Acceptance always leads to Happiness

Life gives you problems so that you know who you truly are!

You invite suffering when you are impatient with a Life situation

Neither impatience nor denial is going to solve a problem or make it go away.

A lady we know is embroiled in a legal dispute over her property with her siblings. Her matter has been pending in court for over 25 years. She said she was at her “wits’ end” and wanted to know this: “How much more patient must I be?”

I shared with her my perspectives on patience with solving problems.

When confronted with a problem the human mind responds typically with impatience – you want it solved in a jiffy, immediately. Or the mind wants to live in denial, it wants to run away from the problem. What we must realize is that both responses are wasted. Neither impatience nor denial is going to solve a problem or make it go away. Only when you accept a problem, only when you start living with it, does the problem – even though it may drag or linger on – reveal its teachable point of view. Every problem we face is teaching us something about ourselves. And only through learning from our problems do we evolve into better leaders of our Life.

In the lady’s specific case, her problem was not just that she was fighting over property with her siblings. It was also that she was fighting over it in an Indian court. So there’s being impatient is absolutely futile. She has to recognize that a resolution will take long and possibly may not even arrive in a lifetime. When she is in that state of acceptance – and clarity – she can either let law take its own course or opt for an out of court, mediated settlement. Not will to go with either choice will only cause her suffering. Which actually explains her current frame of mind, what she is experiencing right now.

More than anything else Life, teaches you patience by throwing you in the deep end of the pool or by hanging you from the edge of precipice. Yes, you have a choice to be impatient with Life. But when you are impatient, you are suffering simultaneously. Patience with a Life situation does not mean your problem will be solved immediately or that it will go away. It only means that you will not suffer, it means that you will learn to endure the pain while working diligently on resolving the situation.

 

Acceptance ≠ Inaction or Resignation

Learning to be non-frustrated holds the key to intelligent living!

My friend from Nagpur commented on my blogpost of a few days ago saying he disagreed with my view that “our wishing alone cannot change our reality, our Life”. I have said this in so many blogposts, but let me elaborate, one more time, here. By championing acceptance, I am not suggesting that we resign to the situation. Acceptance does not mean inaction, it does not mean resignation. Acceptance is awareness of any current reality. It is the opposite of denial. Once you are accepting of a situation, you can decide what to do in it. But if you are running away from it, denying it, how can you ever expect to turn it around?

Important, acceptance teaches you to be non-frustrated with the outcomes of your efforts. Acceptance cannot solve your problems. It can only help you work in a focused and calm manner on your problem. But sometimes a problem may endure. Like in our case, for Vaani and me, it has been around for a decade now already. (Read more here: Fall Like A Rose Petal) When a problem refuses to go away, despite your best efforts, acceptance helps you cope with it, without getting frustrated or depressed that you are not being rewarded for your intent, talent, integrity and hard work.

When I say, no matter what you do – or don’t do – whatever has to happen alone will happen, I am championing non-frustrated living. I am not saying sit back and resign to your fate. Living in the world, and yet being above it, as the Bhagavad Gita teaches, as the Bible teaches, does not mean inaction. It is a lot of action – when you learn to trust the process of Life by doing what you can do in a situation and leaving the outcomes, the results, to Life. To be sure, trusting the process of Life requires a lot faith and patience, it calls for integrity of Purpose and detached determination. It means ploughing on along the path unmindful of the terrain and the time it will take to get to where you must arrive. It means that you understand and celebrate Life’s biggest truth that, always, the journey is more important than the reward.

 

To end your suffering: face Life, see the reality

Denying a problem does not make it go away!

All your suffering comes from what you deny. Facing Life and taking a problem head on is what can make you solve it and live in peace.

But we invariably don’t like to exorcise our demons. We somehow have become comfortable suffering, feeling tormented, preferring to stay debilitated than feeling liberated. Because continuing to be miserable seems far easier than having to work hard to rid ourselves of what makes us miserable!

I met someone recently after a couple of years. He, in his own opinion, was financially ‘very well off’. Yet he found his Life ‘incomplete’. He spent entire days, daily, in a prominent five-star hotel’s bar, literally being there from the time it opened to when it closed! He lamented to me that his wife no longer loved him and all she wanted was ‘his credit card and a certain sum of cash monthly for her shopping sprees’. His 26-year-old son, though married, was not exactly doing anything significant and ‘lived off’ the family wealth. His daughter was the only one who understood him but their relationship too in recent years had come under stress. She wanted to go overseas for higher studies but he got her married instead because that was the norm in his ‘community’. He said to me, in a tone reflective of a defeated man, “I have lost it in Life. I have done no wrong. Yet everyone around me has let me down. I am suffering. I wish I could die.”

