Falling Upward - The need for Radical Acceptance

Sat 8th March 

Falling Upward

We meet in Satsang for a Day of Reflection where our theme will be Falling Upwards - the Spiritual task for the Mature Traveller .Our day will focus around a video Falling Upwards.by Father Richard Rohr.  This addresses the many paradoxes on the Spiritual Journey.

Now many of the Faith Traditions and Mystics have focused on and reminded us of the importance of ‘Falling Upwards’ in the 2^nd half of life. A time when we mature spiritually and fix our aim on Ultimate Reality, the Spirit by whatever name or form we call it.

This 2^nd half is not about chronological age i.e. its not something for the over 40s ! Its about Spiritual Maturity, as the Christian Mystic St Paul says in 1 Cor 13 ‘ When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways’ 

 This maturity can occur at any age. The Dalai Lama was 9 when he became the leader of Tibetan Buddhists. Many of the great Saints and Gurus of Hinduism and Sikhism were relatively young and Jesus' favourite disciple ( John) was a young man.

Our day will look at the Richard’s video in 2 parts. We will focus on the importance of the first half of life in building our sense of self but then our need to willingly let it go as we enter the 2^nd half , i.e. spiritual maturity.

We look forward to seeing you on Sat 8^th March 10.30 – 4.30

Prior to that the following reflections are designed to focus on several practices that can help develop our spiritual maturity. These focus on the need for Compassionate and Radical Acceptance of self. In other words, to lose one's self we must first find the real and true self.

'Programmed' in early life, most of us judge, view and accept ourselves through our relationships, job roles etc.  In other words we view our self by referring to the outside world. In some branches of Psychology this is  termed  as object or outer referral. The problem with this is that we can fail to look at our inner self.  To become more aware of or real or true self requires us to journey inwards and to find  the inner self. This requires us to develop the practice of self-referral.  There are several steps or stages or practices that could help us in this endeavour.

Compassionate  Awareness

The first practice is compassionate awareness in the present moment. This is often referred to as either Awareness in the Hindu  tradition or Right Mindfulness in Buddhism or the Practice of the Present Moment  in Christianity. . It requires us to become more awake and aware of what is happening in the here and now. Particularly within us.


Radical and Non-Judgemental Acceptance

The next practice is to take this growing awareness of the present into a practice of Radical and Non-Judgmental Acceptance.

This requires us to Notice but don't judge.  It demands that we become compassionate with our self and others and we also become patient. Strong emotions and thoughts are best understood and , if necessary, healed both by being heard and by the soothing balm of self compassion and non judgemental acceptance


Empathic Inner Listening

We can then integrate these two practices into our daily life by a third practice of Deep Empathy and inner listening allied to  self dialogue.

This involves a kind of inner focus an exercise that is similar to Gendlin' s Experiential Focusing. Here we listen to our inner self and begin to both here and understand our deepest emotions. These are often referred to as a Felt Sense and are normally part of our intuitive and/ gut feelings. 

Some Final Thoughts

Finally, as we develop and deepen these 3 practices we begin to develop our awareness of  our self., others and our world. Then we step out and begin to meet others and share our growing awareness  of the underlying unity in our unique and varied diversity.

This last point can be assisted by regularly meeting with fellow spiritual travellers in Satsang and sharing of our self and our journey.