Hello. . . how are you today? I’m sitting in my studio in New York City, thinking about you, us, all of life,. . .the world as it is and life as it is. . and how we, I, you may want it to . . and how it simply. . is. . .
This brings to my mind. . .
“Life if energy, that needs to transform. That is all life is actually.”
Yes, I am thinking about Tantra and the way of acceptance. I am very happy to be here with you today and I hope that you are sitting in a wonderfully comfortable place so we can continue down the path of Tantra together, and a whole way of living.
Acceptance is a word that I have always heard and people often throw around, saying things like, “Just accept what’s happening, or it’s in the past, just put it behind you, or. . ” Well, just. . . think yourself how you have heard the word used. Acceptance is such a big word, simple concept, and sometimes it’s so hard to do.” To truly sit down, breathe, and accept what is happening in the present moment means that you first may need to understand that you can take actions perhaps to change a circumstance, but that first the thing you have to do is accept what is happening in the present moment. Change or transformation can only happen with first a settling into the full presence of what is.
Now, how about you? Have you already had a really busy day? Maybe you had a lot going on at work, maybe you were in your car driving and hit some traffic . . . Just now try to do a backtrack of what happened in your life today, and notice where the points in the day occurred that you got yourself involved in a moment of negating the circumstance. Maybe you were fighting against the traffic in your mind thinking “oh this is so stupid. I shouldn’t be sitting in traffic. I cant believe these people drive so stupidly.” Or, “I could be doing something better with my time. “ Or you are at work and you are thinking “oh this job isn’t good enough for me I should be doing something better with my time, I could off on an island somewhere.” You know you start to daydream or fantasize and negate the moment, or you may fall into a rut of aggression as a way to negate the moment. Maybe someone said something to you you didn’t like and you are thinking “oh gosh why do I know people like this?” Or “How could I change who they are to suit my needs better?“ Or “what could I say to make them see things the way that I do?” You might experience this emotionally and physically as a kind of pushing away rather than accepting the person the way they are or the moment the way it is.
One of the most healing forces in humanity is the fact that we are all interconnected and that we are all connected to other living things through our bodies, or through that life force, that inexplicable energetic force that makes our heart beat, lets our blood flow, creates this matter that creates our bodies that creates all other living things around us. That. . . we can’t explain. Yet we kind of accept that we have been given this life. That for some reason we are here. Often times we may fall into moments of questioning why we are here and what the purpose is of this whole thing. This whole mish-mosh of life and people coming together. The cataclysmic energy of change that naturally occurs. . ..one that we have no control over, yet were meant to meld into and become a part of and. . . flow with.
We often don’t even realize that just by waking up in the morning and living our lives we are living in pure acceptance. This mystery is our reality. Within that our mind needs to somehow make sense of this mystery because otherwise we feel completely unsafe. If we can begin to learn to drop into our bodies and start to realize that part of learning to accept this life as it is every day and as every moment of it does change, we are asked to accept that we have no concept truly of what is going to happen next. We have an idea based on an outline of what we have planned but we have no true factual knowledge that we have an ability to predict exactly what is going to happen next. Now a lot of people may find that kind of disconcerting but I have found it quite calming.
I understand myself. . . If I am in a state of mind where I am trying to control or understand what this whole life is about, then I find I feel more out of control because there are no real answers. SO for me a truly calming and serene, and spiritually connected way of life, comes through the acceptance that I have no idea. That I am completely living within the mystery of this life force. . . and of the organizational, somehow, energetic pattern of this life force, while trusting that as each moment changes, the right things are unfolding for my own personal path. This philosophy is the Way of Tantra and The Way of Acceptance within Tantric practice. It is to trust that the organizational pattern of things is set exactly connected and we are living within some kind of a structure that is beyond our own understanding and control. Now that is not to say that we don’t have a part in things, of course, and I will talk about that a little bit later. The basic core, and structure, is that we are life force within a body; we are energy and we are interconnected. All of us are connected as living things and we have no concept truly of what that pattern is about. Where we came from, how we were given these flowers to smell, air to breathe, or what the true magic or mystery is behind it. What we can do is accept that and actually live within the present moment, in wonder, of all of that.
