Most of us define ourselves in terms of what we can & cannot accept, and are fairly rigid about these opinions. We all realize, at some level, that deeply meaningful aspects of life powerfully influence us. BUT instead of deeply investigating these via self-reflection, self-inquiry, meditation etc, most of us do whatever we can to avoid such topics, even sliding into nihilism, denying that life has any meaning at all!
"Existential crisis (existential dread) ... when individuals question whether their lives have meaning, purpose, or value, and are negatively impacted by the contemplation. It may be commonly, but not necessarily, tied to depression or inevitably negative speculations on purpose in life such as the futility of all effort (eg 'if one day I will be forgotten, what is the point of all of my work?')" en.wikipedia.org
Avoidance is beneficial only when we're too young, or otherwise unable to consciously deal with reality. But avoidance so easily becomes an automatic reaction to challenges, that distraction becomes a way of life. As soon as we feel the slightest discomfort, we immediately try to escape. We rationalize our constant compulsive busyness by blaming external factors, choosing to ignore our fearfully immature inner life.
Of course the opposite of avoidance & intolerance, is simply accepting life, as it is.
"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less." Marie Curie
"In time we hate that which we often fear.” William Shakespeare
"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live." Marcus Aurelius
"Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility." Sigmund Freud
"The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek." Joseph Campbell
"Men go to far greater lengths to avoid what they fear than to obtain what they desire." Dan Brown
“You take up the spiritual path only when you feel you cannot do otherwise.” The Mother
“Most people go to their graves believing suffering is unavoidable. How sad that is. If you turn from the possibility that it could be otherwise, you will suffer needlessly until the day you die. But here is something: the end of suffering would be the least of the benefits, if you become free. The real miracle is not the profound undoing of anguish, but the riches that would flood the freed-up ‘space.’” Jan Frazier, “When Fear Falls Away”
Eckhart Tolle had a very difficult childhood & severe depression, however, as a result of acceptance, his life transformed into a lasting, profoundly positive, meaningful experience. His description:
“In my case, grace erupted into a bad karma situation: unhappy childhood, parents continuously fighting, no harmony in the environment, often lack of money, then my parents divorced which was uncommon at the time & I felt great shame about it, my Dad was like an unexploded bomb that was always ready to & did periodically explode. So the young adult became unhappy. He had absorbed unhappiness from the environment.
So all that’s not good karma, and because of that, suffering became unbearable, and then a surrender happened (choiceless acceptance), and then there was an eruption suddenly of grace. The fact that surrender happened in the midst of the suffering, is probably grace. So, surrender happened, and with surrender, grace could suddenly flow in fully. Grace is the essence of who you are, coming through the form (physical body & personality). So in grace then, you’re not the density of the form – the form’s density lessens. As it lessens, grace is able to flow through. The density of the form lessens through surrender or acceptance of the present moment as it is, as a spiritual practice. If you can make that your spiritual practice, you may not succeed all the time. That’s fine. Have compassion with yourself. So you have another level of acceptance behind the non-acceptance. If you don’t succeed in accepting what is, then accept that at this moment I can’t accept what is. Allow the emotion to be there, you still have space then, and grace is space.
Grace can enter – grace is the spaciousness of the unconditioned, the divine (primordial) consciousness. The quickest way of inviting grace to into your life is by becoming friendly with the 'isness' of this moment - no matter what form it takes. It already is anyway, so why not say yes? It doesn’t mean you can’t take action, but at the moment, it is. So you ‘go with the flow’ of life. The flow is always here & now. You never go against it. The starting point is the isness of this moment.
With that acceptance, the gate is open for grace to come in. If you complain about difficulties or the unsatisfactory nature of this moment, the gate or the shutters are closed so the sunlight can’t come in. It doesn’t mean you’re more powerful than the sun. The sun isn’t concerned about your shutters. So when you are somehow against the present moment, or you treat it only as a means to an end because there’s a more important place you want to get to, grace can’t operate in your life, or you only get a trickle, just to keep you going. Occasionally, for example when you’re in awe of a beautiful sunset, just for a moment the ‘complaining entity’ subsides, and in that moment grace can come in, and you can live on that one sunset for three weeks. But of course that’s only a trickle. To go from form to formlessness, is done by accepting whatever form arises in the present moment, whatever form this moment takes. With the acceptance of form, the formless opens up in you.
And the ultimate truth of that is in the image of the crucifixion, which I see as going beyond religion. Some people dislike it. They say it’s all to do with suffering, and it’s unhealthy, and so on. But there is a deep meaning there, that for a long time, perhaps could not be expressed in an abstract way. That meaning is that here you have the image of complete suffering of a human. He is nailed to the cross, which is a torture instrument, and this human is able to surrender & accept, ‘Not my will but thy will be done,’ and then suddenly the torture instrument becomes a symbol of the divine. Isn’t that strange? The torture instrument has become a symbol of the divine. So through acceptance, whatever looks like an obstacle, or even a dreadful thing, becomes transformed.
Every situation that’s accepted deeply – and if it’s a very big thing like a crucifixion, there needs to be very deep acceptance – and immediately, there’s a transformation. So grace is hiding also in that which looks dreadful. The dreadful sufferings we see all around us - they are there, but grace is hiding there. And you can only see the truth of this in yourself. I’m not saying anybody should believe in that. You have to find out for yourself that grace is hiding in what the seemingly dreadful things – even in little things that go wrong – but even more so in big things that go wrong.
And ultimately you see it’s not wrong, it didn’t go wrong – what it looked like in the moment when you judged it. So that’s inviting grace into your life, through bringing this deep yes to the present moment. Then your evolution accelerates. And the more you do that, the less you need the disasters, because you can operate with the flowering of consciousness. Consciousness wants to flower into this dimension, in this dimension. So it’s really welcoming what is.”
Above transcribed from the superb video below:
