Namaste!

Acceptance and Change by Ian Lawton

Acceptance and Change

I’m a simple man with a mind like a steel sieve. Thoughts and ideas enter and leave my mind faster than the speed of light. So I look for memorable ways of connecting ideas. I found one while I was driving recently. The rest of the family were all asleep in the car and my mind turned to change management. Just at that moment, I glanced down and saw my AAA card. It reminded me of the AAA approach to change– Awareness, Acceptance and Action.

Awareness is step 1 in becoming a conscious change agent and it’s more than half the battle. It begins to answer the “Why?” question. Acceptance is the second step and in many ways acceptance rides on awareness’s wave. Pioneering Psychoanalyst Carl Jung said, “We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate. It oppresses.” These are challenging words. Acceptance sounds like the opposite of change. Its not. The opposite of change is resistance, the unwillingness to dance in reality as it is evolving. Resistance is itself the opposite of acceptance. So you can see that change and acceptance are two sides of the one coin. There are two ways to create change; one is active and the other is receptive, but neither is passive.  Its like working with Change Tracker on a Word document. You can choose each time if you want to leave a suggested correction as is or change it. Both are choices and both are actions. You have your own inner Change Tracker (aka inner wisdom)  to make the same discernment.

Here is my take on what Jung meant by this statement about acceptance.

At the point of becoming aware that something is not right, either within or outside of you, there is a strong human tendency to do the octopus dance. What I mean by that is that arms shoot in every direction looking for people to blame. It’s the easiest thing to do, but doesn’t lead to healthy change. “It’s the Republicans fault. It’s the Democrats fault. It’s Bush’s fault. It’s Obama’s fault. It’s my parents’ fault. It’s God’s fault. It’s Wall Street’s fault. It’s my genes’ fault. Etc”

Rumi wrote, “People of the world don’t look at themselves, and so they blame one another.” As long as we are looking around for someone to blame, we aren’t taking responsibility for our own lives. This can be dangerous.

A Buddhist story describes a man who has been shot with an arrow. In pain, and risking death, he refuses to have the arrow removed until he knows who shot the arrow, what material the arrow head is made from, what direction the arrow was shot and how deeply it is lodged. He refuses to have the arrow removed until he has all his answers. The tragedy is that he will die before he has what he is looking for. This seems to get to the heart of Jung’s statement about acceptance. You have to accept what is, without blame and judgment, before you can heal yourself or any system.

Please note- acceptance does NOT mean being passive or submissive. It’s the choice to approach a situation pro actively and peacefully rather than judgmentally, and without fear and loathing. The American cartoonist James Thurber said, “Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.” Anger is often a form of denial, masking the sense of disappointment that life hasn’t played out the way we hoped. Fear is a form of projection, imagining the worst of every change. Awareness is the antidote to both fear and anger. Awareness breeds acceptance of life exactly as it is, and acceptance breeds real life compassion and change.

This applies to many personal and social situations. Acceptance comes before change. If your marriage has ended or you have lost your job, you can spend your energy cursing the ground your ex walks on, or you can accept the situation as it is, and get on with creating an exciting and healthy future for yourself. In this case, acceptance is the beginning of self compassion. You don’t have to condone or endure other peoples’ abuse. Just accept that everyone is on their own journey, dealing with their own karma, and choose to move on with as little toxic resentment as possible.

Carl Rogers was another prominent psychologist who took the ideas of Jung to a new level of personal responsibility. He believed that his clients had within them all the answers to their own problems. The role of the therapist was to create space for the client to find their truth. The essence of personal problems for Rogers was the inability of people to accept themselves. Therefore they were unable to accept the world around them and unable to effect meaningful change. As he said, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

Acceptance is the second step in a healthy change process. You and this moment, with all of its crazy and confusing challenges, are a perfect match, engaged in a passionate love affair. You are the right person in the right place at the right time. Give thanks for who and where you are. It is PERFECT for NOW and becoming even perfecter every moment. You see, you can even make up words to describe the exhilarating process of becoming.

From a place of radical acceptance, you can respond, and participate in exciting change. With radical acceptance, you can effect radical change. Garrison Keillor has a nice way of saying this, “I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.” Once you face life as it is honestly, you can set about denying current reality the power to hold you captive.

Awareness and acceptance form the bridge to personal responsibility. Personal responsibility is the basis for action and sustainable change. This leads to the third A, the next in the series, and the culmination of all the personal reflection- ACTION. The bottom line is that it’s all about potential, both personal and global potential.

Author John Miller wrote,

There’s not a chance we’ll reach our full potential until we stop blaming each other and start practicing personal accountability.

Silent Revolution

This is a call for a Silent Revolution.

The world is in turmoil today. There are protests and demonstrations in countless places all over the world. People are protesting against economic failure, corrupt governments and many injustices. Most of these protests are by the ordinary citizens, and are either crushed by force or rendered ineffective by blocking their publication in the mainstream media.

The common man can only vote once in many years to elect the politicians in countries with democracy. The power is transferred from the common man to the politicians. After that the citizen has no say in the way the country is governed. Democracy has failed to ensure quality of life to people.

When people feel helpless, they resort to protests and demonstrations because there seems to be nothing else that they can do. Though protests are sometimes necessary, there is another way that is more effective. There IS something that the common man anywhere in the world can do right from his or her home. And that is the Way of the Light.

