Self-Acceptance

9.10.2005

Ellaeenah

The only way to ascend is to accept yourself. What is ascension? Ascension is the furtherance of wisdom. Don’t put any other ‘holy cow’ definition to it. You know, guys, these terms are what cause rifts between us. She is more evolved. He has ascended. Stop this kind of talk. You are HERE. You are in the NOW. You are learning. You’re assimilating. You are ‘knowing’ yourself. That is what the process is all about. By knowing yourself, you know others, because you and they are one. That is the process.

When you use these terms like ascended and evolved, you ask, “Is S better than D, and is D better than L?” Where is the question of better or worse? If S and D and L are ONE, can ant be better or worse? But we put these ridiculous labels and we cause conflict for ourselves and others, and then we carry this guilt because we feel we are not ‘evolved enough’. If we cut out these labels, there won’t be conflict. There won’t be acute hunger for external validation. There won’t be the games we play to deceive ourselves and others.

Spiritual! It’s the biggest burden we put on ourselves. Let’s just accept that we are here to know us. I am here to know me. That is my mission. I have no other mission. I have no other goal. I have no other task. I have no other purpose. My mission is to know me and the more I know me, the more I know you, and the more I know this ‘I’, the greater I can be of help and service, because that much ignorance has left me for good. That is the reason why we are here, and if you are in the process of knowing you, then the first step has to be accepting you. Accepting everything that is you.

We’ve all taken a human form. Why? Because we all have duality. You want to call it ‘good’ and ‘bad’? You call it ‘good’ and ‘bad’. I don’t call it ‘good’ and ‘bad’. I just call it ‘duality’.

So why are we going to get so upset about it? Why is there so much guilt and shame over what we do or don’t do? Enjoy every moment; whether it is a relationship gone sour, whether it is an extra-marital relationship, whether it is money coming in or going out; don’t judge it. Is this right? Is this wrong? My dear friends, you are doing it the way you know best, in the NOW. You are handling your relationships the best way you know NOW. Tomorrow you may deal with it differently, and that’s OK too. You’ll know something different tomorrow. But, why so much guilt?

When there is guilt, there is a fear of looking within. That fear blocks you from looking within. You stay at the same level of ignorance. Instead, ACCEPT IT ALL! Don’t give yourself labels. Immoral. Dishonest. What will others think? Are you here to live your life for another, with that burden? Live your life for yourself. In that moment you will know who you ARE, and in that moment, you will know who everyone else is, and in that moment, there is that much more wisdom of UNITY.

I detest those terms because I can see how much harm they do between friend and friend, sibling and sibling, parent and child, husband and wife. Instead of ‘ascension’ and ‘evolution’ just ask yourself at the end of every day, “Do I know myself a little more today?” And then experience that joy. And even if you don’t know yourself a little more, don’t go to sleep feeling guilty about it. Just affirm, very matter-of-factly, “Today I don’t know myself more. Tomorrow is an interesting challenge. What a sweet thrill. What a ‘fool’ I am. I was telling someone today: the tarot cards have a ‘fool’ first and the ‘universe’ at the last. Only the fool, only the fool, can move into wisdom and become the universe. And who is the fool? The fool is one who is joyous about his ignorance because he knows that he has every opportunity to become the emperor, the empress, the high priestess, the magician, the devil, the tower, death, transformation, rebirth, universe. And only the fool can do it all.

There are actually 2 forms of guilt. The first form is where guilt has a purpose to create awareness of damage, hurt, etc. It leads you to thoughts of reparation, change, transformation. What we have to become aware of in these two forms is that the 2nd form will make you feel persecuted and make you feel more and more depressed. That is one of the major causes of depression. How you recognize one from the other is that you will say, “I’m aware I’ve done something wrong. Raju, I’m very sorry. Will you forgive me?” and the matter is over. But if I still continue to take that incident and berate myself, “What is wrong with me? Why am I doing this to myself?” It becomes a circular movement, like a dog chasing its tail, which is so mindless; it doesn’t achieve anything. That is the type of guilt whose only purpose is to make you feel persecuted.

Thank you, Jim.

What you and Jim have been now saying, isn’t that the outcome of the conditioning of the mind?

Of course it is! But let us be aware that we are caught in the web of that conditioning every time we feel the burden of guilt coming up. Say X slept with Y last night. X wakes up this morning feeling, “Oh Lord! I shouldn’t have done that. I’m a married woman. Married women are not supposed to sleep around. But I did.” Now X can get out of her ‘guilt’ by questioning, “But who said married women aren’t supposed to sleep around? Did I make that truth? I don’t remember making that truth, so then how does it become my truth? Maybe it’s become my truth because my parents and my teachers and society and friends have all made it into my truth.”  So X decides “It’s not my truth. Now here’s a great opportunity for me to re-create my truth.