We have had this conversation many times before. So, I told him one more time: “My friend, you are the problem. For, as far as I know you, you have been drinking entire days for years now. You have a drinking problem – spurred by a lack of Purpose in your Life. You have enough and more money. So, because you don’t know how to be useful and productive, you are indulging in something that has already ruined your family Life and is on the verge of consuming you.”

My friend suddenly got up. He ended our meeting and drove away drunk in his car, despite my request and protests to leave his car behind and engage an Ola or Uber.

I wish he understood that unless he faced the brutal reality of his Life, he may really be unable to make it any better.

Many people, like my friend, live in denial. Either they don’t see reality. Or they refuse to see reality. They deny whatever is their problem__whatever it may be, from a relationship to a lousy job to a ruinous habit__hoping that denying a problem will lead to it sorting itself out, eventually! This is one area where no one can help you. You have to face your Life situation, accept it and then work on solving it – yourself!

But facing the truth is scary. How does one see the reality?

Simple, there are no two ways to can change your current realities or end your suffering! So, if you are feeling miserable about anything__or anyone__in Life, sit down and introspect. Diligently make a list of actions that you must take to end your misery. Resolve to do it. And just get down to doing it. Don’t give yourself the license to make excuses. The only way to solve a problem is to first accept that it exists.

“Bolo, Bolo…” – saying it as it is, always helps!

If you must stop living a lie, a difficult conversation must be had.

Yesterday we watched Tanuj Bhramar’s ‘Dear Dad’ (Arvind Swamy, Himanshu Sharma). It’s a short, beautiful film – in fact, if there is anything that interferes with its precise 90-min length, it is the forced intermission that we have in Indian cinemas. It deals with a 45-year-old father (Arvind – who is simply brilliant!) making a confession that he is gay to his teenaged son (Himanshu – who delivers a powerful performance!!) on an impromptu road trip. The script and the narrative are no-nonsense – they look at the family coping with this revelation with shock, denial, struggle, compassion, guilt and, eventually, very, very practically!

And, truly, that is the way families will have to cope with their own truths and realities. Honestly, really, practically.

‘Dear Dad’s’ story is of a father daring to come out to share his sexual orientation. But each family has its own such moments of coming out – for different reasons, in different contexts. So, I think the bigger picture, the larger question to be considered is whether you are going to continue to live a lie or are you going to have that difficult conversation(s) that can make Life much easier, simpler and happier for everyone concerned in the long run?

Why do we fight shy of having honest conversations? Often we think others can’t handle the truth. Or we think we can’t handle a constructive confrontation if it comes down to that. Or you fear being called selfish because you do speak prioritizing your aspirations or needs above those of others. Or the culture of your family is non-conversational – nobody has ever spoken against a visible symbol of authority or faced up to the family’s power center. There can and will surely be other contexts. But whatever they are, you have to examine how you feel when you are living a lie? If you feel you can handle it, maintaining status quo, then avoid the conversation. If you feel you can’t live this way anymore, go ahead and have that conversation, however much you struggle with it. And be prepared to live with the consequences, which, unlike as in the ‘Dear Dad’ story, may even lead to total ostracization.

An honest conversation is phenomenally useful for your inner peace even if it is undoubtedly difficult to have one. Yet, there is no better way to have that honest conversation other than saying it as it is – brutally frank, direct and in-the-face. And when having one don’t expect people to understand your point of view immediately. Embrace the denial, the drama, the struggle and the emotional outbursts as they come. But continue to speak your mind. Over time, people do realize the value of the truth, because it involves everyone. If you are honest, it will always show. And eventually everyone makes their own peace with the way you are, the way their new realities are, even if, in some situations they may choose to shut you out!

I believe ‘Dear Dad’ has done us all a huge service. If we peel away the context of sexual orientation, and stick to considering the value in having honest conversations in a family, it shows us how, despite new – unusual, seemingly difficult-to-accept – contexts arriving, we can still accept, understand and appreciate each other. That is, if we are all ready and willing!

Acceptance makes dealing with problems simpler

Life is not a problem. But Life is full of them.Intelligent living is to know that Life’s problems cannot be wished away but have to be accepted. Problems can either be solved by you, by applying logic and intellect, or when you can’t solve them, you can allow them to be solved by Life, over time!

Fundamentally, problems become simpler __ even if not easier __ to manage when you accept them. But if you keep denying that there is a problem, then you are creating a conflict with both the problem and within yourself. Because one part of you is forcing you to see the problem and accept it. While another part is forcing you to deny its existence. Out of this denial, fear and insecurity is born.

