Unconditional Acceptance : The Doorway to Presence

"Acceptance looks like a passive state, but in reality, it brings something entirely new into this world. That peace, a subtle energy vibration, is consciousness." - Eckhart Tolle

The dualistic nature of our reality is expressed in the way we define feeling good from feeling bad, the right action from the wrong action. Our logical mind is designed to split our experiences into categories of acceptable/good experience and unacceptable/bad experience. When one walks in the path of spirituality, a tendency to neglect and turn away from the dark parts of ourselves can develop. It certainly happened to me, and it is something I still struggle with. The obsessive desire to only feel the moments when I was fully aligned and be in denial of the moments when my mind navigates through the unconscious parts of me was one of the main reasons for my suffering. A lot of us experience this in varying degrees.

Ironically, the gripping desire to always feel spiritually connected to ourselves is the very thing that keeps us from truly unfolding the path to our higher selves. When we are faced with some aspects of ourselves, either from the past or present, that we just do not want to accept, by turning our face away from this experience we are in denial of the present moment. The very desire to maintain our self-established spiritual standards, keep us from evolving as individuals. After all, isn't shining light into all the dark parts of ourselves the main purpose of spirituality? But how can we even shine the light of our awareness in a direction we keep denying to look at?

The Downward Spiral

Denying aspects of ourselves over and over again creates suffering in our experience. When an incident we perceive as bad involves other people, we victimize ourselves and blame others for our pain. Blaming keeps us trapped in our past traumas. According to Buddha, the root of our suffering is in our attachments. Being attached to an idea of how things should be instead of unconditionally accepting how things are. 

In denial, we try to restlessly find solutions to a perceived problem or we chose to tap out altogether by immersing ourselves in distractions, drifting further and further away from presence. This is where the downward spiral begins. In modern times the magnetic force of this downward spiral can be very intimidating. In this autopilot mode, we drown ourselves in momentary dopamine rushes through social media, drugs, sex, porn, food, mindless conversations and purposeless digital navigation. The best way to notice this is by observing our breath. When we are in the downward spiral, our breath is shallow and we have little or no spinal awareness (a.k.a slouching). This noticing technique is used during yoga to return to the breath and body through spinal awareness.

Unconditional Acceptance

When we consciously bring our awareness to the aspects of our experience that we do not like, we can begin to dissociate from it and see it just as a momentary experience and not a defining factor of who we are. This is easier said than done, as the line between who we are and what we think is unperceivable by an awareness diluted by the past and the future. But it is not impossible. Just like an aircraft, we too drift away from our path. And just like how a pilot redirects the aircraft over and over again, we too have to recenter time after time. But before we can do that, we must accept and honour our humanness.

Acceptance doesn't mean we agree with, condone, appreciate or even like what happened. Acceptance means that we simply chose to be aware of whatever it is we are presented with from our internal or external reality. Ironically, the first step is to accept our non-acceptance. Similarly, in yoga, the steps towards returning to the present moment are simply acknowledging that we are lost in thought, followed by taking some conscious deep breaths and re-establishing mind-body awareness. Reminding ourselves of the big picture, our visions, motives and purpose. And having that faith that all our experiences are there to challenge us and help us grow as we refine their meaning a little at a time. 

This process needs to be repeated over and over and over again till our last breath. In fact, this is the fundamental teaching of meditation: noticing the mind is lost - return to the breath - and repeat.  There is nothing to gain from this process. It's not a means to an end. It is a journey, a never ending one. And that is why it requires presence. Because forever is composed of nows.

-With Loving Awareness