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Acceptance is not something we do; it is something we stop doing
photo credit: the_tahoe_guy
We sometimes have trouble understanding concepts like awareness, release, acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude, compassion, non-attachment, surrender and so on. I suppose these can be called ‘spiritual’ concepts but ‘spirituality’ is word that gets caught in my throat. It really doesn’t want to come out cleanly. It’s like God—it’s so filled up with assumptions that it’s a dead end.
The trouble is of course that we try to understand these as concepts. If we learn to let go, we realize a strange revelation that all of this seemingly-complicated stuff is really all about letting go.
Acceptance
As a concept, we think acceptance is tolerance or resignation or passivity. So the question that come up is how can I accept something I don’t like? If someone is beating me over the head should I accept that? If you tolerate someone beating you over the head–that is not acceptance. That is insanity.
Acceptance is not something we do. It is something we stop doing.
Acceptance happens when we let go of the inner resistance to what is happening anyway.
Notice that the ego always wants to resist. The ego thinks that by resisting it can muster up motivation and energy to change something. The ego feels if it does not resist, then things will never change.
Acceptance is simply letting go of the mind’s lurching and resisting to what is happening anyway and then we find that the energy we put into resisting is available for easy action, if that’s what we want to do.
Forgiveness
This is an important path for many. Forgiveness in my experience happens when the need to forgive or be forgiven is let go of. When we realize that everyone—everyone—does the best they possibly can under the circumstances of conditioning, there is no need to forgive or be forgiven. Forgiveness is the letting go of the need to forgive.
Gratitude
Gratitude is quite fashionable these days, made into a designer spiritual concept around the Law of Attraction, something like “ok I’m grateful already, now give me more.” It’s reminiscent of the ancients who tossed virgins into volcanoes to show gratitude to harvest gods. That’s rather wasteful of virgins.
When we can let go of all the rubbish, what remains is the easy love of life, and that is gratitude.
Non-attachment
This is a beautiful Buddhist concept which brings up visceral resistance. What do you mean let go of attachment? Attachment is the very thing that I love, it is love.
Non-attachment is not the purposeful suppression of compassion or love or sex or music or anything else that makes up living. It is simply a detachment from the drama of the ego. It is the easy knowing that everything is simply a point of view in awareness, and when we are awareness, and not wrapped up in any particular pattern in awareness, we can see that everything is equal.
Compassion
Love-joy-peace-compassion is not easy to describe because it’s not a thought or an emotion. It’s just being. We could say it is our most basic state when the rubbish is let go of. Rumi said it best when he said compassion is as the Sun loves the Earth. There is no particular expectation or direction, and yet compassion happens.
Awareness
When we can let go of the attachment to thinking, we can see the whole. This is Awareness.
As we let go of our attachment to thought and beliefs, more and more we experience warmth, a creative outlook, compassion, and ease. We can call this wisdom or intuition. It is a broadening of perspective, by which we can easily see that all points of view are contained in the whole. It is an intelligence which is free of beliefs and time and the stale structures of conditioning. And we find, with some surprise, that it is much easier to float in Awareness than to be caught in the thinking mind.
It is letting go of the attachment to thinking to see the whole.
Release
In the beginning it may take some practice and effort to release, but we soon see that letting go is not something we do; instead it is something we stop doing. We stop the madness of holding on. Most of us are not able to see this right away so a practice can help us be still enough to remember, and when we remember, it is no longer a practice.
Effort and Practice
When you read about personal development or spirituality these days there is often advice given on the virtues of seriousness. We must be serious, we must want success, we must be courageous, passionate, purposeful, disciplined, strong, smart. We must learn and understand, we must persevere, we must not procrastinate, and we must work hard.
If your instinct has told you that the answer is not in these virtuous words, that’s immensely good news.
Awakening does not ask us to create and re-arrange beliefs so we can continue to run around in mad circles.
Awakening asks only for self-acceptance. If you feel beaten down, mediocre, ineffective, depressed, anxious, failed, miserable, tired of the cycles of madness and struggle, welcome, because you are ready-people. All you have to do is realize that whatever you have become is a perfect adaptation to what’s happened in your inner world. It could not be any other way. There is nobody and nothing to blame, inside or outside. Accept. And then the play of awareness and release begins.
