Acceptance – Staying in His Will

What does acceptance mean? According to an online dictionary, acceptance is taking or welcoming something given to us. In human psychology, acceptance refers to resigning oneself to a given situation without protest or attempting to change it. When plans or people behave in accordance with our wishes, acceptance is easy. But plans don’t always work out in the way we would like. Family, friends, and people in general don’t behave according to our expectations. Many of us are dissatisfied with our bodies, few of us are in perfect health, and we’d like more money, more possessions or something else!

Accepting life’s turn of events when they don’t match our desires, hopes and aspirations is difficult. We complain, grumble, and become miserable. In fact, we find it virtually impossible to come to terms with even the most superficial of changes. Most of us (I imagine) find it difficult to accept that we’re aging. Looking in the mirror, we think, “I look dreadful, I need to put some makeup on,” or “Ah! My grey hair is really coming through, I must make an appointment at the hairdressers.” As if the dissatisfaction with our looks wasn’t enough, we’re disappointed when a friend cancels a dinner engagement at the last minute. Or we’re upset and annoyed when our diligence is overlooked and a colleague is promoted instead of us.

Our wants, desires, and indeed our entire perspective is limited by time and space. Our awareness of, and knowledge about, the material world is narrow, confined to that which is perceptible through our senses and intellect. Can we see the future? No. Is it possible to control the future? No. It stands to reason that we can’t influence something of which we know nothing. What, then, is in our hands?

We can make as many plans as we like, but at the same time we must accept that not all will work out. As Baba Ji reminds us, not everything can happen our way. Some things will, and some won’t. Our experiences and the events in our life – from the family in which we’re born, how affluent we are, how many children we have and, ultimately, how long we live – is based on our destiny. This, of course, is determined by the divine law of karma in which our past actions account for our current existence. This law of the universe is aptly captured by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Galatians in the New Testament of the Bible:

Be not deceived; God is not mocked:
  for whatsoever a man soweth,
  that shall he also reap.

Since we are governed by cosmic karmic law, and are the architects of our own destiny, there’s nobody to blame other than ourselves.

And what can our wants and wishes achieve against God’s will? We are a single individual in a global population of more than eight billion. Our personal circle is tiny, both in terms of the number of people we know and the local area in which we live. On occasion, we may be able to influence family members, our closest friends, and possibly colleagues, but that’s as far as our so-called ‘will’ reaches. Since we believe the One who created the whole universe is omnipresent and all-knowing, why then would we try to assert our will over his? There’s no logic to this way of thinking.

One may well ask, “What is God’s will?” Our intellect is far too limited to comprehend what it is, but, in short, it is whatever he wishes. This foundational principle of spirituality is called hukam in Punjabi; it acknowledges that the way in which everything is unfolding and the governance of the entire universe is occurring in accordance with his pleasure. If we were to live with this profound truth, it would be logical for us to avoid taking actions unacceptable to him and to focus, instead, on doing what pleases him.

So how can we know what the Lord finds unacceptable, and what things please him? We haven’t seen him, we don’t know him, so we can’t ask him. Aware of our predicament, the Lord sends his messenger – a true master, a Satguru. “My Master is indeed the gateway to God’s mercy” says Sultan Bahu. Shedding further light on this in Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III, Maharaj Charan Singh states:

Surrendering to the will of the master means helping ourselves to rise above the realm of mind and maya, helping our soul to leave the mind. When we make the soul whole and pure, then we are surrendering to the will of the Father, the will of the master.

How do we fulfil the will of the master? What is it that he singles out as his primary command? It is Nam. It is meditation. Whenever Baba Ji is asked what it is that pleases the master, his answer is always the same: meditation. Yet, whenever we ask him this, we hold our breath, keenly waiting for an answer we’ve not previously heard. Something new, some substitute for getting up early every day and sitting in meditation for two and a half hours. But no, the answer doesn’t change because, as Hazur Maharaj Ji explains, acceptance – living in the will of the master – and surrender are only possible through meditation:

We have to surrender ourselves to the master. It means that we have to take our ego out of us and blend our whole heart with his heart. He is already merged into the Lord, and by merging ourselves into him we are automatically merged into the Lord. That can be done only by meditation. The more we meditate, the more we are driving out ego. By doing so, we will be drawn towards the master, and we are automatically surrendering to him; and through him, we are surrendering to the Lord himself.

Surrender is only possible through meditation because this is what drives out our ego. The more we meditate, the more time we spend in his company, the more we start feeling his presence everywhere. We start getting an inkling of why things are happening to us, and our horizon starts expanding. Representing our gradual spiritual evolution, realizations such as this make acceptance easier. Put differently, we begin resigning ourselves to our current situation without protest or any attempt to change it. Eventually, our resignation evolves into the self-abandonment described by Hazur Maharaj Ji in the previous quotation.

To engender greater acceptance, we can establish two habits in addition to practising meditation assiduously. First, we can train our mind not to label everything as good or bad. Developing a positive attitude by, for example, looking for the good in everything would also benefit us. Undoubtedly, this is easier said than done, but if we also got into the habit of thinking that disappointments or the cross words from someone are coming with the permission of our master, this will drive us to persist in reconciling our emotions with the rationality of our higher mind.

Asking ourselves what we have learned from a particular situation is a second habit we may wish to develop. Instead of getting offended when someone is critical of us, examining ourselves honestly to check if the criticism is warranted may sometimes lead to self-improvement. The effect of these changes to the way we think, however, will only be realized if they are underpinned by strictly adhering to the four Sant Mat vows.

Accepting his will is not easy. But while we shouldn’t underestimate the determination it will take to, bit by bit, lose our ego, neither should we feel disheartened. Upon succeeding Maharaj Jagat Singh, Hazur Maharaj Charan Singh struggled to accept his new role at first. In a letter to a friend reproduced in Treasure Beyond Measure, Hazur Maharaj Ji wrote of the internal “war” being waged within himself:

Facing people with folded hands … my mind ceases to think and I am living as if I have no other alternative … I have been surrounded, captured and imprisoned.

… All my patience and tolerance seem to have been exhausted. I am at war within myself and can hardly decide anything … yet destiny had made me face all that. I wish I could be cruel and quite ignorant of others’ wishes. Then I would not have been cruel to myself.

This is so reassuring! Maharaj Ji had to work at acceding to his new position; his acceptance wasn’t automatic. However, despite being daunted by the seva bestowed upon him, Maharaj Ji consented and assumed his responsibility for the simple reason that his master desired it so.

As many of us can recall, Maharaj Ji performed his seva with love, compassion and the kindest smile imaginable. We cannot help but be inspired to try and follow his example and, indeed, the ideal set before us by Baba Ji.