Acceptance of Others Meditation | Ashok Gupta | Coronavirus Challenge |

Hi there, guys. A warm welcome back to the Coronavirus Challenge. Live meditations here on Facebook. Once again, it's been wonderful to get your feedback on all the meditations we've done over the last few days, especially the first one, the ability to get over anxiety about the coronavirus situation that.

We'Re in right now.

So thank you for all your wonderful comments and once again, please do share those meditations far and wide around the Internet. Now, for those of you who are new to our meditations, the Coronavirus Challenge is a 10 day challenge, an opportunity for you to boost your immune system. So the media is focusing on isolation, which is right. But just as important is the ability for us to boost our own immune systems against the virus. So the Coronavirus Challenge, you sign up at the website, which is the coronaviruschallenge.com and on there you'll find videos, meditations, exercises, all with the clinical research behind it. 20 years of research that we've been doing on how you can boost your immune system against viruses in general, and obviously if the coronavirus behaves very similarly to other viruses, that it means that this can also potentially reduce your chances of getting an infection by up to 80 to 90%. Now, why would we not want to do that? So this is important information for ourselves to keep ourselves healthy, but also important information if we've got elderly relatives or friends, for instance, or just people around us in general. If we all partake in the challenge, if we all boost our immune systems, then we can boost the whole immunity of the population and therefore be less of a burden on stretched healthcare systems. So I hope you'll all join me on the Coronavirus Challenge. And there's a, a group of people there on the Facebook group sharing ideas, sharing recipes, etc. So it's a really fun place to be, an uplifting, positive place to be. Now, today we're going to be talking about accepting people during this period of time. Now, many of you have written into our clinic saying that you're now with people, perhaps that you don't spend a lot of time with. People have even commented that's their own partners. You know, they say that the average person only spends, I think, an hour and a half or a couple of hours with their partner each day, actually actively in their presence, maybe two to two and a half hours. And yet with the coronavirus situation, we are being forced to be around people for intense and long periods of time without an exit strategy. Okay, And I know that sounds a bit cold because surely everyone loves each other. They should be fine with it. At the end of the day, we're not used to it. And so therefore, many of us are experiencing resistance to the people around us. Many of us are experiencing some anxiety or being in that potentially difficult living situation. And I want you to know that you're not alone. If you're finding it challenging right now, perhaps it's being with a partner or your parents or your children. Whichever group it is, we're all finding that there can be certain resistances that we're experiencing. And that can be a feeling of, I'm trapped. You know, how am I going to get out of this situation? I wish this would all change. And a lot of that resistance can be related to wanting the other person to change. So we're in those situations, we think, how could that person behave like that? Look what they're doing. Oh, this is just typical of their behavior. I wish they were just changed. Don't they get it? We get into that place of righteous indignation when we look at other people's behaviors. And it's two plays of the ego that I'd like to share with you. One game of the ego, or play of the ego, is the right or wrong. At a deep level, we all like to be right. We don't like to be wrong. So we get into arguments and conversations about what is the right way of doing things, what is the wrong way of doing things, and it can be turned into a power battle. And you say, well, hang on, that sounds like a courtroom or, you know, a parliament. In fact, it's happening in all of our own homes. We get into those intense conversations where we're trying to be right, get one up against the other person. And this can be with our children, our parents, our partners. The ego doesn't care where it gets into those conversations. So one game that we can observe in ourselves is wanting to be right and wanting the other person to be wrong. The second game of the ego, which is really at the base, at the root of so many arguments, is the blame game. It's their fault. It's their fault that we got into an argument. It's their fault that I'm feeling upset. It's their fault. Look what they said to me. Look how they communicate it. So we get into the blame game, and this is how the ego blinds us. It says, well, of course it's that person's fault. Look how they've made me feel. And you know, these two games, needing to be right and blaming the other person is at the root of so Many of our interpersonal problems, marriage breakdown, divorce, relationship problems, right through to the communications between the age groups and the generations, parents and children, right through to the root causes of war and suffering around the world. Just those two games of the ego. And I want us to see this whole situation that we're in, the coronavirus pandemic, as an opportunity for us to move from being a caterpillar to a butterfly. What does the caterpillar have to do in order to move and transform into a butterfly? The caterpillar has to go into a cocoon. And often this situation can feel like a cocoon. It can feel like we're trapped in a cocoon. And what's really happening is it's quite painful being in that cocoon. But it is an opportunity for us to grow, to let go of our grudges with people around us, to let go of our resistances to family members, friends, people we know. And that's not just people living in our own homes, that's people that we might be interacting with at work still or through Zoom or Skype or whatever. Those resistances can still exist. So normally we don't make the effort to really challenge how we're feeling, how we're reacting, these interpersonal relationships which break down because we're too busy with life, we're so absorbed in the outer world, and yet here comes along this pandemic which forces us to be at home, which forces us to self reflect. So let's use this opportunity to reflect on our relationships, whatever they may be, and say, where are those two games of the ego playing out? Myself and in others, and let me observe them. Let me not judge myself or others, but let me simply observe them and then I can move past them. And how do we move past these types of relationships, these resistances, these grudges? First of all, once again, that awareness that we want the other person to change because we think we're right and we think it's the other person's fault. And therefore when we're stuck in those two modes, we want the other person to change. We're not prepared to change. It's the other person's fault. Naturally they need to change. And yet self growth starts in that position of saying, I can't change others, what I can do is take responsibility for my reactions, my energy field. And so often we notice when we shift our own energy field, the situation changes and other people change. We wait for other people to change, but actually it starts with us. It reminds me a very famous saying from one of My great teachers, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, he says, when you're pointing at somebody else, when you're blaming them, right, you think that you're blaming them, putting all the responsibility on them. But just do that right now if you want to do that. There are three fingers pointing back at you. So although you're blaming someone else, there's three fingers coming back at you. Blake, where the responsibility truly lies. Now, obviously, if you're in a situation where it's abusive, where someone is deliberately bringing down your self esteem continually and incessantly, and that's a different situation, that is where someone else is maybe suffering from a mental health condition that could be a range of different disorders. And so it's different when there's an abusive situation. But in most cases, we're still blaming the other person, wanting to be right. And instead we can focus on our own reactions and observe ourselves. And today we're going to do something that can help us accept other people, which is what we call the process of surrendering, almost like a surrender meditation. And what we want to do is move from being a rigid oak tree. What happens when we're an oak tree? We're buffeted by the wind, right? And the oak tree is no flexibility and the oak tree can fall down, whereas instead we want to be a willow tree. So situations come, challenges come. Whether it's a coronavirus or it's suddenly being cooped up in a house with lots of people or a challenge, other kinds of challenges come. And a willow tree just bends with the wind and is able to maintain that flexibility and not be rigid. So instead of being tight and tense and rigid against people around us, we take a deep breath in and we.