SO when we are sitting in our cars and we are getting into that rut or mindset of negating the present moment and saying “oh this is so annoying, I’m sitting here in traffic and I could be at the beach or I should be at the beach or I should have a better life and this shouldn’t be happening to me. Even if we move into discussing a deeper circumstance or a more painful circumstance generating some feeling, for example someone passing, an illness, a body being injured, we can still apply the perception that there is something to be learned or a reason for each circumstance that happens. The more we can truly drop into accepting that we don’t have control, and we cant change the circumstance, we can drop into truly experiencing it and seeing what happens next. This will give our nervous system a nice break, and hopefully help us as a society cut back on relying on pharmaceuticals to quickly calm the nervous or anxious feelings related to experiencing pushing away or denying large unwanted feelings. This kind of body and emotional awareness, acceptance and “being with” allows us a lot more potential for growth. The moment that we try to clamp down on our feelings ,try to control them, or negate them we lose sight or admission of life force potential for transformation and change. We have no concept of exactly what that could be. Potential is limitless . Life force is limitless. SO people on a Tantric life path, we learn tools to allow our minds to calm, and allow our awareness to come into our bodies. This way no matter what is happening in the present moment in our lives, for example, maybe a relationship isn’t going as you want it to, or maybe a job interview happened and you are waiting for a callback, or you are waiting for something to be delivered that for some reason keeps getting put off and its putting your work behind- most importantly, things occur and we can choose how we respond to them. We only have choice over our perceptions and our actions. Things don’t just happen to us, we can choose how we allow them to happen within us. The first step in the awareness around those kinds of choices, are accepting the truth of what is happening in our bodies around what the circumstances being presented to us in our lives are.
I would like to share with you some words I took directly from Osho’s book “The Way of Acceptance”
“Accept whatsoever you are. This is the basic note. Total acceptance. Only through total acceptance can you grow. Then use every energy you have. How can you use them? Accept them. Then find out what these energies are. What is sex? What is this phenomenon. We are not acquainted with it. We know many things about sex taught by others. We may have passed through the sec act, but with a guilty mind or a suppressive attitude in haste or in hurry. Something has to be done in order to become unburdened. The sex act is not always a loving act. You may not be happy in it., yet you cannot leave it. The more you try to leave it the more attractive it becomes. The more you try to negate it, the more you feel invited. You cannot negate it. Yet this tendency to negate and destroy, destroys the mind. It destroys the awareness and the sensitivity that can understand it. So sex goes on with no sensitivity in it; then you cannot understand it. Only a deep sensitivity can understand anything. Only a deep feeling, a deep moving into it, can understand anything. You can understand sex only if you move into it as a poet moves amidst flowers. Only then. If you feel guilty about flowers, you can pass through the garden, but you will pass with closed eyes., and you will be in a hurry in a deep mad haste. Somehow you have to go out of the garden. Then how can you be aware. “
What Osho discusses is the core of our life force nature. Our creative force in our bodies moves through our sexuality. The more that we can learn to accept our sexuality and our sexual feelings inside of our body, the more that we are able to accept all other circumstances which is why I chose that passage. I had been moving through talking about accepting things that were happening at work, or standing on line at Starbucks, or accepting things that are happening in life circumstantially. Becoming aware of your response to things that are happening in the present moment when you become agitated and begin thinking “this should be different” or “I wish this was different.” Or “This isn’t working out the way that I want” and then going off into a negative mindset.
The deeper way to engage in the present moment is to go through fully accepting whatever is happening in your body at any moment. A lot of what we are conditioned in this culture to believe, almost unconsciously, is to believe that our body or the feelings in our body are something to negate. That sexual feelings in our body that happen all day long, nobody can deny. Maybe we don’t have a driving force to connect with an other person all the time, but sensual and sexual feelings are happening in our body all day long. Maybe it’s a sensual wave of energy in your body when you breathe, maybe you see something pleasing to the eye when you see something that reminds you of a sensual experience that you have had, or just brings a wave of pleasure to your body simply for the pleasure it arouses in your fantasy life.
