ACCEPTANCE
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi
Alibag, India 17 December 1989 (Excerpt)

So, to judge others, to think of others, what they are doing, what’s wrong with them, about any­thing whatsoever you may think is wrong, is not going to be corrected.

Like I know some people who are bureaucrats. They are travelling, supposing, by car. Then they will say, “I think this road should have gone this way.” Or, “I think it would have been nice if this house was facing the other way.” But it’s not, you see. It is not going to face. It is going to be the way it is. So what is the use of wasting your brain, your mind, your thought, in suggesting something which doesn’t work out? Never going to work out, either.

So when we start like, “I think these trees should have been little taller.” But they are not. “I think that the crows should stop their noise.” They will not.

So just accept it. Acceptance is the way we are going to enjoy. But acceptance doesn’t mean tolerance, because tolerance means you have to work very hard to accept that the trees are of the same height. They can’t grow. It’s too much for you. When you say, “I have to tolerate it, because my mind doesn’t accept.”

So, acceptance, as it is, whatever you see, acceptance. And that is how people grow, I have seen, those who start accepting. That’s the sign. That’s the sign of their strength and their depth, like the propensity of this Mother Earth. She is what she is. And she bears whatever is there. If you put a heavy thing on her, she’ll put equal and opposite force and bear it. She doesn’t say, “I’m tolerating it. I’m exerting any pressure.” She’s just accepting.

The witnessing and awareness develops when we start just accepting things as they are.

“I think—” doesn’t work out. “I think it would have been better like this” doesn’t work out.