Accepting Others Totally

When you look at the blue sky or the stars, or the birds and mountains, you have no complaints about them. And you are pleased and happy. You see the rocks on the riverbed; they did not do anything to please you. Yet you are happy because you don't want them to be different. You accept them as they are, and therefore you are pleased. The river flows in its own way; it doesn't bother you. You don't want the volume of water to be greater or the flow to go in a different direction. In fact, you seek out natural spots because they do not invoke the displeased person that you seem to be, the angry, hard-to-please person. The demanding chord in you is not struck by them. You are one with the situation, an accommodating self, without the world doing anything to please you. Thus you are a pleased person with reference to a few things. See how pleased you are, and bring that person to bear on all the situations and people that had displeased you and whom you had displeased at one time or the other. Then look at yourself just as you would when you look at the birds and the mountains. Accept others as you accept the stars. Pray for a change if you think they need to change, or do what you can to help them change. But, accept them first. Only in this way, can you really change as a total person. You want to change others, so that you can be free, but, it never works that way. Accept others totally, and you are free; then you discover love, which is yourself. -- Swami Chinmayananda