Happy March!Greetings Radiant Beings, Spring is right around the corner, which means the days are growing longer, gardens are being planned and planted, and there is general excitement about being outside in nature again. We have been planting seeds for the last five months with these relationship study emails; hopefully, this Spring, you will start to see some buds of personal growth begin to arrive. We have examined truthfulness, sincerity, faithfulness, tolerance, and patience. This month we look at acceptance. While we have one more newsletter in this series, this does not mean our self-examination is over. It is, in fact, just getting started. Keep your relationship journal and periodically re-answer and review previous answers. Use this as a personal litmus test to see if you have made any personal qualitative changes, and if not, ask yourself why? Remember, on the journey to know the Self, we must be brutally honest but radically accepting. As with all newsletters, let's define the word and how it relates to relationships with ourselves and others. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, acceptance is “to endure without protest or reaction." If this is the definition we use, it will guide us to ascertain that there are many aspects of our lives that we should endure and call acceptance, such as unsatisfying careers, negative relationships, poor health, and insufficient finances. Since we are looking at it from the yogic perspective, we will study it differently. Acceptance does not mean we allow others to maltreat us or for us to mistreat others because it is our or their karma. There is simply no excuse for behaving badly. Suppose that you are walking home; you can go right or left to arrive home. If you go right, a gunman is hiding in the bushes, but he will not see you if you go left. Do you go in the direction of the gunman because it is your karma to be hit by a bullet, or go left and take a more extended route home and also avoid being shot? We don't stay in a situation and call it karma when we know we should leave it. If we do, let's call it what it is, being inert. If you are in an unhealthy relationship or circumstances, it doesn't mean you become a victim of the relationship or your circumstances. When playing the role of a victim, you do not act skillfully, and this continues to strengthen your victim mentality mindset, which keeps you in the binds of karma. One of the problems with the victim role is that it keeps you from being in the present moment, and when we act from a place of the past or future, we operate with dwesha and raga (aversion and attachment). In yoga, you acknowledge the negative relationship or situation as paying karma from previous actions and consider how you can disentangle yourself from this karma. There are three steps to consider when moving away from karma. The first step is to thank God for allowing you to repay this karma. God knows you are strong enough to maneuver through this karma; the problem is you don't believe it. The second step is to thank the bringer of your karma, and the third step is to cultivate a plan to change the situation (this means YOU, when the subject changes, the object also changes). Acceptance in no way gives one permission to be a martyr. As Krishna says to Arjuna, you prepare for war with peace in your heart. You cultivate an action plan and move forward with it lovingly. The tricky part about acceptance is you must accept yourself before fully tolerating others. Becoming self-accepting means you should self-study (svadhyaya) the way you talk to yourself, your way of thinking, and your habit patterns (samskaras). Acceptance is rewriting the stories you have been telling yourself for lifetimes. Yoga Sutra 1.2 roughly translates as the modifications of the mind stuff. What happens if you examine some of that mind stuff as the stories you have been telling yourself for lifetimes and begin to rewrite those stories with more clarity or objectivity? You see yourself for who you are but without judgment or ridicule. You are gentle with yourself and quit treating yourself with barbarity. Remember that acceptance is not resignation to who you are or what is happening in your life. Acceptance is being fully aware of who you are and where you are. With this awareness, you can change yourself and your situation. As your self-study continues and you see yourself as you are, you also see others as they are, and you love them for who they are and where they are on the journey. You don't hate a five-year-old because she can't drive a car or reach the top shelf, so why should we hate ourselves or others for not being fully aware of our true nature and providing us with the opportunity to pay back some of our amassed karma from this lifetime and previous lifetimes. Acceptance allows us to practice unconditional love for ourselves and others. When you see yourself for who you are, knowing that you are shedding those unhealthy behaviors, you become more loving. The more you accept yourself, the more you will receive others (partners, parents, children, friends) for who they are, and life improves. The load gets lighter when you see yourself and others as they are. It is heavy to carry the boxes around that we keep ourselves and others in by the stories we have created, and you must remember that the more you grow, the more you see others as they are. The more you "see" a person, the more you can love them, but this does not mean you stay in an abusive relationship or situation. You recognize where you are and where they are, and if the conditions dictate, you move forward so that you can continue growing. It is himsa (violent ) to stay in a situation that you know is not serving the higher good.
Have you ever accepted a situation you knew was not good for you because you thought it was your karma or the way it was supposed to be? What were the results? Are you currently in a situation that you know is not good for you, but you stay? Why do you continue to remain? Do you accept yourself? What do you accept, and what do you not accept? Why? What does unconditional self-love look like for you? What does unconditional love look like for others? How accepting of others are you? Who do you most accept? Why? Who do you least accept? Why? What would it be if you could change one thing about your personality now? If you can't make the change immediately, can you expand enough to accept yourself while making the changes? Can you open up enough to love someone in your life that may never change the way you want them to change? Why or why not?
In-Service, Ranjani
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