I talk about the practice of Awareness and Release here. These practices, like any other practice, can feel like effort in the beginning. At some point we understand what it means to let go of effort, and we let go of effort, and we let go of practice, and this is gloriously freeing. Then it is just effortless noticing, and perhaps the event or enlightenment happens, or it doesn’t happen, but it doesn’t matter, because this flow of awakening deepens on its own, and all that we struggled with before–all the seeking and clinging and chasing and learning and explaining–are seen as simply points of view in awareness, one no more or no less equal to the rest. It’s just Awareness, and everything else, including this mind and body, are points of view in Awareness.
What to do
There are many practices to help us get started. The ones that I like are ones that are easy to integrate into daily living and do not require jumping through the hoops of learning and memorizing concepts or sitting down in a lotus position at prescribed times for a prescribed amount of time.
“Observing thought” is a one such practice. Simply be a passive witness to your thoughts. Watch the voice in the head. Don’t analyze or interpret or interfere. Simply watch, and the gaps of no-thought will become apparent and expand.
Many of us come awakening when we are miserable, and so for this I suggest a release practice, like this one.
Everyone’s journey is unique and meanders in the way it will. One thing that I’ve found very helpful is to develop a gentle inquisitiveness, a gentle honesty.
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Nice post. One question though…If Acceptance, Awareness, Releasing ETC are all something that we STOP doing, then how do we practice cultivating it? I.e. Some Buddhists like Matthieu Ricard claim that happiness is a skill that we must work on and cultivate over time
Or is it simply that we have to learn to stop fighting so hard?
Thanks
Hey Kaushik,
I think you’re spot on with this one. Acceptance comes mostly by leaving something behind: our attachments to various expectations, like the one to be perfect or to always do things right. This is why a lot of people describe the feeling of acceptance like a release, or like freedom.
Eduard
Ideas With A Kick´s last blog ..Personal development ideas I can do without
Hi Andrew,
You’ve asked a wonderful question. There are “non-dualists” who say we shouldn’t cultivate practice. And there are others who say we have to be serious and we have to want peace like a drowning man wants air and we must practice to get it.
It’s confusing, because as you say if we don’t practice at all, how will there be any movement?
If right here and right now you see the futility of practice, then you don’t have to practice. If you see that everything, including practice, is just a point of view in Awareness, you don’t need to cultivate anything. But most of us are not able to have that insight right away.
And so we practice, until we see that it is really about letting go, and then we can let go, and we can let go of practice itself, and just rest in Awareness.
I hope this helps.
Peace,
k
Hi Eduard,
You’re right, for many people acceptance is difficult because the conditioning to be perfect and right.
Yes, exactly, very well said, acceptance feels like a very freeing release!
k
Hi Kaushik,
One of the best things I ever learned in my journey was to just let go. It was scary at first but I knew in my heart that it was the best thing to do. With time, it became so much easier and now it is part of me. Of course, there are moments when my ego will scream for attention but I have learned to hear it out. Sometimes I pay more attention to it than I should but eventually I let it all go. Nothing is more freeing than just being.
Hope all is well, my friend.
With palms together…Namaste!
Nadia – Happy Lotus´s last blog ..When in Doubt: To Be Like John or Jesus? Part Two
Hi Nadia,
That’s an excellent point to make, that letting go can feel a little scary sometimes. The ego finds security in stuck patterns, and we let go beliefs and patterns, we are letting go of the familiar. As Krishnamurti said, it’s freedom from the known. Thanks for the great insight.
I am very well, and I hope you are too!
Namaste my friend,
k
“If your instinct has told you that the answer is not in these virtuous words, that’s immensely good news.”
My instinct tells me that you’ve got it so right. Some things do require effort and practice, but those things are mostly outside ourselves. Being Content should be simple and easy, not an elaborate quest. The hardest part is accepting just how simple it is. We spend so much of our lives being told by ego and others what we ‘must’ and ‘must not’ do that it can feel odd at first to live without imperatives, but that is what it takes. “When we can let go of all the rubbish, what remains is the easy love of life.”
I’m loving life, Kaushik!