These are all natural feelings within our body. Our natural spirit of intention is to procreate. It’s the foundational instinct that we have as beings, to live. It is the only way that our species can continue to live, is to procreate. We especially as humans can mentally understand these feelings in our body. It is our choice to decide how we act upon them. The only thing we really have control over are our actions and our perceptions. SO the more aware we can become of our experiences, our feelings; or our body sensory experience throughout the day.
The more we can accept what we are feeling, what we are thinking about doing, what we are daydreaming about, where we are in our awareness of our bodies or whether we are cutting off from awareness of our bodies by negating the present moment or thinking about something that takes us out of our bodies.
These are all awarenesses that we can continue to develop as adults, and perhaps we had more easily as children. Now as adults, we may be coming back into our bodies through an awareness now that that is really something we need to hang onto or we lose our vitality as we grow older. This may lead us to becoming unhappy, feeling separate from one another, transgressing to a cognitive state of judgment or a cognitive state of compartmentalizing or negating or avoiding.; criticizing , ourselves or our surroundings. That is not helpful to the growth of vital energy, and cells in our bodies and thus in the relating of ourselves and our bodies within connection to others. Living in a negate, or a negative stat f awareness is something that is leading one living thing closer to death.
I imagine that most people who are listening would agree that we ultimately want to be leading an existence toward life. To be creating more life ! We want to be creating more life in our bodies! We want to be creating more joy in our lives! We want to be connecting more deeply with others. We want to be connecting more deeply with ourselves. We want to be enjoying more nature. We want to be connecting ore deeply with other living things. That is a choice we can make through cognitive awareness about how we live our lives.
Unfortunately if we turn the TV on, we will often get messages that say other.
Perhaps we will get messages that we perceive as telling us that we are not good enough. Maybe the words or messages wont be so blatant but the images we see will make us believe we are meant to live up to a standard presented in order to prove our worth in this world, or things that we must have in order to enjoy a happy life. WE may hear or see text that plays with our mind by dangling a carrot showing what we ought to be thinking, or thinking about, or ought to find important to our lives .We can choose to decide if we want to take on those beliefs as ours. Or we can choose to decide to get to know ourselves and take on our own value, our own belief. The more we can accept who we truly are, what our own natural essence or authentic self truly is. That person you were as a child before you learned from society or your parents or family structure to judge and move away from your true voice, or move toward what you were told is the better way to be- rather than accept what is and who you are, and work from there. Then we end up in a state of compartmentalized living. The more that we give into thinking we ought to be differently than we are, and trying to deny what we are and what we feel, from where we are, and work from acceptance of what is and learn to value all of our body’s energy and vitality, and thus sue that to create the things that we are most inspired to create in our lives.
Tantra says, “Accept whatsoever you are, you are a great energy of many multi-dimensional energies. Accept it and move with every energy. With deep sensitivity. With awareness. With love. With understanding. Move with it. Let it live inside of your body. Then every desire becomes a vehicle to go beyond it. Every energy becomes a help. You accept your body as a temple. A holy temple. A holy place where you can go deeply into exploring the great mysteries of energy within you. You can trust that the more deeply you explore the feelings that come up for you, whatever intentions you have that you didn’t know you really had. Wishes you have been ignoring, perhaps you tell yourself it is a stupid desire because it wont make you any money. Things you have been inspired to explore. Things you want to say out loud , creative forces inside of you, things you want to explore, or thoughts you have that you want to share with others, things you want to say to another that you haven’t because you have been holding back, conversations you want to have that you have been shying away from because you don’t feel it will do any good; or its stupid or your feelings don’t really matter. Everything that you have an intention toward doing is valuable to explore, not necessarily to decide to do–That would be impulsive if you just jumped into anything and everything, as a child does. Children are very in touch with their intentions, impulses, instincts, or wanting to do things or then go deeply into a state of introspective awareness.
