This is a further article about acceptance and inner peace, following on from the article on non-resistance. Acceptance can be so simple when adopted unconditionally, but is so against our past conditioning that it can seem difficult, weak or even crazy. Don't fall for these excuses of the mind.
“If I could define enlightenment briefly I would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is.”
Accept What Arises
Accept what arises in your field of awareness. All effective action will flow from this place of acceptance and inner peace.
Most of us are so concerned with changing things and resisting things, believing that the resistance helps. We try to "get somewhere else" because we think once we are "there" we will be happy, fulfilled, satisfied or at peace. So few of us realise that a much quicker and simpler way to complete satisfaction is to accept things as they are.
Full acceptance of something means that you are instantly at peace. How easy is that? Instant peace in the present moment.
Our conditioning, however, makes us believe that acceptance is rarely justified, that if we do not like something we must not accept it.
Try For Yourself
Try it for yourself - instead of internally resisting something occurring - a situation, person, monkey mind, painful emotion - try fully accepting that it is there. This acceptance is so simple.
I have past experience of this myself - resisting a painful emotion, for example, believing that I would only be happy once it had gone completely - which made me resist its current existence - which kept it in place….
….the alternative is this: see that the emotion is there, do not interfere with it, do not resist or "touch" it, simply accept that it is there because it already is there. At that moment you are free. Then the emotion weakens by itself, because you are no longer feeding it. Acceptance and inner peace come together.
Radical Acceptance Of What Is
This radical acceptance of what is takes you out of ego. The ego hates it. Accept even your own internal non-acceptance (resistance) to whatever is currently arising. When you accept what the moment holds, you are suddenly at one with life, and at peace.
We make things so complicated through resistance, under the false assumption that resistance promotes change. It actually hinders change - and this is one of the biggest secrets of life. Resist something and you just create more suffering while giving strength to whatever you are resisting.
Instead of thinking you shouldn't have this thought, shouldn't react in this way, shouldn't have this reality, shouldn't anything - accept whatever is within your field of awareness at this moment. Do not label what is arising - just let it arise.
You then have access to the true source of power within you, since your resistance is no longer covering it up or preventing it from flowing into the world.
You will also see that the real source of peace and happiness is inside of you already, and that demanding that your external world make you happy is a mindset that will at some point make you unhappy.
Play with this. Experiment. Do not take it seriously.
Acceptance and inner peace go hand in hand. You can not have one without the other. You can not be at peace while internally resisting what already exists. Effective action flows from this internal state of acceptance and inner peace.