Musings of an Aunty — Submitting to Whatever Is, Is, and What Is Meant to Be, Is Meant to Be

We all want to be happy and joyful, not the momentarily “I won a lottery” type, but in an authentic, lasting way, independent of circumstances.

Since time immemorial, we’ve searched for it, almost desperately, but have yet to find this elixir that’s supposedly our intrinsic nature and our very birthright.

Spiritual masters of any religion say that it’s within easy grasp; all we need to do is quieten our opinionated and predisposed mindset and give ourselves over to the will of the One Creator, who knows best.

This might sound like “grit your teeth and bear whatever life doles out,” but it isn’t advice to be passive or resigned. Rather, we should exercise the wisdom given to us to imbibe the lessons these seemingly disturbing events and people are teaching us; lessons to help us evolve into our higher selves.

If we look around us, it’s not just humans, but everything that breathes. Be it an ant or an elephant, each aspires for greener pastures and a fear-free existence, but will inevitably face hardships and hurdles.

The difference here is the response; they don’t overthink and analyse the how and why of their issues, but pick themselves up and do whatever it takes to survive.

We, with our so-called superior intelligence, rather than finding a way around the unavoidable situation, get rattled and fazed. We view the situation through tunnel vision where “I am the centre of the universe,” and so we beat our chests and wail, “poor me, why does this happen only to me; life is so unfair.”

We lose focus and, rather than take calculated actions, we react, and that too, through an erroneous mind tainted heavily by rigid personal opinions and preconceived notions.

The most detrimental one is the assumption that things and people should be exactly as we would want them. We refuse to accept what is, as is, as the truth of the moment, and actively resist it.

Our slogan, “could have been, should have been,” runs on an endless loop; conveniently forgetting the million things that have worked in our favour.

This non-acceptance perpetuates non-peace within ourselves, creating ripples of discontent and frustration, which in turn depletes energy and clouds judgment, a self-inflicted misery.

There are no winners in this game of resistance; age will creep up, sickness will happen, business will go up and down, traffic jams will happen, and our children won’t fulfil our dreams; they’re not meant to.

It is what it is, and the sooner we come to terms with it, the better for all of us. With just one Trump exercising “my way or the highway,” the world’s spinning on its head — imagine if everybody got their way!

There are rules that make things work, despite the seeming disorder: gravity holds us down; seasons shift; snow melts and feeds the rivers and oceans, in which sea creatures thrive and from which other animals feed.

This evaporates and returns as rain that cleans the air we pollute and nourishes crops that feed us, and trees that absorb our carbon dioxide and give us oxygen.

There’s a grand plan in motion, in which our opinions matter not an iota. And the truth is: there isn’t much we can change or mould as per our version of good, right, and beneficial.

This is not to say we shouldn’t try, we vote for better politicians, work honestly, aspire for a better life, but the lesson is we can’t force results. In accepting what is, as is, we find the peace we’ve so desperately sought.

As Michael Singer writes in The Untethered Soul, “The truth is, everything will be okay as soon as you are okay with everything. And that’s the only time everything will be okay.”