Relax our bodies and we flow with.

The rhythms of life. We flow like a willow tree with the ups and downs and we just.

Accept what is going on around us.

And in that way, we cause ourselves less suffering and pain. And we also make it easier for people around us. So I'd love for you to share today's video with other people. So right now you can click on the share button underneath this video and please share it on your personal timelines, on groups that you're members of. And let's get this information out there. Let's get more people taking the coronavirus challenge and taking responsibility for their health. Let's make a difference right now, today. So please do share that. And if you'd like to, once you've done that, just get comfortable. And remember, tomorrow we'll be doing our final meditation of this seven Day series on how we can send blessings to the planet. And on Thursday, we'll be doing a session on how we can use this opportunity for growth. How can we reframe the whole perspective on what this coronavirus situation is about and use it as an opportunity to uplift ourselves, to expand ourselves, and to grow?

Good.

So let's sit comfortably, and let's just close our eyes. And we'll keep our eyes closed the remainder of this session.

And let's just take a slow, deep breath in. And breathe out. And let's take another slow, deep breath in. And let go. And let's become aware of the tension in our bodies right now. Where do you notice the tightness? Let's become aware of the tension and tightness. Let's take a slow, deep breath in. And breathe out through the mouth with a sound. Loosen and relax your body more and more. Become aware of the feeling of your clothes against your body. Observe those sensations like a curious observer. And become aware of your breathing. Observe the gentle rise and fall of your chest. And as you breathe in and breathe out, Imagine that as you breathe in, the energy comes in through the tips of your fingers, comes up your arms into your whole body. And as you breathe out, you release any tension and tightness through the bottom of your feet. So as you breathe in, the energy flows from the tips of your fingers, up your arms into your head and your whole body. As you breathe out, you release any tension or tightness out of your body through the soles of your feet. Let's just breathe slowly and deeply.

Like that.

Observing your breath. The incoming breath brings energy into your body, And the outgoing breath releases any tension in the muscles. Let's take another slow, deep breath in. And let's relax our shoulders as we breathe out slowly through the nose, relax our shoulders, relax our arms even more, Noticing the sensations of your body feeling even more relaxed. Now, keeping your eyes closed, Become aware of any agitations or any resistance or even anger that you have towards any people in your life. That might be a subtle feeling of annoyance or irritation, Or it may be a feeling of resistance and you want that person to go away. Or it may be some feelings of anger or even fear. Whatever you're experiencing about the people that you're living with, it might be people outside your home. You can just accept yourself for having that annoyance or resistance. And imagine that whoever that person is, or maybe it's more than one person, imagine that they're just standing or sitting in front of you in your mind. And notice where you feel that resistance or tension or anger in your body at that person. Wishing that they would behave differently. Perhaps we think that they are wrong. We're blaming them for something. Whatever those feelings are, let's release them to our representation of love. So imagine that also in front of you. Is a representation of love. That might be a figure from your religion or spirituality, or it could be someone you feel deeply loved by. Or it could be a pet or something else, maybe a nature scene, a mountain. Whatever represents love to you, imagine there in front of you now, In a moment, we're going to surrender all of these feelings to the feet of your representation of love. Because we don't want to hang on to these feelings. We'd like to release them and let go. Go. So now feel those feelings of agitation, botheration or anger or frustration. Think of that person who's in front of you who makes you feel those agitations. And we're going to surrender them now. So feel them fully. Take a slow deep breath in.

