#185 Acceptance, letting go and change (1/3)
As we approach the 92nd birth anniversary of my beloved guru, Pujya Swami Dayananda Saraswati ji, I share excerpts from his beautifully profound book – Morning Meditation prayers.
Human free will finds total expression in a quiet voluntary prayer. At these prayerful moments what I feel and say are very important. The fact that I can pray is itself a blessing, and how I pray makes prayer meaningful to me.
The past seems to have a tight hold on each of us. To let go our past is merely wishful thinking. It does not happen. If we can have a degree of awareness of this problem, we can discover hope and solution in a well-directed prayer.
There are a lot of things that have happened in my life that I can change and repair. I seek the strength of will and the ability to make proper, adequate efforts to change. I do not waste my time trying to change what I cannot change; nor do I waste my time putting up with unhealthy situations that I can change. The difference between the two, what I can and cannot change, is not easy to distinguish. It takes wisdom for which I again invoke your grace.
Dear Bhagavan,
May I enjoy, have
The maturity to accept
Gracefully what I cannot change
The will and effort to change
What I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.
I am awake, alive to what happens at this moment. I lay down my will, my choice. I am awake to the moment. Moment to moment, my being aware of the moment does not fluctuate. My being aware of the moment is an abiding, lasting, ever-present fact. My being aware is not in fits and starts. It is a presence, a presence which is always present.
What I am aware of at this moment is unique. The object changes; even these words are never the same. At this moment, a given word, a sentence, a sound or an object, changes. My being aware of what happens at this moment is not by choice. I am aware because I am an awareful presence. Free from memory, I am an awareful presence.
As an individual with a limited mind, a set of senses and a body, I play different roles every day. As son, husband, father, uncle, friend, employer and so on, I play different roles. All these roles are played by me, the individual.
When I think of my father, I am a son. When I think of my friend, I am a friend. In order to be a friend, I replace my father with my friend.
My relationship with the Lord is not the same. As an individual I am fundamentally related to the Lord, whether I recognise the relationship or not. This relationship is expressed by the word ‘devotee’.
As a devotee, when I assume the role of father or son, the devotee is not replaced. The relationship between me, the individual, and the Lord, is the same as that between my father and the Lord or my friend and the Lord. The devotee remains due to the abiding nature of the relationship with the Lord. The relationship is an abiding relationship, a fundamental relationship born of recognition. As a person, an individual, I see myself a devotee. A relationship that exists with the Lord is recognised. Only then does religion have meaning.
As a devotee, I express my devotion in various forms. As a devotee, I invoke the help and the grace of the Lord by an act of prayer. Prayer is an action. Its result is what is called grace. I create the grace through the act of prayer. I require grace to remove obstacles, problems and difficulties. My efforts themselves are supported by the grace I win or earn. I invoke the grace of the Lord or I invoke the Lord.
Dear Bhagavan,
May I have the capacity, the maturity
To accept gracefully
What I cannot change
The will and effort to change
What I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.
As a child, I was helpless. My will was not with me. My mind was not informed enough to see, to interpret. Whatever happened to me as a child and later in life, I cannot do anything about. It happened in the past; it is past.
What has happened has happened. Maybe there is a meaning to it all. Maybe the meaning is that I can now pray. Maybe all that happened has made me what
I am today.
May I accept gracefully what has happened in the past. May I have the maturity to do so. There are a lot of things I can change.
I can change my attitudes toward the world and myself. I can tighten up my personal life if it is loose. If it is too tight, I can loosen up. I can repair any damage done.
May I enjoy the will, not merely an intention or a desire, but a will supported by adequate effort. May I have the will and effort to change what I can, wherever I have to. And may I have the wisdom to know what I can and cannot change.
May I not victimise myself by subjecting myself to the past. Let me see clearly that I cannot alter what has happened. May I not have any regret, sadness, anger, or agitation on this score.
Let me recognise very clearly all my thoughts about the past that I cannot change, so that I can accept the past for what it is. Let me be aware of whatever I can change. Let it be clear to me. Let there be no doubt. Let me not waste my power and time trying to change what I cannot change.
Trying to change what I cannot change leaves me so powerless, helpless and impoverished, that I cannot bring about the required change.
O Lord, may I have the maturity to accept totally, gracefully, what I cannot change, the will and effort to change what I can, and the knowledge of the difference between what I can and cannot change.
That I am not the past
I see by being awareful
Of the present
The present moment
I am aware of
I am an awareful presence
In the awareful presence that I am
Perceptions happen
The objects of perception
Are many and various
I am an awareful presence
An abiding awareful presence.
I do not want to be a victim of my own past. If I hold on to the past, I can drop it. I can let it go. Like an object in my hand, I can just drop it. However, the problem is that the past holds me. I am helpless. When the past holds me, the past and I are so united, so identical, that the past itself becomes I. It seems to hold me hostage.
