Some friends, on reading my previous post on happiness, messaged me saying “acceptance” is easier said than done. These days lot of people are talking about acceptance but can you give some practical tips on how to accept? Some others had mentioned about “expectation” is the root cause of misery, fine, but how to remain without expectation? So, in this post, I would like to give my two cents on this topic – acceptance and expectation.

When it comes to acceptance, is it just about people or situations? Or something more? Like for example pain, suffering, grief? Well, pain is inevitable and real (I mean physical pain) but suffering is optional. When I say suffering, what I actually mean is mental suffering. Am sure we all encounter this often in our day to day life. An incident much against our expectations would have occurred, leading to pain but we repeat the incident in our minds countless times, resulting in mental suffering. We would be having a beautiful life, luxury car, home, great job and the like, but one bizarre incident against our desire or expectation, bang, we are upset and we cannot accept.

I am reminded of a beautiful story I heard once on this topic, A Saint and his disciple were crossing a river by foot, basically those days travel was by foot and the river had neck deep water and they generally used to walk across the river. There was a young beautiful lady wanting to cross the river but she was dreading to walk across and did not know to swim either. Seeing her struggle, the Saint offered help and she happily accepted. The Saint then carried her on his shoulders and carefully crossed the river and safely dropped her on the other side of the river bank. All through this, the disciple was silently walking along , watching the scene of his Master, a Sanyasi, who was carrying this beautiful lady. The disciple was so disturbed mentally that many times he wanted to ask his Master, how could you carry that lady?, being a sanyasi, but he kept silent fearing the consequences. After the Saint left the lady on the other side, the disciple and Master were walking a long stretch and seeing the disciple so disturbed, finally the Saint asked him what’s the matter. The disciple blurted it out saying, “you claim to be a sanyasi and how can you carry a young lady?!”  The Saint laughed aloud and said, “ I dropped her long back, why are you carrying her still?!. Much of our sufferings are like the disciple’s, we carry it longer in our minds and suffer.

So, now coming back to situations and people, do we have any control over the people or situations we encounter? It may seem so but when you ponder over it, you will realize that there is absolutely no control over both. And we often say, my bad karma, I am facing these issues and difficult people! Don’t we all say this at some point or other? In fact, I am a firm believer of karma and I completely believe that my situation is my making. Karma is boomerang. I have done certain things in the past lives that is coming back to hit me, only to make me realize the mistakes and make amends in the journey to the Source. Many times you might have noticed that you leave a job since the boss was such a difficult person to work with and you take up the next job and you will be shocked to see the same behavior from the new boss, X changes to Y, old job changed to new job but the same situation will repeat itself. This is a classic karmic cycle example and this is easily overcome by acceptance. You may ask “should I put up with this endlessly or how will I know that I have overcome that karma?” Simple, you will start seeing that similar issues will either stop or reduce significantly as you move ahead in your journey of life, by accepting without grumbling.

Some of you may ask, “are you saying there is no choice, i.e no control over the situation or people, so accept?” Well not really, it took many years for me to understand that acceptance is the best choice you can make”. This frees you instantly! Most of the time, what we label as suffering is something that falls below our expectation. Be it difficult people to deal with or difficult situations or problems, it becomes undesirable to us and our expectations from life, we want to walk away from them or get rid of the situation almost instantly. If we are not able to walk away from the situation for any compelling reason, we atleast mentally don’t want it and start experiencing anger or sorrow or frustration. This can very well be overcome, if only we pay attention to why we are suffering and who is in fact suffering. Will deal with this later in a different post.

“One must do and accept everything joyfully like a child, whether it is auspicious or inauspicious, without any preference or prejudice”

– Swami Bhoomanandha Thirtha

In my view, the issue is not with the expectations per se but the unrealistic nature of the expectations and the fact that we want only the good things to stay with us in life. Life is all about balance, sun and moon, day and night, summer and winter, good and bad. Learning to navigate through the odds and observing every incident as a witness with an equanimity of mind, realizing that it is good for our overall progress, be it material or spiritual, is the key to happiness. If you want to know how to be happy irrespective of your present situation, read my previous post on happiness is a habit.

Now, let’s say you have a very difficult spouse, whose demands are quite high that you are not able to meet it. Instead of over reacting or being upset over it, just analyze the issue objectively, see what amends can be done at your end to make it work. Do not expect your spouse to accept his/her mistakes or do not expect him/her to make amends and understand you that you cannot meet all his/her needs, do not expect him/her to accept you as you are, in a nutshell “DO NOT EXPECT ANYTHING” For, expectation is the root cause of misery.

It is about “us” and not about “them”. The moment your focus shifts inward, the problem disappears. The feeling that I am right, Why me?, whatever I do can never satisfy him/her mostly arises from our own expectations of life, however factual it may seem. Instead, drop the expectation and observe the change. No one here truly belongs to us and everyone and everything that we know and see will one day be separated from us. That’s the truth of life, just accept and move on.

“When there is total acceptance that all actions happen purely by the will of God, and if the fruits and the consequences are accepted as His grace, the mind gets purified and attains freedom from expectation”

– Sri Ramana Maharishi

Acceptance comes naturally over a period of time and expectations starts withering away. After all, dried leaves fall off when the season arrives. Why ask for it earlier? Acceptance is, in a way patience, as nothing is permanent in this World. Everything is transitory. The same person who rejected you will love you, the same person who hailed you will curse you, we all see this happening in cycles. When you are happy, remind yourself that it is not going to last. When you are sad, ask yourself why you are sad? what’s really bothering you?, is being sad befitting you? Why am I reacting like this? And so on. A silence will definitely emerge and an understanding will dawn. Acceptance can be practiced with awareness and mindfulness only. It is knowing that you are a witness and it is all a role play. Just think of yourself as a comedian in a mega stage drama, will you tell the dialogues of the Villain? In my experience, the more you seek the ultimate truth or Supreme, these unwanted, unrealistic expectations wither away on its own without much effort and acceptance becomes the norm. Am sure we all have certain life situations which after some years we would feel that we could have handled it differently.

Mental Worry Should Be Eliminated

When you act properly in the present, the future will take care of itself. Do what is appropriate for the present moment. If there are no expectations, there will be no disappointments.

Sri Sathya Sai Speaks, Volume 26,
Chapter 1: Purity – The Path to Divinity.

Over time comes maturity and acceptance. The key is to know that expectations are the underlying cause and such expectations not only burden us but also others around us. By focusing on awareness and acceptance and “letting go” our attachment to outcomes, frees us up. Atleast that’s my experience, what’s yours? Do leave your comments in the section below.

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