Hi Brenda,
You’ve said is so well. And there really is nothing wrong with all the chasing, but as you put it so well, being content and intuitive and flowing is not an elaborate quest, it’s just being. Natural and easy!
“I’m loving life, Kaushik!”
So wonderful to hear!
Namaste my friend,
k
Oh Kaushik, I simply love your honesty and practicality.
It is the ego who wants to create problems and then it proudly proclaims how clever it is when it thinks it is solving them. Who else in their right mind would agree with all these weird hoops we have to go through in life.
Observing like you do a child is all the attention the ego deserves, the rest is just wasted energy better spend on doing life.
Your gentle honesty resonates.
Wilma Ham´s last blog ..Don’t let change in your circumstances fool you.
Good work. Lot’s of good ideas here.
Bob Weisenberg
http://YogaDemystified.com
Bob Weisenberg´s last blog ..Welcome Back to Yoga Journal Community’s 3rd Member!
Thanks Bob! Good to see you hear again.
Peace,
k
Wilma,
Yes, yes, observing the ego like you do a child! That’s exactly it, very well said.
Thanks for the wonderful insight, and thanks for doing life!
Peace,
k
Dear K.
You have prepared a banquet of soul food ~ grazie!
My reading ended when I finished reading “FORGIVENESS” ~ because of an
AHA! moment.
IF we offer forgiveness that means we first had to JUDGE.
Wrong thought! Yes? Yes!
So instead of eating the elephant all in one bite ~ I think I will breathe this information
in deeply.
IN JOY and Gratitude
Tricia
Bow to Teacher
Namaste’
I tried to explain Acceptance to somone one day in regards to a family member…needless to say, I was battling Resistance.
I have learned to embrace most of these concepts in my life. Acceptance, Forgiveness were neccessary for my own personal survival…Although, too many people that concider those acts of cowardace. It’s unfortunate.
thank you for this…it’s nice to be reminded now and again what I’m doing, and why. I’ve shared this with my FB familly as well…maybe I can get a few more people on board.
Dawn´s last blog ..Reflecting on the last year…
Hi Tricia,
Yes, that’s it exactly. All there is, is Awareness. A judgment happens in Awareness and so we feel we need to forgive or be forgiven. In my experience, the need to forgive or forgiven goes away when judgment goes away.
Thank you for your words.
Namaste,
k
Hi Dawn,
I understand what you mean by other people’s resistance. I usually don’t talk about any of this unless I am directly asked, and that happens more and more. I think as people sense the stillness in you, and they ask about it. Minds will still resist; that’s what egos and minds do. However, you may also find that someone who is resisting may come back sometime later to ask about it again.
I don’t really talk much about acceptance and forgiveness. I do write about positive thinking, because it seems everyone is telling us we think positively, which does not lead to positivity. What I see is that people re-affirm and try to pretend to be positive and they sooner or later just end up feeling guilty that they can’t even be positive. Even so, it is difficult for people to stop these circles of madness. It is the way the mind works.
And so I think it’s better that people discover and experience these revelations for themselves, because as concepts, the mind will just come up questions and arguments. But I also felt that this little gem of understanding, that acceptance/forgiveness/positivity/gratitude and so on, are not something we do, but they just happen when we stop doing.
So these things should make us feel lighter and better. If we’re not feeling lighter, we’re probably practicing these as concepts, rather than actually letting go.
Thanks for sharing your insight and thank you for sharing with others!
Peace,
k
I think this is one of your best written pieces that I’ve read, and I’m honored to have come here today. The things you said made sense in a way that tells me you’re there – you “get it” and are able to share it freely with others. Thank you for sharing it with me.
I need to give this another read before moving on, but please know that you’ve touched my soul and massaged my mind… And I love the way you pinpointed that life needn’t be serious. More and more I’m letting the idea of “FUN” direct my actions. Life is enjoyable, when we’re wise enough to let go.
Love & joy to you!
Megan “JoyGirl!” Bord´s last blog ..7 Steps for Climbing the Staircase to Joy
Hi JoyGirl,
Thank you for the encouraging words! I am honored.