Denial itself stems from lack of awareness. Denial is when you are arguing with Life. You are arguing because you expect Life to be fair, and so you believe that nothing “out-of-the-ordinary” is going to happen to you. But the truth may well be that “it” has happened to you. Why deny what has happened? Denial is not going to make a problem go away. In fact, it will breed fear, which itself is then a new problem to deal with. Of course,  accepting a problem is not going to make it disappear. But acceptance at least makes you peaceful – and through that inner peace, your ability to deal with the problem, or attempt solutions, is enhanced.

Let’s say, someone is finding no joy in her marriage. She suspects that her spouse is not “involved” in their Life anymore. But she continues to brush that thought away and “endures” the marriage. How happy do you think she will be? Her acceptance of the problem may or may not make the marriage any better, but will surely make her peaceful. This is not just true in this lady’s context, it applies to every situation in Life.

We create more problems for ourselves, in most situations, by wanting things to be different from what they are. Instead simply accept. Acceptance is empowering and liberating. While it may not make Life’s problems go away, it certainly enhances your ability to deal with them!

Why Total Surrender to Life is the most intelligent thing to do!

On the path to Bliss, total surrender to Life is what works ultimately!

But the fickle human mind tries to obsess with methods and practices __ hoping to find a way out. Because the mind is reminding you__and me__that it is in control. The mind is the biggest charlatan. And it revels in controlling you. This is nothing but your ego at work. You have a relationship issue, the mind says it can solve it. You have a health issue, it says it can solve it too. You have a financial crisis, the mind says there’s a way out. And so the mind goes on, dragging you from hope to despair and back, holding you in its clutches.

Here’s a simple question: if the mind can solve all our problems, why is the world grappling with so many issues, and why are people suffering all around us?

The fundamental issue is that the mind denies the existence of a problem. It begins with denial. You have an alcohol problem or a tobacco addiction. But the mind will make you deny the problem. It will justify that so many people around the world drink. So many people smoke. Aren’t they living “normal” lives? So, nothing will happen to me. And so you will pick up another drink and light up one more time!

Denial breeds anger. Because despite your denials, the problem persists. So now you are angry. It is like a chewing gum that you has stuck on to your pants and you are fighting to get rid of it. Your helplessness, caused by the gum’s obstinate stickiness, makes you angry. And angrier as time passes.

But your denying something or kicking around does not make the problem go away. Whether it is an addiction or a broken relationship. That’s when, besieged by the problem’s refusal to go away, you ask yourself “Why Me?”. Again the same logic from the same mind. So many billion people on the planet, why am I being singled out for this treatment __ be it addiction, be it a relationship, a cancer, a lay off, a business collapse or a scandal that ruins your reputation?

Again, after screaming yourself hoarse, asking “Why Me?” for months and, sometimes, for years, you come to a grudging acceptance that the principal reason why the problem persists is because you are resisting it. Grudging acceptance is a good thing. And often leads to fleeting, momentary experiences of peace and bliss. Once you have tasted bliss, you want more of it! And some more of it! Again and again!

That’s when, tired and beleaguered of course, enchanted and enamored by the bliss you have experienced briefly, you move towards accepting your situation. From trying methods and attempting solutions, you slip into acceptance. And while the problem remains, confounded and complicated, you feel peaceful. This peace encourages you to review your own Life. And the way you have lived it so far. In whatever problem situation you are in currently, you, for the first time, recognize that you have contributed to it in some measure __ big or small. Acceptance leads you total surrender at this stage. And, in a nanosecond, in a dazzling Eureka moment, you see that for your current reality to change, to transform, YOU must first transform!

This, “I must be the change I want to see in my world”, moment is magnificent, magical. And physical personal change alone is not what happens at this stage. Of kicking an addiction or having the courage to walk out on a debilitating relationship. What happens is you change the way you look at yourself. You realize that you are not the body. You are not the mind. And in that state of surrender, deep in the throes of real-Life, real problem, you experience peace, joy and a oneness with creation. That, really, my dear friends, is Bliss. And it need not necessarily be found under a Bodhi Tree! It can be found while reading this post on facebook or in a moment of privacy and solitude on your potty! The literate will call that moment an ‘epiphany’. For the lay person, like you and me, just know that it is the time when you will feel unburdened, unshackled and liberated! And you will not what that moment to ever go away!

The question then is, if Acceptance leads us to Total Surrender which in turn leads us to Bliss, all this in such a short span of time, why do we need to, for years at times, deny, fret, fume, kick around, bemoan, grudge, blame in the first place? Why not arrive at the Total Surrender point directly? Isn’t that what basic commonsense would tell you is THE intelligent thing to do? Indeed. It will. And it is. Think about it!