Acceptance

Now, Philosophy again. :-)
I have been wanting to write this ever since an article appeared in Times of India on Acceptance. I dont remember, who wrote it. Now, if you have not done any Art of Livng course before please dont read further, you will only make a mockery of yourself!

Accept people and situations as they are. What a sutra! It's amazing what acceptane can do to your abilities! Basically, it removes the clouds. What clouds ? The clouds covering your intellect! And you think better and make the right decisions and right things happen to you!
And thats not it, acceptance sets you free! You might think that you know what it means to be free. I thought the same, and I was ridiculously mistaken! I had no idea, what freedom is. It's like a different world that exists on the same planet! And, sooner or later, this lifetime, or another...you have to realize, that the purpose of life is to move to that freedom. to moksha. to nirvana.

Now, if you have not done any Advance course and have not heard Ashtavakra, stop here. Please do.

If you are saying that you accept you mother in law, then that means you at some point of time did not accept her and maybe you still dont. Maybe, at the level of the intellect, you accept her. But, something in you, still doesnt!

Comming back to what triggered this post. The article in The Speaking Tree in TOI.
A fire burns a house. You dont blame the fire, you look to douse it. You question reasons that may have caused the fire, but you dont question the fire. You dont ask "why did the fire burn?". You accept fire, you accept that the nature of fire is to burn. Now imagine, you do not accept fire, and a fire happens, and what do you do "how could she? how dare the fire burn my house? i am gonna take revenge! the fire does not know me! i am gonna teach her a lesson! " And the house burns!

Wake up and realize, dont let the house burn! Accept, and once there is acceptance you will have the ability to take the right action.

It may not be easy, here is a tip for acceptance...
...stop rejecting. :-)

Jai Gurudev!