It is so much easier to live a FUN life simply through being more conscious. It’s much more exhausting to do it the way most of do it, asleep, in autopilot mode, reactive to conditioning. And all it takes Awareness. Letting go helps us see that our fundamental nature is wisdom and intuition, unburdened by concepts. And then all these concepts that are difficult to understand or implement, become easy experience.
Love and joy to you! (I like that).
k
This is an incredible amount of wisdom crammed into one post. I especially love what you say here:
“Non-attachment is not the purposeful suppression of compassion or love or sex or music or anything else that makes up living. It is simply a detachment from the drama of the ego. It is the easy knowing that everything is simply a point of view in awareness, and when we are awareness, and not wrapped up in any particular pattern in awareness, we can see that everything is equal.”
The Emotion Machine´s last blog ..Create A Progressive Timeline To Better Envision Your Goals
Thank you, Steven. You have a nice blog!
Hi Kaushik,
You’ve really done some great work here demystifying concepts and highlighting action (or inaction) and experience, this post is really rich… I think most importantly you’ve dispelled the common misconceptions around acceptance. Letting go of that inner resistance and not being swept up by it… I also loved what you had to say about gratitude, and the true experience of it: the easy love of life. Beautifully said, I might have to quote you in a future post!
Cheers,
Miche
Miche – Serenity Hacker´s last blog ..Regaining Inner Peace When You’re Busy: Walking Gratitude Meditation
HI Kaushik,
I love this post…it just touches so many important aspects of our self. I love how you ended the post with the most important of all aspects…Gentle Honesty. Being aware and honest somehow puts everything else into place automatically. We needn’t try too hard…..wheres the FUN in that
Thank you for writing this wonderful post….I have gotta come to read here more often. Your words always have this superb effect on me!
Zeenat{Positive Provocations}´s last blog ..The Decision To Be You
Hi Miche,
Thank you so much for the kind words. Yes, we make a big mystery out of these as concepts, but as awareness abides, we see these as easy experience. Thanks again for your wonderful insight.
Peace,
k
Hi Zeenat,
Thanks for encouragement! Yes, you’ve said it exactly right, in the end it is just Awareness, and a gentle honesty with ourselves can help not get trapped in particular beliefs or practices. I’m always happy to have you here!
Peace,
k
So easy to read, and so challenging to do. I will let go of the need to do this and just let it be within me.
Lisa, that’s the best way. Hear it in stillness.
Peace,
k
Kaushik, so wonderful, you cut through so many elaborate complications we tend to pile on top of these words. I really loved the part on forgiveness especially, something I’m working on (again) right now “Forgiveness in my experience happens when the need to forgive or be forgiven is let go of. When we realize that everyone—everyone—does the best they possibly can under the circumstances of conditioning, there is no need to forgive or be forgiven. ” I also loved your cutting through of a lot of the ‘gratitude-speak’ we can so easily fall into, and the word ‘spirituality’ sticking in your throat (does in mine too, but I’m stuck with the limits of words, and I’m not poet, unfortunately.) Also, love the phrase ‘gentle honestly’. Will stumble…
Lisa (mommymystic)´s last blog ..Spiritual Processing,Transits and Empowerments
Lisa,
Thank you for the kind words. I am honored.
For me, it all gelled very nicely when I realized it is all about letting go.
Thanks, and nice to see you here again!
Peace,
k
Hi Kaushik,
This article is brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. You have such great descriptions in each section. Your simple exercises at the end are perfect and so helpful.
Thanks for this, Kaushik. Great timing and really excellent writing.
Jodi
P.S. Your comment about the wasted virgins made me laugh out loud. Thanks for that!
Jodi at Joy Discovered´s last blog ..Planting Seeds for the New Year
Hi Jodi,
Thank you!
Such kind words. Ah, yes, the virgin joke!
Peace,
k
Letting go, how can this simple fact be very difficult to achieve in our life. I am impressed by how you expounded this important virtue few understood. I myself am struggling to master this art of letting go and it is very hard. Still, I try my best because I will greatly benefit in the end.
Hi Walter,
Yes, letting go is much easier than holding on, but we have forgotten that letting go is easy. Here is an easy technique to let go: http://www.beyond-karma.com/how-to/how-to-release-big-and-small-emotions-release/.
Thanks for expanding the discussion!
Peace,
k