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Likely there are things you would like to change about yourself or the world. Yet spiritual teachers and writers advise accepting things as they are in order to find peace and happiness. Do peace and happiness then come at the cost of giving up acting to better yourself or the world around you?
I think not. No matter how accepting we are, if we are alive we act and our actions have consequences for who we become and what effect we have on the world. Acceptance does not mean simply sitting in one spot all day with a smile on your face. Acceptance is something more subtle.
The problem is not in our actions but in our mind. The mind has the wonderful ability to imagine things being different and mapping out what could be done to get there, but the imagination knows no limits and can easily generate an impossible list of things worth changing. If you remain fixed in this aspect of the mind, you will be continually frustrated at your inability to address more than a small minority of all that the mind can propose changing. Our resources of energy and time cannot come anywhere close to tackling all that our mind can propose.
Some people imagine doing things to address the problems in the world, and become frustrated at how little they can accomplish or burn out trying to do too much. Some people focus on their own perceived deficiencies and become discouraged at how difficult it is to break their habits or alter their character traits. Frustration, burn out, and discouragement is a recipe for unhappiness.
To accept things as they are includes accepting that this capacity of the mind to envision change is an impossible taskmaster. It means moving out of the mind and into the heart, into our here-and-now sense of oneness with an ever-changing reality. The mind must be dethroned as the master and come to serve the heart-sense.
When you calm yourself and let go of the mind’s agenda for change, you begin to move into this heart-sense. The heart-sense is the inner guide which proposes actions only for the present moment. It does not imagine everything that could or should be changed, it simply notes that life always changes and this one step in front of you at the present moment is the direction life would like to carry you. In taking that step, you will change and you will effect change in the world. Rather than being frustrated, burnt out, and discouraged, you will be fulfilled, invigorated, and encouraged.
What then is the role of the mind taking actions? It is to picture where the heart-sense may be leading in order to see more clearly the step you must take and to give an added boost to your motivation; the mind envisions the possibilities and the heart chooses among them. If the mind takes over and ignores the heart, you become lost in the mind’s endless to-do list. However, if the heart leads the mind there is a greater sense of inner unity and integration into the movement of life toward a purpose of its own.
Acceptance thus means accepting the truth about our lives as human beings. Do not be seduced by your mind into its endless to-do list, for the mind lives in the imagination and abstractions, not in the truth. We cannot do everything we can think of doing, we can only take that one next step, and only in this heart-sense can we find what that next step should be.
Acceptance is not a state of resignation and inaction, it is a state of harmony with the continual change that knew where it was going before it invited you to join the parade.
Alan F. Zundel is a counselor, author, and teacher currently living in Eugene, Oregon. His talks are available to download for free at HeartAwake Center at www.heartawake.org.
Alan F. Zundel is a counselor, author, and teacher currently living in Eugene, Oregon. His talks are available to download for free at HeartAwake Center at 