Acceptance of What Is

Everything that I have read or listened to in the last couple of days seems to have conspired to come together to give me the same messages, and I wish to share a few of the highlights. In a nut shell, all things urged to listen to - and accept what is in one's life - as an opportunity to change.

Everything I read or listened to, also offered the invitation to look at things from a different perspective. It reminded me of the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali, which teaches that sorrow is rooted in ignorance and how we choose to think and look at a situation. I also thought of the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita which teaches that the fruit of our actions only belongs to God. All we can do is act to the best of our ability, without attachment to the outcome. It is attachment - to things, to people, to ideas, to our thoughts, which is the root of all our suffering, and the material that I delved into over the last several days mirrored that back in so many ways.

The following was received in an email sent from the Chopra Center:

The Law of Least Effort

"The Law of Least Effort: Nature's intelligence functions with effortless ease, with carefreeness, harmony, and love. And when we harness the forces of harmony, joy, and love, we create success and good fortune with effortless ease.

I will put the Law of Least Effort into effect by making a commitment to take the following steps:

  1. I will practice acceptance. Today I will accept people, situations, circumstances, and events as they occur. I will know that this moment is as it should be, because the whole universe is as it should be. I will not struggle against the whole universe by struggling against this moment. My acceptance is total and complete. I accept things as they are this moment, not as I wish they were.
  2. Having accepted things as they re, I will take responsibility for my situation and for all those events I see as problems. I know that taking responsibility means not blaming anyone or anything for my situation (and this includes myself). I also know that every problem is an opportunity in disguise, and this alertness to opportunities allows me to take this moment and transform it into a greater benefit.
  3. Today my awareness will remain established in Defenselessness. I will relinquish the need to defend my point of view. I will feel no need to defend my point of view. I will feel no need to convince or persuade others to accept my point of view. I will remain open to all points of view and not be rigidly attached to any one of them."
As I read through these points, I realized they were asking very simple but difficult things to put into action. And yet I also knew deep down inside, that they held the key to freedom and happiness...

The body is truly the map of all of our experiences and emotions, and this morning I received The Inner Journey Newsletter, entitled, "What is Your Body Saying?" And embedded within, were the following quotes:

"Many people treat their bodies as if they were rented from Hertz - something they are using to get around in but nothing they genuinely care about understanding."
~ Chaungliang Al Huang

"As we explore the extraordinary interplay of energies between the many aspects of our personality - our needs, unconscious reactions, repressed emotions, aspirations and fears - with the functioning of our physical system and its capacity to maintain itself, we soon realize how very wise the body is. With its intricately detailed systems and operations it portrays infinite intelligence and compassion, constantly giving us the means to understand ourselves further, to confront issues we are not looking at, and to go beyond that which is holding us back."
~ Deb Shapiro, Your Body Speaks Your Mind

"Your body is the ground and metaphor of your life, the expression of your existence. It is your Bible, your encyclopedia, your life story. Everything that happens to you is stored and reflected in your body. In the marriage of flesh and spirit divorce is impossible."
~ Gabrielle Roth

"What is always speaking silently is the body."
~ Norman Brown

And finally, last night, before going to sleep, I read these words by Paramahansa Yogananda, on true happiness, which complement the preceding practices and quotations...

"Without inner happiness, one may be a prisoner of sorrows in a sumptuous castle...

No matter what you are doing, keep the undercurrent of happiness, the secret river of joy, flowing beneath the sands of your various thoughts...[one] should learn to be in the world and yet not of it...

Don't make unhappiness a chronic habit...to be happy is a blessing to yourself and others...

Happiness is a state of mind...

Learn to throw the light of joy into all hearts, so that they may burn away the darkness and find the light within themselves..."

I will save the crucial insights received from my reading of Colin Tipping's Radical Forgiveness and Byron Katie's Loving What Is, for another entry, for there is much to ponder in all of these sources!

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