Acceptance

What the Method Is

The core instruction or sutra for this method is: “Objects and desires exist in me as in others. So accepting, let them be transformed”. This encapsulates the essence of the practice – recognising shared human experiences and embracing them fully to facilitate inner transformation.

How It Is Done

To practice “Acceptance,” the guidance involves several key steps and principles:

  • Observe and Acknowledge Inner States: Begin by observing your inner states, such as anger, greed, desire, or any mood, whether for or against someone. Recognise that these feelings exist within you just as they do in others.
  • Remain with the Fact: The crucial step is to remain with the fact of whatever is arising (e.g., anger, sex, greed) in its total facticity. Do not interpret, judge, or label it as good or bad, pure or impure. Simply acknowledge its presence without trying to escape from it.
  • Do Not Suppress or Project: A fundamental instruction is not to suppress the emotion or desire, as suppression creates more disturbance and drives the energy into the unconscious. Similarly, do not project it onto others; remember that you are the source of these feelings.
  • Cultivate Undisturbed Awareness: Even in “moods of extreme desire,” the instruction is to “be undisturbed”. This means allowing the emotion to be present while maintaining a point of inner awareness that remains untouched. It’s about being an onlooker or spectator to what is happening on the periphery.
  • Move to the Source: When a mood like hate or love arises, instead of moving towards the object of that feeling, move inwards to the source from where it is coming. Use the energy of the mood as a path back to your inner centre.
  • Be Choiceless: This practice involves a deep “let-go,” where you do not choose between opposing experiences (e.g., indulgence or repression, virtue or vice). You allow life to take you with its flow, without a fixed goal or personal will.
Commentaries and Insights

Osho’s commentaries on “Acceptance” provide a rich philosophical context and highlight its transformative power:

  • Mind’s Dualistic Nature and Its Transcendence: The mind inherently divides reality into polar opposites such as good/bad, pure/impure, moral/immoral. These distinctions are man-created concepts or “attitudes of man,” not reflections of existence itself, which is indivisible. Tantra’s core aim is to help one transcend this dualistic thinking.
  • Acceptance as the Path to Transformation: Total acceptance is the basic framework for all Tantric sadhana (spiritual practice). When you accept something totally, you are thrown to your inner centre and transcend it. This “acceptance is transcendence” because it allows awareness to become possible. It is not a technique for transformation, but a state from which transformation follows.
  • “No Fight” – The Central Teaching of Tantra: Tantra’s central teaching is “no-fight”. Unlike Yoga, which is a path of struggle and will, Tantra advocates total surrender and moving with nature rather than fighting against it. Suppressing energies (like sex or anger) creates inner division and makes them more powerful and difficult to overcome, leading to continuous internal conflict and misery.
  • The Middle Path: By accepting both extremes (e.g., indulgence and repression), one is automatically thrown to the middle. This aligns with Buddha’s concept of majjhim nikai or “the middle path,” where one remains balanced and never at any extreme. An enlightened person is without “moods,” having dissolved the polarities of hate and love.
  • Authenticity and Facticity: To be authentic means to be totally factual. This method encourages you to remain with the facts of your inner life – your anger, greed, desires – without the overlay of societal conditioning, beliefs, or borrowed ideas. This deep, individual understanding is crucial, as “fictions will not help”.
  • Consequences of Acceptance:
    • Inner Unity and Peace: When everything is accepted, the inner division between “saint and animal” dissolves, and you become one, undivided, and non-conflicting. This leads to profound peace and silence.
    • Release of Energy: Acceptance relieves your total energy that was previously engaged in conflict, allowing it to penetrate inwards. When this energy falls back to its original source, one becomes a “magnetic center”.
    • Being “At Home” in Existence: Total acceptance leads to being at ease, at home in the world, without worries, anguish, or struggle.
    • Transformation of Energies: Energies like sex or anger are seen as raw potential. Through acceptance and understanding, they are not discarded but transformed (e.g., anger becomes compassion, sex becomes love).
    • Revelation of Purity: Acceptance allows one to uncover the “inner purity” and “inner innocence” by becoming aware of oneself as distinct from the body or its sensations.
  • Challenges and Misconceptions:
    • Ego’s Resistance: Acceptance is difficult because it often shatters the ego and one’s self-image. Admitting one is a “sexual animal,” for instance, goes against cultivated ideals.
    • Calculated Acceptance: People may superficially accept to achieve a desired outcome (e.g., accepting sex to become non-sexual), but this is still a form of desire and calculation, preventing true transformation.
    • Initial Discomfort: Feeling “animal-like” or experiencing sickness and unease upon initial practice indicates that the “consideration is not total”. This discomfort is merely the reality of one’s suppressed state coming to the surface, and it should be accepted rather than resisted.
  • Connection to Other Concepts: This method is intrinsically linked to Tantra’s emphasis on awareness, non-judgment, and the belief that life exists in polar opposites. It is a way to transcend the “flux-like film of life” by becoming a witness to it. The goal is not to be disturbed by desires but to observe them from a centered, pure state.