In my ignorance and innocence, I subjected myself to hurt, guilt, and therefore pain. I remain associated with these memories. Some of these memories may not be vivid, but they form the very I. I find myself helpless in letting go of the past.
If someone holds me, I can seek someone’s help to free myself. But here, the one who holds, the held, and the holding itself are identical. I have to either plead to myself or to the Lord. In pleading, imploring, there is submission.
There is an acknowledgment on my part that I am helpless. The submission of my helplessness to the Lord is real prayer.
Such a prayer, implying acknowledgment of helplessness and submission to the Lord, brings about the conversion of letting the past go. In the submission is the acknowledgment. The completeness of the acknowledgment takes place in the submission and the submission takes place when I pray, consciously pray. Prayer is not a technique. It is an action, no doubt, but it is not a technique. It is born of an acknowledgment of my helplessness.
O Lord
Help me to let go the past
Let me not try to change
What I cannot.
When I blame someone
I do not let go
I want to change
What I cannot change
In blaming, there is no acceptance of a fact. There is an attempt to change what I cannot.
O Lord
Let me not blame anyone
What has happened
Is a fact
It remains a fact
I cannot do anything about it
I do not have remorse
Resentment or anger
O Lord
Let me not try
To change
What I cannot change
May I have the will
To back up my desire
To fulfil my will
May I have adequate effort
To change what I can
May I have no confusion
With reference to what I can
And cannot change
I implore your help.
More often I lay waste my powers and my time to change what I cannot change. And when I have to change what I can, I am already tired. I am impoverished in terms of will, energy, effort and the capacity for effort. May I have the knowledge to know the difference between the two: what I can and cannot change.
One by one find out what you want to change; list them.
I wish my father had a different attitude. I wish my mother had a different mental make-up and more personal discipline. I wish I had studied more. I wish my home was a real home. I wish I had understood the value of values. I wish I had been more disciplined. I wish I had heeded the words of advice of so and so. I wish I had not met this person. I wish I had not done a particular action. I wish I had done a particular action. I wish I had equipped myself with some skills and better titles. I wish I had been born under another astrological sign. I wish I had been born a male. I wish I had been born a female. I wish I had not been born at all.
How many resentments
And useless wishes!
Dear Bhagavan
Help me understand
Intimately
The uselessness
Of these wishes
Help me drop
Every one of them.
As an individual I see myself a victim of my past. I honestly acknowledge the fact that the past holds me and determines my mental condition. I see myself as a hostage of the past. I acknowledge the fact and I also acknowledge my helplessness. If I can help myself I will not be a victim of my past. Depression, fear, anger, self-criticism, intolerance, hatred, unhappiness, if I am not a victim I will not have any of them. These conditions reveal my helplessness. They do not happen without the past. If I can help myself I will not have them.
Once I see and honestly acknowledge my helplessness, I can seek help. I seek help not at the altars of the world. I have sought there before. I now seek help from a source I look upon as a being of all knowledge, of all power, whom I call the Lord, Īśvara. I establish a contact, a relationship with Īśvara through prayer. As a child I went to my mother or father for help. Now, as an adult, I go to the source of everything. Freely, I go to the source. I am not shy. I acknowledge my helplessness. I seek help through prayer.
I pray for strength, clarity, serenity to accept gladly, gracefully, what I cannot change. When I blame a situation or person for my being what I am, mother, father, friend, boss, death, poverty, society, political/economic systems, my stars, health, institutions, schools, colleges, media or music, when I blame any one of them, I must know that I do not accept my past. In blaming there is resentment of a fact. There is rejection of a fact. But a fact is a fact. My rejection does not alter it. It only adds to my confusion.
In order to accept gracefully what I cannot change, I blame no one. I blame neither the situation nor myself. I am not to blame. I let go of the past. I totally accept all situations and people who have come into my past, who have perhaps contributed to my past, who have caused my past. At this stage, I may not appreciate why these people did what they did. I may not appreciate their problems to be what they were, what they are, but at least I do not blame them because I accept my past.
Whatever has happened is a fact. I cannot but accept it. My rejection does not change the fact or negate it. I accept gracefully and blame no one.
All I seek is maturity, clarity, a space within me from where I gracefully accept what I cannot change.
I also seek help for adequate will in order to bring about changes, desirable changes, in my attitude towards people, money, the future, my health, my body, my skills, and healthy proper attitudes.
If I have to bring about any other change or if I have to apply myself in order to learn more, I pray.
O Lord
Please give me
The unflinching will
The will that holds
Against all odds
An unflinching will
To change.
May I also have the knowledge
To know what I can
And cannot change
Knowledge that helps me
Accept what I cannot change
Once I know
Something cannot be changed
I can accept it
And once I know
I can change
I can do what needs to be done
May I have this knowledge.
Om shantih shantih shantih
