The Paradox of Acceptance
Acceptance is the process of our will’s alignment with What Is.
Moving through resistance, denial, and often deep pain (including grief) brings about acceptance.
When something is thus “accepted” which is not at all a merely intellectual process, it is also gone beyond.
Going beyond an event doesn’t mean not being affected by it. In fact it is the opposite: We open to the reality of something so fully and thoroughly that our very Being expands to include it.
This going-beyond-through-inclusion is also a process of deep transformation during which many psychological deaths can happen. This death is the falling away of our suffering, including many of our automatic survival and defence mechanisms. Dying into Life.
The opposite of acceptance is resistance. We are resisting to so much (both inside and out) that we are not aware of what we are trying to push away, since we also resist our resistance instead of exploring it.
Resistance is itself suffering - not merely the cause of suffering, but suffering itself.
Resistance to What Is is itself the separate sense of self we take ourselves to be. Here is “me” trying to dictate how Life should be as if I am not Life itself already.
The duality we experience through this seemingly convincing separation between “me” and “my life” is suffering. At a felt level, the entire sense of separation and isolation is resistance itself.
Resistance is our reactivity and aggression. It is our desire to control and to manipulate.
Resistance is our addictive tendencies including our desperation for connection, love, being wanted, and all the rest. Desperation is the key word here.
These movements of Life are all based on the illusion of separation which is the conviction that there is something to lose or to gain at the existential and spiritual levels. We cling to things and experiences as if we can somehow “have” them.
This innocent misunderstanding, this mistaken identity along with the sense of resistance and ownership that sustain it (these two cannot be separated) are the very makings of suffering.
I am not suggesting that the separate self can finally accept life and go beyond it and enjoy freedom.
What I’m saying is that the non-existence of the separate self can become more and more obvious as we explore our resistance and dive into our pain instead of trying to push it away.
After all, it’s always been Life itself being confused and so it is again Life seeing through resistance and opening to itself more and more fully.
Acceptance is to feel, to digest, to heal and grow, to awaken to What Is, and to go beyond suffering.
Acceptance brings about the possibility for action-through-non-division. Acceptance brings an end to “us versus them” living that plagues humanity.
Do you want to make the world a better place? Accept the world as it is now - exactly and entirely the way it is already. Then you become what you want the world to be.
It is entirely possible to move from wholeness instead of suffering, to move from groundedness and peace instead of push and pull, to move from the heart instead of the mind.
There will be nothing left of you except for what matters most.
Acceptance is not at all merely an intellectual happening.