Showing posts with label self-acceptance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-acceptance. Show all posts

Monday, September 26, 2016

Self-acceptance vs self-acceptance! All life is a play

Note: today, September 26, is the anniversary date in 1895 when the great yogi, Yogavatar, Lahiri Mahasaya (Shyama Charan Lahiri) left his physical body in the conscious exit known as "mahasamadhi" of a great saint. To ready about his life and service and spiritual attainments visit the newly created website: www.Lahiri-Mahasaya.org.

In a few days I will have attained the ripe old age of 66! Fortunately for me, 66 is the new 56 (or younger). What I find characterizes this stage of life is the need for self-acceptance.

Actually, there is a need for both self-acceptance AND Self-acceptance.

During one's middle life, working-type years, one is constantly pushing and striving. For most people that effort is to acquire material possessions, human love, family, success, health and recognition of one sort or another. Nothing wrong with these goals up to a point, as they are both natural and necessary for the development of character and maturity for most people.

It's like walking against a strong wind in your face. You lean into the wind, head down, pushing with all your strength and effort. If, after hours of struggle, the wind were suddenly to abate, you might even fall flat on your face! Certainly you'd feel some relief but also some disorientation. 

When fighting a battle it isn't the time to assess the costs or other consequences. Only when victory or defeat becomes a fact, do we stand up, take a deep breath, and view the result.

So it often is with life itself. There comes a point where "effort ends in ease." Let me explain: first, not for everyone, of course, nor am I talking about the classic point of one's retirement from active, working life. Nowadays with 66 - 76 being the new 56-66, it is common for many to want to continue working, even if they don't need to. Why? Because being still healthy and creative, and even at the pinnacle of one's skills, there's simply no desire to step down and do what......exactly?

Nonetheless, therefore, even for those who continue an active, service-full life, there will likely be a shift in consciousness. One finds stories from one's past popping into your head and speech (only in later years do they start repeating themselves with little or no prompting or context!!!!)

One begins to reflect upon one's life and experiences naturally and spontaneously. The metabolism perhaps slows, wisdom flows naturally as do opportunities (and the need) for mentoring or guiding others, perhaps one's future successors. 

But something else is likely to happen, and, even before what I describe above is in full force: the "chickens come home to roost." This means that unfulfilled desires, perhaps shoved aside in the process of making life choices, such as marriage and family, and contending with life's middle-aged duties and obligations and intense activities, raise their flag as if to say, "Remember me? The clock of your life is ticking and little time is left to fulfill your 'bucket list'"!

This is not dissimilar to a "mid-life crises" and in fact that may even be when these chickens return to roost. That's why I say this stage is likely to happen BEFORE the reflective stage.

In this crises of self-examination and self-awareness, we may stumble a bit with moods, depression, anger, frustration and even some pretty dumb things done or said impulsively.

For those who set about emptying their bucket list, they may be simply postponing the stage of self-acceptance or perhaps their adventures in pursuing their list is an active form of self-acceptance.

Whether self-acceptance takes the form of contentment, calmness and wisdom or the somewhat more active form of pursuing one's not-yet-achieved dreams (travel, e.g., being typical), the process is more or less the same though I am speaking more of the reflective stage than the active stage (which by necessity is short-lived usually---due to health, money or a list that is finally completed). 

Reflectively, like the wake of a speed boat whose waves slow and spread out as the boat comes gradually to a stop, we now begin to see our life and our personality (habits, tendencies, and even our now aging appearance) in a clearer light and perspective (than when, during middle life, we were constantly in motion pursuing fulfillment in the future tense of life). 

No doubt we won't like everything we see. A variety of emotions will surface: denial, anger, grief....the usual litany.....all leading (one hopes) to self-acceptance. Self-acceptance leads to contentment. Contentment to reflection and reflection to wisdom. This is where most people stop.

For the yogi and the devotee who seeks Truth, who seeks to know God, joy, the light of the soul or eternal freedom in infinite bliss, self-acceptance leads to Self-acceptance.

As a grandfather I find it natural to delight in my grandchildren's innocence and childhood even as I reflect on their budding traits and their possible evolution and challenges as they grow towards adulthood. 

As a yogi, these flower-buds of traits are but a sampling of the infinite variety of traits, experiences, attitudes, and lives our souls can pursue. 

It is natural therefore to step away from identification with my own life story and personality and re-affirm more deeply and with greater interest (as the clock of life is ticking away) my soul's call to awaken in the perfect bliss of God. 

"The drama of life has for its lesson that it is but a drama," Paramhansa Yogananda stated. At this stage of life, that's all life seems to be: a drama. Whether this year's politics, last year's wars and catastrophes----all a great play wherein tears and laughter, pleasure and pain alternate like actors changing costumes and roles.

The lesson in this insight is to turn away (not in rejection but with contentment and gratitude for having been part of a good show) and climb the spiral staircase (of the spine) to the "heaven (as Jesus put it) that is within you." We must now more soberly contemplate that, for us, the play is in its final act(s). The time is coming when we must "exit, stage right."

Joy and grace upon a sun-kissed Seattle day whose hidden melancholy whispers that "winter is coming."