How does X re-create the truth?  By questioning and contemplating long and hard, “what do I really think of marriage? What do I really think of making love to someone? What do I think of ‘binds’? What do I think of ‘relationships’? And what are my beliefs about that? How many of these beliefs are mine? And how many have come down to me as a burden I am carrying on my shoulders?” And when X has seen that, X can proceed, “But how did it happen? What do I truly feel about sleeping with Y? What did I feel at that time? I felt wonderful! What a marvelous experience it was. I really felt joy. It was great. And if I didn’t have this immoral conditioning thrust down, I would have woken up feeling really good.” Wow! That’s a huge clue to tell you that conditioning is not working anymore. And then X can ask herself an important question, “Am I giving myself permission to be ‘perverted’ in any form, to sleep around with a different guy every night?” Ask herself honestly, and if the answer is, “No!’ then X can continue to contemplate why is this conditioning not working for me now? What will this relationship do for me? What about my husband? What is that going to do to him? How am I going to deal with that?” What a beautiful opportunity for X to learn about herself. If she never sleeps with Y again, that one night would have been enough to make her write an entire book of self-wisdom. What a joy. What an experience!

If, on the other hand, X experiences that her conditioning and the ‘truth’ is also her ‘truth’, she now has an interesting event from which to study what made her go against her truth. So, either way, X is more self-aware.

Now if X is guilty and ashamed, and still feels the pull for Y, the guilt grows, the shame grows. X tries to hide the situation from her husband; she will be miserable, she will make Y miserable, she will make her husband miserable, she will make her family miserable, and her friends will soon disappear because she will be whining all the time. The ignorance persists and there is no growth in self-awareness, and thus no self-empowerment.

If you can’t do the self-search on your own, look around you. I guarantee you, each one of us has been given that one individual, by the universe, to whom you can say, I need you to help me search within. Be honest with me. Be harsh with me. Be brutal with me, but help me to search within. I can’t do it on my own.

Please understand that no one is going to reject you, unless you reject yourself. The person rejecting you is only a mirror of your own self-rejection. Acknowledge that very vital truth.

And here I’m going to introduce a subject my husband is very keen I talk about: Mirrors. But not negative mirrors. You often place Sohrab and me, and other ‘mediums’, on pedestals, however much we tell you not to. Now I am going to take that position on the pedestal joyously, very joyously. Put me on as high a pedestal as you want and I’ll occupy it, and I promise not to fall. Do you know why? Because however high you put me up, that’s where You are. So put me up on as high a pedestal as you want but promise me, as I am promising you, not to fall; promise me that every time you look up at me on that high pedestal, you will see YOU. I want to be on the highest pedestal you can think imagine. Glorious. Because every time you look at me, you will see YOU. Then I will accept that pedestal with all joy.

Dear friends, mirrors are not only negative mirrors. Why do we only acknowledge the negative mirrors in our lives, and not the positive ones? Why? Because we harbour guilt. Because we harbour shame. Because we harbour non-acceptance of all that we are. When there is a negative mirror, so quickly we’ll see that and say, “Oh God! She’s a mirror of me; that means I must be really bad. Let me see where it is in me.” But when I see a wonderful being it will not even cross my thought, “Wow! What a mirror for me! That means that is what I am.”

When the guilt goes, you look at everything so differently, there is just no conflict left. Believe me, I’m talking through experience. I have a history of being the most intolerant, the most judgmental, critical human being that I know. I was all of that and though I have changed considerable, of course I still judge, of course I still criticize, of course I still fall into the trap of being intolerant. But if there is one thing that I can see as the greatest shift within me in all these years, it’s the growth of my level of acceptance. Sometimes I’m even surprised at myself. What difference does it make to youif S is the worst liar in the world? How does it bother you? How does it bother you that someone else is sleeping around? How does it bother you that he’s a murderer? How does it bother you that she’s a criminal? How does it make a difference in your life? How does it make a difference in your mission? The only thing you should be concerned with is does it make a difference in my mission of knowing me? If it doesn’t, why are you wasting, why are you squandering your energies on something that is not important, not vital in your life? Just let it go. Accept it. If you see something really bad in S, immediately question yourself, “What is the worst thing about me? This( whatever it is) is the worst thing about me. Then S and I are in the same place. She has x and I have y.”  How can you then judge? You can’t. And you know that’s the great thing; however much you ‘ascend’, you will never be perfect. Why? Because were you to be experience ‘perfection’ in your present stage in the journey, your ego would kick in so strongly, that you would go back to the ‘stone’ stage.

Your ego is your greatest friend in this. It will always have a flaw in order to remind you, you’re not perfect. But in that imperfection is the perfection of where we are. How wonderful not to be perfect. It never gives you an opportunity to judge another because instantly you will see your own imperfection. So use people to see your flaws, but use them even more strongly to see your strengths, your beautiful, beautiful attributes.

If you are in a situation and it upsets your family because you are de-conditioned and they are conditioned. Even if I feel I’m not wrong, I feel attachments and wonder why they are suffering. How do I remove the guilt?

Guilt is guilt. Guilt comes only out of non-acceptance so the bottom line here is: you have not completely accepted what you have done. You have not completely accepted what you have done. When there is 100% acceptance of what you have done, and you see people reacting in this manner, you will understand and empathize that they are going through this process because they don’t understand your truth, but you will not be upset or disturbed.

But the future of so many people is involved.

If you can work on this one truth right through to its very end, and when in this moment of the NOW it’s 100% accepted, all moments in the NOW follow suit. If this moment in the NOW is 100% complete, there can be no future that is uncertain, scary. That is why it is so essential to live in this moment because when we allow this moment to pass, incomplete, its incompleteness extends, and accelerates, and grows in the future moments of NOW.