This creates
the quality of patience in you. Reflect upon yourself how much time you take
to change an inappropriate behavior in yourself. Show that same compassion
to others. This will blossom into
unconditional Love.
Why do not we think or use our intelligence?.
Because we rarely accept the reality of the person or situation. We only
agitate our mind constantly thinking that this should not have happened or
the person should not have behaved in such a way. This constant thinking of
our dis-pleasure is the key point to be avoided. that cud-chewing mind is
what gives us stress and agitation. You can let go of the cud-chewing
(brooding over the incident again and again for years) only if you develop
the acceptance attitude. This indirectly gives way for forgiveness a
stress-curing medicine. Acceptance is the first step towards forgiveness.
You cannot forgive a person or a situation with acceptance. Forgiveness is
for your own benefit, to free your mind from the cud-chewing activity of the
mind. Ego grows through the cud-chewing activity of the mind.
Ego and acceptance
Ego cannot accept
a person (behavior attitude) or a situations or events in life. Non-acceptance is Ego's
nature and also a means through which it gets its food to gain strength. The moment we
accept any person or situation we see that the Ego's energy is drained. As
soon as we accept a person or situation, we find that the Ego loses it's heroic acts in our life's
drama. Ego does not allow us to accept anything. It always blames others for
all the problems. By blaming others, Ego has bright chances to get hold of
the mind to either brood over the past or be anxious of the past. Acceptance
brings out awareness to the present moment, while Ego does want to graze on
past memories or worry and fear about future.
Purpose of the practice
The intention of the acceptance practice is to
confront our Ego. We take it for granted that we are this mind and Ego
without being aware of our true Self. This practice would allow us to
be pay more attention (awareness) to our Ego. As soon as we accept someone
or an event or action, the Ego would storm in us. Be aware the Ego would
smell danger and would hide out for a while then it will strike us back with
full vigor.
Goal of Sakthi Gita is for a happy life:
Understand non-acceptance of people (as they are) and events (as it is) is
how Ego works in us. By condemning people and events, your Ego grows without your knowledge
like a weed in your backyard garden. These thoughts rob of the nutrition
that fertilize your strengths. You notice it only when it grows big
and destroying your good plants. Same way your Ego thoughts kills your
creativity thoughts, your talents, your power, your health, your strengths.
These are the nice plants you want to grow in your garden. Aim of life is to
harness your potential and be happy in life. remove the weeds of Ego from
your garden of life and enjoy the fruits of life. This is the ultimate goal
of this Sakthi Gita.
What to witness
This exercise is just to be aware of our Ego. Only if
we are aware of our enemy's strength and weakness we can win a war. So start
to practice acceptance and immediately pay attention to the way our Ego
acts. We might have a dispute or disagreement with our partner, family
member or with some at work or a shopping mall. Immediately chant the mantra
"Accept". We can witness the war movie unfolding in our minds.
Acceptance the most powerful spiritual technique
Acceptance is the
key to open the spiritual mastering of our mind. Practicing this brings
amazing results. It is simple but very powerful in opening doors to the
mystery of our mind and Self. This is the easiest means to purify the mind.
It brings peace, patience and wisdom in us. It opens the doors of our inner
light. With this one practice all good qualities will get into our
personality.
There is an amusing story about a scientist (Isaac Newton?) He
was a great cat lover and every time the cat needed to got out it would come
to him and do "Meow! Meow! Meow!". The cat's behavior did not bother him
until the cat gave birth to four kittens when the frequency of going out and
in became more. So Newton called for a carpenter to cut one big hole
and four smaller holes in the door so that the big cat would go in the
big hole and the kittens in the smaller holes. The surprised carpenter asked
whether he was talking to a world renowned scientist who could not
realize a simple fact that the kittens could have easily used their mother’s
‘pet door’.
Acceptance is like a pet
door through which all good qualities would get
into us.
So far with acceptance you understand that you
get less stress, develop compassion, patience, forgiveness and unconditional
Love.
Last but the least, you become more aware of your Ego, transcend it and
realize your own true nature, Consciousness.
Please
click here to continue to read first chapter of Gita.
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