Acceptance versus rejection in Daydreaming on the Porch

BK Shivani is a teacher in the Brahma Kumaris spiritual movement in India.

In one of her talks, she says, (and I am paraphrasing) Someone, somewhere, at some moment will not meet our expectations. This happens again and again. Then we are hurt by this, or feel we are hurt, and our tendency is to reject that person. That leads to lack of acceptance which hinders our becoming capable of unconditional love. It’s an automatic negative spiral.

This led me to ponder these thoughts: We are so in need of acceptance that our very sense of self is threatened when someone is perceived to be rejecting, resisting or ignoring us, for whatever reason. Why is this so? How can we reverse this negative spiral which we all fall prey to? Enlightened beings do not have this concern because they have acquired and learned how to offer full acceptance or love to others, including those who criticize or persecute them.

So, instead of continuously feeling a need to be validated by others, we should accept ourselves as beings in the process of awakening who realize others have chosen their own paths. Regardless of whether we meet their expectations, we acknowledge our shared human predicaments and choose to accept them for who they are.

If we cannot accept their rejection, we must move on along our own spiritual path, forgiving, trying to understand them, and accepting them for who they are with compassion even if that is one of the hardest things for us to do.