We often find our self making efforts trying to accept our family and friends. We take care not to react to their words and behavior
and think we are accepting, but we need to check our feelings. We do not react, but if we hold the feeling of hurt, then we have not accepted, we have only suppressed. This suppression helps us to be on our best behavior with others, it gets us their approval and appreciation, but we are causing damage to our self. The first stage was not to react in behavior, the next stage is not to react in thoughts and feelings.
Acceptance means understanding the other person’s sanskar and not allowing it to disturb our mind. For eg. If we are sitting in prayer or meditation at home, we do not get disturbed by the traffic and hawkers on the road, but we get disturbed by a mobile ringing in the room. We have accepted the traffic noise and even though it is loud, it does not disturb our mind. We expected the mobile to be silent and so lack of acceptance causes the mind to get disturbed even by a beautiful soft ringtone. The mind does not get disturbed by the external noise, but by the internal noise of Why, How, What, that it creates about things it does not accept. Accept their sanskar means do not create any questions about it – IT IS THEIR SANSKAR and as of now it may not change. For eg. If they have a sanskar of anger or doubt or criticism or jealousy…accept it…no questions – how could they behave like this, is this the way to talk, should they not trust me, why do they not respect me? Acceptance means the internal noise of question stops. The silent mind is stable and now responds proactively. Stability becomes our protection and then we choose the right response of giving in to what they want or assertively putting across our point.
Acceptance does not mean to let others trample over you. Acceptance means to remain stable, assertive and powerful.
[Courtesy: BK Shivani]
Wow, very well explained.....loved the entire article...
Excellent explanation....:)
Hi Seema,
The root of this question lies in our eternal existence. We are part and parcels of God /Krishna/ Brahman. This means we have the same qualities like the Lord.
God or Brahman(Absolute Reality) is considered Sat-chit-ananda.
It is a term to describe the experience of realizing the unity and wholeness of all existence. It is said that sat-chit-ananda is the source of all consciousness and all perfection. To experience sat-chit-ananda is to achieve the ultimate goal of the spiritual journey.
The meaning of the individual words of sat-chit-ananda are as follows:
Sat: truth, absolute being or existence-- that which is enduring and unchanging
Chit: consciousness, understanding and comprehension
Ananda: bliss, a state of pure happiness, joy and sensual pleasure
So originally our souls possess the following innate qualities: peace, joy, love, bliss, purity, power, and knowledge. These qualities are present in every soul by virtue of being a part of the Higher Power that most of us refer to as God – the Paramatma.
But when we take birth on this Material world, we get contaminated or conditioned. Srila Prabhupada lectured about the 4 kinds of defects of the conditioned soul namely: 1. he must commit mistakes 2. to be illusioned 3. cheating propensity 4. imperfect senses. So all of us feel incomplete, bewildered or confused in association with maya or materialistic energies but we all want to go back to our original state. We try external means to achieve this. That is, we want others to change, others to perform, others to behave properly,others to take care of us etc. We expect, because we think others are responsible for our peace, joy, love, bliss etc..Once we realize that focusing inwards is the key to our happiness and not outwards we are no longer dependent on other's actions or behavior towards us. With right knowledge, right spiritual practices we can achieve our original state again. The best way to start is by surrendering in Krishna's feet and asking for guidance and then taking help of the tools like forgiveness, meditation, breathing, chanting etc.
Now comes the second part of your question. We should never accept wrong behavior. We have to convey it to the other person that we do not accept the wrong or harsh behavior from that person. No body can take us granted. Spiritual people are powerful people. We choose kindness but we donot encourage wrong behaviour. But there is a process to do so. Please follow this step by step.
Suppose a family member or a friend or a colleague hurt our feelings.
Step 1: Do forgiveness saadhna. We need to accept that if a particular incident happened with us we deserved it due to karmic reasons. We must have done the same with this person or someone else in this birth or in any past birth. So first step is acceptance, forgiving the person and mentally asking for forgiveness from that person.
Step 2: Once we are stable inside, we need to do outer-forgiveness, i.e we let that person know about his/her wrong deed or we take some necessary steps depending on the person and the situation.
Step 3: We maintain the inner peace and calmness instead of feeling hurt and pain. Please refer to my article https://soulpeace11.wixsite.com/soulpeace/ypv-forgiveness for more clarification.
Hence the title of this article...acceptance in relationships does not mean suppression. The above article helps us understand why a person or soul behaves in a particular way.
[01/12 10:25] Seema: One question that bothers me a lot...why we expect?? What’s the significant reason?? Emotional? Scientific?? Or it’s one’s plain foolishness?? [01/12 10:52] Seema : @Rupali 🙏 I read the discussion on acceptance on the website...ok I don’t question what why how about their sanskar but is it good to accept every time they did say or do something wrong?? Doesn’t it mean that they have taken us for granted?? I can’t comment in the website as I m using phone...please clear
Thanks for studying my mind.Acceptance is the role we have to play
yup everytime we get confused with suppression and acceptance, but this made it very clear ...what is acceptance...thank u so much for sharing it...u r amazing channnel...u just give the right thing at the right time for all of us...