The past is 100% acceptable. What’s my alternative?
I’ve accepted it, even if I think I haven’t. (Here I am…)
And what’s my alternative? Really?
Accusation? Hate? War? Suffering? I might be tempted to say, “Well…if I accuse bad people of bad things, if I hate hateful people and go to war with them, if I suffer for a good cause… YES!”
But what would that change that I couldn’t change from a place of peace and acceptance?
If I want to END accusation, END hate, END war, END suffering, why bring accusation, hate, war or suffering into it? Can I end these things by keeping them in circulation?
If I’m expressing accusation, hate, war and suffering, am I really improving the world?
Or am I better for the world when I’m at peace and filled with love? When I’m free? Open? Connected?
Am I not in a better position to be a source of love and peace and belonging and inclusion when I accept my past without reservation? I certainly am to myself.
Do I need to be suffering in order to straighten out the world? It depends on where I think “the world” is:
If I think it’s “out there,” then I will certainly suffer. I will think the world is doing things to me and I will go to war with it. And ego will project its suffering identity onto the world and present me with ironclad evidence that, yes, I do indeed need to suffer in order to straighten out the world. And in my experience the world never straightens out that way. The suffering compounds.
When I think I need suffering to get rid of suffering, I find I just make the world (some people) suffer in order to ease the world (other people) of suffering. I’m just transferring suffering from one place to another, each transfer introducing more suffering. More suffering to ease the world of suffering. More suffering. More suffering. Endless.
If I believe the world is “in here,” if I believe that “the world” is nothing more than my state of mind, experienced, I recognize that I CREATE “the world” and with it, all of the world’s suffering. I recognize that my suffering creates a world of suffering and I can clear up the whole world by simply clearing up what I’m thinking and believing.
And when I do, I see there is nothing I can’t accept.