Swami Hrimananda

Monday, September 9, 2013

"To thine own self be true"

At a recent Sunday Service the subject was ego transcendence. Much is made in religion and the spiritual path of the need to rise above the demands of the ego to realize one's divine birthright as a child of God. This idea is expressed in many different ways by great spiritual teachers and representatives of orthodox faith.

My interest is not the philosophical idea but the process of attaining the goal of God-realization (or, Self-realization). Paramhansa Yogananda defined "ego" as the "soul identified with the body." A pithy definition, to be sure, but it is a workable one, ripe with introspective fruit.

No one ego can ever be fully secure. Not only is there the inexorable fact of mortality, but there's injury, illness, and innumerable threats to one's person, reputation, financial security, marital, family and job stability, and on and on. Even when, for a time, a person can be on top of the world, oblivious of these nearby shadows, there's something deeper, even sinister that lurks around the fringe of one's self-assertive confidence: an existential incompleteness; "Something's not right. Why am I nervous about, well, nothing? Or, maybe, everything?" Most people don't even try to live in a false bubble of self-confidence.

I have lived in intentional community for most of my adult life, over thirty years, anyway! I have taught hundreds of students meditation and yogic philosophy. I have counseled and talked more deeply (than just about the weather and sports) with countless sincere and intelligent people.

My sense of people, including myself, is that most intelligent, self-aware, sincere and energetic people find themselves all too often on the short end of the sensitivity stick. The spiritual path, especially the inner path of meditation, will expand our sympathies and awareness of subtler things (like the thoughts and vibrations of others). In so doing, however, it can make us vulnerable, if not to others, then, at least to becoming self-preoccupied about what others think of us or about how slow (or worse) is our spiritual progress---all too often in comparison (we believe) with others (who invariably seem to be progressing farther and faster than we!).

In a talk given by my teacher, Swami Kriyananda (1926-2013), he stated that "Self-acceptance is the first step towards ego transcendence." This is an interesting and fertile statement to ponder. One of the things I've admired and appreciated about S.K. is his transparency: his almost child-like willingness to be wrong, to share what he feels, and, in general, to simply be himself!

Living all these years in spiritual community and being blessed by so many souls deeply centered in God I observe that far from becoming an indistinguishable "nothing" the soul's emergence produces vigor, vitality and a unique individuality that is transparently genuine---so unlike the imitative caricature that most worldly "characters" assume or affirm.

What I am describing is no less the question of "What does it mean to 'love yourself'?" While I prefer to couch this in terms of self-acceptance (it seems somehow more objective than self-love), I doubt there's any real difference.

The example I gave in my recent talk goes like this: if you go to a shopping mall (perhaps one that is unfamiliar to you), and you are looking for a specific store, you must first find where in the center that store is located, and then you must find "You Are Here!" We must always know where we are in order to know how to get to where you want to go! This, in my view, is "self-acceptance."

Thus self-acceptance is therefore not an embracing of all our foibles and faults and pretending "I'm good." Rather, its the acknowledgement of where I am. Paramhansa Yogananda, the now well respected world teacher of yoga and author of "Autobiography of a Yogi," used to give his students a self-assessment psychological inventory to complete. (I doubt the students handed it in to him!)

In this way, we begin the habit of objectivity in our introspection. Ruthless self-honesty is, I believe, a prerequisite to spiritual growth. This does not mean we necessarily parade our yaw-yaws in front of every "Tom, Dick or Harry" ("Sue, Sally or Molly"). How often I've seen devotees disguise their desires with well-meaning platitudes and scriptural quotations. "I feel God wants me to ............ "

One arena of human life where we can readily test our resolve in the direction of self-acceptance and self-honesty is that of criticism. I've been told that I "never" say "I'm sorry." (I'm practicing it by typing it.) Criticism is a funny business because much of the time we only imagine that we heard even but a hint of criticism. Follow the banter in people's conversation and look for the hints of self-protective, self-justifications. Self-justification is like an acid that corrodes the sharp spiritual edge of introspection.

If, however, in fact, you are criticized directly and in person, you might tentatively say, "Perhaps you are right." Then, consider whether there's any merit. Do what you can to rectify an error or to change your behavior, including to make amends, if appropriate. Be willing to thank the other person, even a self-styled detractor, for pointing out something that needs correcting. If, as sincerely as you are able, you can find no cause for the critique, then say, then, let it go.

Now there are some situations where there are principles at stake or a larger issue at stake and you might need to defend the shared goal or principle, but that's a different matter than defending yourself.  Spiritually speaking, defending yourself is, well, very, very tricky territory. (If in attacking me, a person is attacking Ananda which I represent, then I might defend Ananda and to some extent, therefore, myself, but this must always be secondary. Yogananda was assailed by lawsuits and slander and he would defend himself in the name of defending the work he represented.)

At night before bed, pick out the fleas and burrs of attachment and self-definitions based on upbringing, social status, gender, age etc. etc. and flick them into the fire of wisdom: Tat twam asi: Thou art THAT I AM!

Blessings, I AM your very SELF,

Hrimananda