The Power of Acceptance

Tags

acceptance, awareness, energy, manifestation, resistance

I am sitting in the downstairs window, bathing in brilliant morning light on a beautiful mid-February day. The two puppies are on the bench beside me, watching me write this as I pause to take a sip of my tea, wondering why their morning ‘cookies’ haven’t showed up yet. Earlier, I had been sitting in the upstairs window that overlooks the water, marveling at the thin sheet of ice still covering part of the channel that feeds the rest of the lake. I could hear the call of a goose through the closed window as he was probably laying claim to his nesting space for the season.

The conversation this morning, from the moment I woke up, started with the topic of ‘resistance’ and gradually shifted to ‘acceptance’ and then to ‘manifestation.’ When resistance came up, the engineer in was immediately drawn to the electrical analogy of voltage, current and power. As the conversation proceeded, I was reminded that it is the ‘night of Shiva’ – Shivaratri – a celebration of the power of manifestation of the One who is considered the greatest practitioner of Yoga in Hindu tradition. The belief is that Shiva’s ‘masculine’ power remains latent until and unless it is enabled and activated by Shakti, the divine ‘feminine.’ This activation happens on Shivaratri – the ‘ratri’ or night of Shiva. But I digress.

How is such activation of potential made possible in Nature? Using the electrical analogy, for a given amount t of voltage or unmanifesed potential, the lower the inner resistance, the greater the flow of current, or manifested potential. Manifestation ia inversely proportional to resistance. In spiritual terms, when the ‘Shiva’ within us lowers our resistance by accepting that the activation energy of Shakti is necessary to manifest our potential, the divine current flows naturally. Without acceptance, which is a lowering of resistance, our potential is bound and remains in a static, dormant, partly or fully frozen state, for all of time.

What may happen within us when we decrease our level of undue resistance? It is said that acceptance manifests divine current as life-force that literally moves us, accelerating us on our journey towards our ultimate goal in life.

Where does resistance come from? How does it accumulate over time? Could it be because we question, even protest so many things in our lives that we have very little control of? We question why, when and where we were born, and even of whom? We ask why we had a certain upbringing, traditions, schooling, set of friends and family, and so on. We ask why certain loved ones and relationships and friendships are no more. The resistance accumulates over life and times.

And yet, if we would turn resistance into acceptance, we could enable the current of life in this moment to flow and empower us. How do we turn towards acceptance? Perhaps we can begin with a decision to look at our past with a different perspective, with greater empathy, loving kindness, maybe even forgiveness and more. There are techniques and guides who can help us make this turn, lighten our past loads and help us create new pathways of increased acceptance in our hearts. We may need to seek, to ask, to be receptive.

Yes, all of this will take some work, but change and new flow is rarely if ever possible without some effort, is it? True, meaningful, sustainable and transformative acceptance requires all the power we can muster and the help and cooperation of all those who are able and willing to empower us. Don’t you think so? The result is that the more the current flows within us, the more power for good we shall manifest through our divine potential. With complete acceptance, Shiva and Shakti will become One within us, and a new cycle of creation will begin.

The infinite possibilities of the infinite await. Will we accept?

Kumud

Join us for our weekly gathering and twitter chat, Sunday, Feb 19 at 9amET / 2pmGMT / 730pm India in #SpiritChat, as we celebrate acceptance. Namaste ~ AjmaniK

Nature teaches us so much about acceptance, doesn’t it?

On Spiritual Grounding

Tags

electricity, grounding, potential, resistance, witnessing

The the longer I sit here, cross-legged on the floor, the deeper and deeper the fog gets. It feels like it is now at the window, knocking on it, asking to be let in. It is as if I have come awake at one of those hill stations in India on a Saturday where the morning cup of tea on the porch, watching the fog do its magic, is a rite of passage of every summer vacation.

And yet, amid the fog, I feel grounded. Grounding. Yes. Connection with the earth that reminds us that gravity is what keeps us attached to this planet. Without gravitational force, we would all be like the fog, floating, simply existing in suspended animation. Actually, gravity is what keeps the fog hugging the earth too. It is perhaps evidence that suspended animation needs gravity and grounding too. In that way, fog is a bit like electric charge.

I think of electric current as the flow of potential across resistance. Potential, in order to do its best, useful work, seeks closure. It seeks to return to its source, the power plant from whence it originated, by the shortest distance possible. It can only achieve that ‘return to source’ by finding ‘ground’ or being grounded.

Did you ever wonder why every structure or device which flows electricity also includes a path to ground it? It’s a safety mechanism. In the absence of such a path for (excess) current, electricity and its surges would fry our electronically devices, our toasters and refrigerators, and even our homes. Electricity behaves badly when it isn’t grounded. It resorts to short-circuiting.

Humans are electrical beings too. This means that grounding is essential for us to make best use of our potential. Most of the external inputs fed to our senses raise the energy of our electrons. Their internal potential rises, and if their energy doesn’t find a path to ground by the discharge of that energy, they change state. In a sense, our electrons, and we, get short-circuited, suffer burnout or permanent (negative) change without regular grounding. The result is emotional, mental, physical, spiritual ‘crackling’ within us. We become ‘noisy’.

The solution? Give the electrical surge a path to ground. Develop a practice of inner grounding. Where may we begin? During the weekly Zoom chat this week, Sharon shared her deep ‘grounding experience’ when simply sitting by a campfire. Yes. The simple act of putting down our armors, our pros and cons, our devices, can quickly bring us to the grounding that we intrinsically need.

What is the result? Osho describes the experience of inner grounding as ‘becoming the witness’. Grounding will help us simply listen — to birdsongs and waterfalls and partners — without interpreting. Grounding will let gravity do its work on us, as we let it hold us and hug us. Grounding can allow for our inner current to find its way to the heart’s playground, and uncover the path for the heart’s current to flow into us in return.

Over time, with regular spiritual grounding, a lightness of flow will emerge within us. The humming of the divine song will become our constant companion. The song divine will lighten us so, that we will float our way home, listening to its melody.

Ready to try experience grounding? Consider it as a four step process.

We gather our best energies to build up our potential. We ground the inner electrical circuit to source. We recalibrate our resistance by regulating our inputs. We then watch, be witness to the flow of the inner current.

We can do this. Let’s begin. Let’s meditate.

Kumud

P.S. Join the #SpiritChat community in our weekly twitter gathering, Sunday May 17 at 9amET. Some say that it is quite a unique, even a grounding experience. I will play host with some questions – but I mostly show up because it is an excuse for me to drink tea and eat cookies! Namaste – Kumud

P.P.S. In the time that it took me to write this post, the Sun emerged, the fog cleared. It’s a brilliant day. And all I had to do was to sit and watch, be witness.