As adults, we start to learn to do things in a responsible way where we have to learn to take certain actions, to maybe learn to walk a certain path because there is something we want to create- which takes channeling time, focus and energy. However. Much of the time what happens within this great depth of contained impulses and control of focus, is that we separate vastly from our internal selves. Our deep essence. Our authentic self. Our inner child. We learn to negate that. Not value. Then in turn we create a life that isn’t vital. One that within we don’t feel an exchange of give and take of ‘life’ with. Giving enforcement ; we don’t feel connected to the things that are happening in our lives; we don’t truly feel invested- or in it. This happens often when our main intention is to create more money. The value of enriching our lives through our soul-led purposes. Through the messages that we receive through our essence; by listening to our inner longings. Our longings may seem quite mysterious and inexplicable sometimes ; I
I am suggesting simply to listening to the intentions and wishes within, and to accept and explore these aspects of yourself as a valuable piece of information about yourself. Your inner life. By listening to the part of yourself that is telling you, “hey I have a longing to explore this. “ It doesn’t mean that you will actually go out and explore it.
The path of truly accepting whatever is happening in the present moment is in your body and in your surroundings. Your body is placed in in your life. One of the things that I think is very important to talk about is sensuality. Our body has been given senses. Sensory awareness. Our senses are what connect us to the outside world. SO if we choose to live a life where we are disconnected from our senses, where we live in our heads in our mind in our cerebral state of understanding all the time- we often feel tired, we often feel angry we often feel lonely and we don’t know why. Lot of times we may use substances to bring us into our senses, to bring us intro out bodies, to allow us to come into the present moment that allow us to come out of the past and in obsession upon the future. There are many detrimental outcomes for this path. If we are choosing to use substances whatever they may be. Could be people, anything chemical that you can create through connecting through people, anything chemical you can sue as an outside substance that you put inti your body and create chemicals inside your body, instead of learning to create natural chemicals inside your body without substances. You can choose to learn to create chemicals in your body, because that is hat your body and mind are doing all the time. You body is an amazing organism that functions as an incredibly fine tunes machine. You can learn how to continue to fine tune this gift that you have been given, naturally. One of the most important ways to tune your body is to tune your senses .Taking in sensually the present moment, through your senses creates an even flow of chemistry in your body. These chemicals are seratonins, endorphins, oxytocins. These allow your cells to continue to grow; allow the vibrations in the water in your body stay on an even keel and thus to develop healthy balanced cells rather than mutated ones which often develop as some kind of cancerous cells.
So living a sensual life is not just to indulge in pleasure. It is to stay in flow with the patterning of the organization of the natural law of universal life. Which is gravitational pull. Staying in tune with the forces outside of your body which allow all of the natural occurrences to somehow run like fine tuned machines. As well. This great vast mystery that if we choose to accept to live within by continuing to stay in awe of , in order to become attuned to its natural rhythm and flow within and around us. We can choose to revere this life force through this choice to attune to it, and by our choice of actions being to stay attuned to it as much s possible and re-attune when we fall off. We can realize we are connected to it at all times. Our bodies ar smaller manifestations and organisms of these orbits. The more we are able to tune into the present moment and not allow our minds to take over and take us into the past, or worrying about the future, and thus throw off the calibration of our nervous system, we live a much more balanced, happy and expanded existence.
Often we have way too many things piled up on our plates. Too many different things that we are trying to do at one time. A lot of people say “Well I cant stop doing this, I have to take care of this, I have to be here, and there. . . “ Yes responsibilities are an important part of being in the world and being a part of the interconnected life force. However the enslavement to the tasking becomes an excuse to leave the body, to leave the sensory experience and thus separating from the self and stepping into a cerebrally led ego space that seeks approval for tasking. Ultimately to short cut the connection to life force as a way to feel a valuable part of the valuable life force and instead seeking approval through gratification, attainment of items or peoples’ attention.
This is to the detriment of throwing off the balance in your body, and becoming diseased because you aren’t allowing your body the natural flow of energy or prana through your limbic and circulatory system, so losing balance and physically becoming ill or mentally obsessed.
The most important practice you can have as your soul foundation in your life is the practice of coming into your body through your senses. Learning to live a vital life with that as a foundation. Instead of like I said before, separating from self, and body, moving int o an ego led existence, needing to prove prove prove and then needing to dump substances down you body to come into your senses. Then all of a sudden making all of these choices while you are under the influences of these substances and then wondering how come your life is a train wreck.