And.

Breathe them out and let them go to the feet of your representation of love. Look once again at that person who causes you to feel agitated. Look at them again. Notice any feelings of resistance in your body, any anger or fear or frustration. Find all of those sensations in your body and your head. Take a slow deep breath in. And breathe it out and let go. Letting them go and surrendering them to your representation of love. Once again, looking at the person that annoys you or frustrates you, Becoming aware of any worries, any emotions connected to that person. Indulge those feelings. And look at your representation of love. Take a slow deep breath in and with a smile, say, I surrender and let go. Looking at that person again, Feel any remaining frustration or any other emotions. Connected to that person. Take a slow deep breath in. And breathe it out to your representation of love and say, I surrender. And let go and feel. Just breathing it all out. Don't want to hold on to those emotions anymore. Just letting go. Now, looking at that person again.

The.

Person that you used to feel annoyed by, What could help you accept this person more? Acceptance doesn't mean being a doormat. Acceptance simply means you save your own mind and reduce your reactivity.

And let.

This person be the way that they want to be. Acceptance is the only sane path to take. It doesn't mean you accept all of their behaviors, but you simply accept who they are and let them be who they are. So look. Look at that person with eyes of acceptance. And you can either, if you're ready, say that I accept you for who you are. Or you might feel that you're ready or need to forgive this person. So you might say, I forgive you for who you are. Or you might just say, I release you from my mind. I release the resistance to you.

Whatever.

Feels right to you. So now as you look at this person, or it might be more than one person, you can choose to say, I release you. You can choose to say I accept you. You can choose to say I forgive you, whatever feels right. I want you to imagine that feeling. So let's take a slow, deep breath in, And as you breathe out, say the sentence I release you or whatever sentence works for you and release any remaining feelings in your body. And imagine the feeling with a smile of forgiveness or acceptance or just letting this person go from your mind. So once again, look at this person with eyes of acceptance. Take a slow, deep breath in. As you breathe out, say your sentence and feel. And imagine those feelings. Feelings of letting go or acceptance. Imagine if you to. If you were to accept this person fully, how do you imagine that would feel right now? How much more relaxed would you feel. Imagining a feeling of acceptance with a smile? Sa, How much more liberated would you.

Feel.

When you have let go of that resistance? Letting go of wanting to change that person, but instead letting them be who they are and just accepting them and letting it go? How much more liberating does that feel to you right now, Sam? Keeping your eyes closed, let's take a slow, deep breath in, Breathe out, enjoying those feelings of acceptance. We can just breathe this person out of our minds now. So let's take a slow, deep breath in, Breathe out, and let go of this person from our mind. So you see them disappearing off into the distance. That's good. That's right. This is also about accepting ourselves. So let's take a slow, deep breath in and accept ourselves as we breathe out. Imagining a feeling of acceptance, Being at peace with yourself, being at peace with other people, and being at peace with the world around you. So now, with gratitude for our mind working with us today, you can just gradually come back into our bodies. Feeling grounded and relaxed, we gradually now take a slow, deep breath in. And breathe out with a smile. And take another slow, deep breath in. And let go. And with a smile, you can just gently open your eyes.

Good. So welcome back. So I hope you enjoyed our accepting people meditation, which is very timely right now for those of you who are living in close proximity to many people. And I'd love for you once again to share this on your social media. Lots of people could benefit from that meditation. So please do share it far and wide. And tomorrow is our final meditation in this series of seven meditations where we will be looking at how we can be part of giving blessings to the world. And this is blessings to people who are suffering, blessings to those on the front line, and of course, blessings to those who are very ill right now. So this is something we can do for ourselves and the whole planet. So I hope you'll join me 5 o' clock UK time tomorrow and then on 5 o' clock on Thursday. This Thursday we'll be doing a session on how we can use this coronavirus situation as an opportunity for growth, both individually as a community and as a society and as a planet. So it's a wonderful, engaging conversation. So I look forward to seeing you on Thursday as well. So thank you so much for watching. Look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks and goodbye. A wonderful, engaging conversation. So I look forward to seeing you on Thursday as well. So thank you so much for watching. I look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks and goodbye.