Yesterday as I sat contemplating the blog I had just sent out into the ether, I thought of the Buddha and his search for enlightenment. It was only in the moment when he gave up ‘trying’ and just surrendered that he finally became enlightened; I realized that wanting to become enlightened is the same as wanting to be loved. It became clear to me that I have always been ‘trying’ so hard to be loved, trying to do the right thing at every single moment in order to receive love, and many times I had fallen short of my expectations and so did not deserve love. We are all brought up in conditional love, but on our journey in this world we must break away from what we have learned to believe, and begin to listen to our hearts and to the deeper truth that lies there; that only unconditional love will set us free.

Since I have finally come to accept that love is everything, I am suddenly faced with only one option; to accept everything about me. At first this seems like an overwhelming task. How do you accept what you have been taught to hate? I was running late this morning and began to attack myself for not finding my bag quickly enough, or for reading an article when I should have been concentrating on getting my kids to school on time, but then I took a deep breath and brought Love back in. Love says: accept that you are curious and wanted to read about something. Love says: accept that you are a little fearful to go to school today, for whatever reasons. Love says: it doesn’t matter if it takes you a moment to find your bag. Love says: there’s no hurry, no one is chasing you, no one’s out to get you. Love says: everything is ok.

To go from judging my every move to acceptance, is such a difficult transition. From childhood we are taught to fight for what is ‘Right’ and that we’ll only be loved if we do what is ‘Right’. I hear it daily in so many conversations: Fighting cancer, fight for peace, fighting poverty, fighting addiction, war on this and that, and so on. I must recognize how hard I’ve been fighting and finally let go of the urge to fight. I must let go of the belief that acceptance is ‘backing down’ or ‘giving up’; it is the path towards love. I must remind myself that to accept all things is to accept love.

I bring acceptance into my meditation today. First I sit quietly focussing on my breath, and I can feel a loneliness inside me. I remain in this moment to speak to the loneliness and ask why? Loneliness responds ‘I feel powerless’. But above, in another part of me I can feel profound love and joy. So with my breath I bring that love and joy to all parts of me. I begin to feel light and joyful in all parts of my being. I continue breathing and imagine inhaling the entire world, and when I exhale I breathe out love to all the trees and nature throughout the world. Again I inhale and imagine breathing in the whole world, as I do so I am reminded in the deepest way that I am one with all, and that there is no loneliness except in the mind of the ego. While I continue to breathe I realize that love has been with me at every breath. I have never been alone, it was I who had left. Acceptance has brought me back home to love. Acceptance reminds me to see at the beauty I am. To focus on that which is my essence and can never diminish, the other parts I am unhappy with are impermanent and ever changing. Fighting keeps you in that place forever, acceptance allows you to move forward.

with love,

Oskar