Really learning to slow down and simplify your life, to be able to exist in your body in your breath in the present moment, in your senses. . . and continue to work with your body’s natural energy. . . to put action into motion from a unified sense of existence, not from a need to fulfill things that feel off and not from a need to prove to others to feel worthy, as all of that burns out quickly. I think in our basic humanity of self we can slow down enough to come to terms with hat we know as truth and what we know is not truth for us. Then we can rationalize why we “have to do this anyway because- “ but we don’t. Really slowing down come into the present moment. Listen. To what is happening in the room that you are in. Even if you don’t hear a thing. These is always something happening. Breathe. Allow that channel to open inside of your body. Allow your senses to affect the inside of your body. Notice your heart beat. Notice you can bring your breath a little bit more deeply into your diaphragm. Notice you can hear perhaps a little bit more now. Let your eyes cast onto whatever is in front of you. If its the surface of something. Notice all of the multi-facets of the layers of the surface. Like prisms. You may think you only see a white piece of paper or a black computer or a wooden floor. That surface is made up of thousands of different reflections of color and molecules. They are all made of a vibration of energy that are interlocking to create that surface. Just as your skin is created in the same way. SO allowing your awareness to open, to expand inside of your body through breath as you allow your senses to open. This is the path to connecting your outside circumstance to feeling your internal awareness.
Organizational pattern of all living things. Fighting against the present moment or what ou are feeling in your body is only putting you into a distracted path- to get you away from the circumstances bothering rather than accepting they are there instead of getting in touch with the truth of what you feel and trying to go a little bit more deeply in to discovering whether you need to make some changes , slowly through acceptance.
Learning to accept and appreciate what is, stuffy it explore it. Even if it feels like a thorn in your side. Rather than pushing the discomfort away, open yourself to discovering the ability to explore the feeling and appreciate how it is serving you as a teacher. A gut post or marker that is spurring you on to make change. This way you begin ti see everything in your life as a lesson, as a way to go more deeply into yourself, senses and experience. In this you can become more aware of yourself and your patterns and begin t o learn to tune into others more deeply as well.
Some people say they don’t have time for all this. Its your choice of course how you want to live. I am not here to tell you how to live. I am here to help you understand a deeper way, a deeper path, a more in tune path, a more deeply accepting path. This more spiritual path comes forth through accepting the different aspects of yourself, your feelings, your body.
Getting in tune with your body through your senses and the pathways to your inner awareness and inner truth. Acceptance of your inner vibration and inner sensitivities through accepting what is happening in the present moment and pulling that in through your senses and your breath.
I want to share more of Osho’s words. . .
“Tantra trusts in your body. Tantra trusts in your senses. Tantra trusts in your energy. Tantra trusts in your total; in you. Tantra does not deny anything., but transforms everything. “
The more you deny what is happening in your life you are Stopping the limitless potential from being able to occur. You are stopping changes from being able to happen You are actually putting control on things. The more that you accept things, you may never know how energy transforms itself. The natural law of energy is that the more room it has to dance, the more it will change. The more you clamp down on it the more it will deviate. You will see that in yourself when you stuffy how you are with your emotional life. If you accept how you feel about something, even if you are really angry or really sad, or really in love, or.
It’s not about taking action right away. Often action is a way to get away from the feeling. really want to get close to somebody,. We think its taking charge and making moves toward change. Actually it is usually a way to negate what you are really feeling because you don’t want to feel it. You take an action to try to do something about it.
If you just sit down and look at it, like we were talking before, the multi facets of color within every surface and every molecule. That makes up that surface of matter—well you emotional space is very much like that. Your emotions have so many different peppers of color within every feeling. The more that you can just sit with a feeling and really navigate through it, really feel the waves of sensory awareness happening in your body through those feelings. For example, anger, Maybe it is pulsating waves of tension that are or of deep sadness that or even some kind of strange pleasure, within the anger. The further you can drop into the anger, you will begin to notice that it will shift, it will change, into something else. You will probably go into state of awareness of what you are really feeling and why you are feeling it. . .
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