The Spiritual Practice That Helps Me the Most

It’s about acceptance.

Photo by Thom Holmes on Unsplash

Let me state up front that I am not a high being. Far from it.

High beings are those like Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi and Neem Karoli Baba. These are people who shed their egos and became close to pure consciousness.

The question I’d ask

But if I were you, someone who I presume is interested in articles I write about traveling the spiritual path, I’d want to ask this question: Of all these things you write about, which work best for you?

The answer is that many work for me. But…

There is one that I find helps me the most. And it is this:

Accepting and not resisting what comes my way.

It’s about acceptance and resistance. I didn’t realize how much this dynamic came into play in my life until I started placing attention on it.

What I learned is that resistance, and please forgive the following inartful words, is a big fat bummer. Over time, it is the ultimate buzz kill of life.

How so? Let’s look at a few examples of resistance to get a better idea of what I mean.

- Your vacation to Hawaii gets screwed up when your flight gets cancelled and you can’t go until the next day. Your seven day trip is now six. Instead of clenching up inside and complaining all day about how unlucky you are and/or how horrible the airline is…you accept it. The flight got cancelled and there is nothing you can do about it. So you accept it.

- You hit a traffic jam, resulting in you missing the first ten minutes of a movie you were really excited to see. Nothing you can do. So instead of being pissed off, you accept it and make the best of it.

- You break your arm slipping and falling in the kitchen. This means no weekly golf game for three months. Nothing you can do. So you accept and don’t resist.

What do all of these examples have in common? Something happened that you have no control over.

Shit happens in life. Flights get cancelled. Traffic jams occur. People break bones.

We have a choice