A Silent Revolution by Light is possible. All it takes is for people to channel Light to the world in large numbers. The world may not change overnight, but there will be gradual and definite changes. Fill the world with Light. The Light is the Source of everything and has the Power and Intelligence to transform our world. Though the Light is everywhere, we need to consciously channel and spread it to our world. By channelling Light in large numbers, we will be choosing Light collectively.

Imagine an Ocean of Light above you. Imagine that a beam of Light comes down and enters you. Then, imagine that the Light comes out and spreads to the whole world for at least seven minutes daily. If possible, channel Light in groups. To access technique video please visit - http://www.lightchannels.com/channelling.html Please spread this message freely to empower the citizens of our world and help strengthen the Silent Revolution by Light.

From http://www.facebook.com/lightchannels - Revolution by Light as taught by Guruji Krishnananda

When I spoke to me!

It was a traffic-riddled tiring drive from Bangalore city to back home in Taponagara. The never-ending B’lore City Metro and fly-over constructions are like obstacle courses for the thrill seeking commuter; a big pot-hole here and pile of rubble there holding-up traffic instigating honking contests. Driving on most Indian streets forces one to live in the moment! While I made two reluctant pit-stops to buy groceries, the sun had already handed over the night shift to the moon. As I switched off stress, as in my car, used all my fingers to carry a million grocery bags, pushed the car-door shut and trudged towards my house gate in the dim of the streetlight, I was petrified by what I saw.....a slithering snake, right at the entrance!

Taponagara is a blooming community of meditators in a village called Chikkagubbi on the outskirts of Bangalore. The Meditations Halls and houses in the area are surrounded by farmland; a few metres from my house there’s an orchard followed by a dried lake. Scorpions, snakes, bugs unusual for a city-bred like me, and even exotic birds, are my immediate neighbours. I have even sighted cobras nearby. 

The orchard nearby

The day was refusing peace to me as the snake parked itself right at the gate. I waited for it to move, it waited to try my patience. Knowing that my husband was home, I buzzed his cell phone; with every ring my irritation levels were soaring. “Gosh,” I thought to myself “even I can hear his phone ring from outside the house.... grrr....and he’s not bothered to take the call.....grrrrrr.....” Finally I gave up; rather, I put my annoyance on hold to release on him later. In sharp contrast to my condition the brown-speckled snake was totally peaceful and meditatively still.

I thought of quick-action – what if I swiftly open the latch, kick the gate and jump over the snake. Swimming against the tide of stressful emotions, a wise thought popped up into my consciousness screaming – ‘Don’t even think about it!’ ....I was back to pushing buttons on my cell phone trying to reach my knight-in-shining-armour; he in turn was pushing mine by not taking HIS LOUDLY RINGING cell phone. I resorted to hollering to no avail.  

As I tried to call again I saw the snake move and even before I knew it.....I had high-jumped onto the street, with my million grocery bags, et al. After landing I realized that it was my cell phone sling which had swung and in dim light I mistook it to be the snake!

Having received its share of amusement, the snake moved away. Even as I entered the house, fidgeting with my house keys; it occurred to me that out of fear I had jumped before I had realized it.....body’s reflex? Yes, but there is more. Human body has its own intelligence separate from that of the Mind, the Intellect and our soul. Besides the autonomic processes which make our body tick, the physical human body, which is made of consciousness, can have a will of its own. This will, as well as those of the Mind and the Intellect’s, are subordinated by the soul’s Will.  

I once mentally spoke to my body, to be specific, the vital organs saying – “Please be in good working condition so that I can persist with my life’s mission unhindered...” no sooner had I uttered this, came a rather high toned response – ‘You take care of us first’....wha....t! Taken aback that my own body would speak to me in such a tone, I swallowed my pride knowing how I have always taken my body’s youthful health for granted. Well, who doesn’t? Mustering humility I purred, ‘...ok......’

Strange, I speak to me!....and this is not mind-chatter. Keeping semantics aside, once we understand the symphony of complex processes and the innate awareness of animate beings as well as inanimate objects it does not appear crazy. All the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. Animate beings have souls, they grow, multiply, express and die; while inanimate objects have limited consciousness.

Also, notice that when I spoke to my vital organs (plural), I got a reply by “us” the separate organs. If I had spoken to my body as a single form of Intelligence, the response would have been - ‘You take care of me first’.

Once after Meditations, after I tucked myself in bed, I had a big smile on my face. I was surprised to notice that my emotions did not correspond to the smile. I had no thought or emotion going on inside me to trigger, and sustain for 3 min, a huge smile; so huge that I could feel the pressure of my cheeks on my lower eyelids. For once, my body was happy!

In fact, my Spiritual Guide – Guruji Krishnananda – has taught us that before Meditations if we request our body, mind and intellect to co-operate and go into silence, they oblige and we can enjoy long and deep Meditations.

Anyways, as I walked into my house I found my husband, dripping wet as he had just emerged from a shower, telling me that he had hollered from the shower saying that he needs just 5 min to open the door. With increased awareness of how we hurt our body with strong emotions, I left my annoyances outside my house and got busy eagerly telling my husband what had just happened.