Essence is acceptance, not as approval but as a healing agent. It is the spontaneous inner charge and discharge; the cleansing without rejection. When the personality stops because it sees that its activity is painful, it stops through understanding, and not through rejection. In fact, it is not that the personality stops and acceptance comes; they happen at the same time. The letting go of the personality and the washing of Essence are the same process. Your personality and Essence have the same understanding at that moment so they operate together; personality is not rejected but understood with compassion and love. Acceptance is actually an aspect of Essence; it is not an activity.

When I say, “accepting what is,” I do not mean accepting unconsciousness in yourself. Accepting what is means complete consciousness, means complete awareness of what is. When one is unconscious of what is, there is a rejection of what is. The enlightened point of view, or the natural point of view, which is what I prefer to call it, is that there is what is, all the time. It can be personality, essence, heat or cold. “What is” is what is. Very simple. If there is any attempt to get something else, to change what is there in your inner experience, then there is conflict. It is a certain understanding, which is simply the perception of how things work. It is not getting anything, not trying to go somewhere. It is just the perception of how things actually operate. All the work is needed in all its levels, all its aspects. Essence is needed in all its aspects for us in time to be able to tolerate seeing and accepting what is there. But there is no point in starting at the wrong end. Why not start from the correct perspective at the beginning so there will be fewer illusions, less resistance, less discord, and so that there will be the attitude of sincerely exploring truth? When you take the attitude of truth, you will understand that pain and suffering will increase for a while because what you’ve been rejecting will start manifesting. This will happen until you understand it. Then things will change.

Only when we allow ourselves to see the movement of rejection and allow our understanding to unfold completely does the simultaneous cessation of the movement of rejection and the flow of acceptance happen. Then we regain our confidence and trust in our organism, which is actually a trust in the truth. Seeing and understanding the truth allows this development, because when you completely see the workings of rejection you will feel the suffering and see that our usual way of life doesn't work, it causes suffering.

Acceptance will not be the personality accepting. Acceptance will be Essence coming; it will be like a benediction, a blessing, a gentle rain. The personality cannot accept. It can surrender to the truth of the moment -- which is the same as the stopping of rejection -- surrender and allow what is there to be there without preference and judgment.

This means that no part of ego is capable of accepting. The individuality of ego is incapable of Acceptance, because its very existence depends on a subtle attitude of rejection. Ego can only cease rejecting, but it cannot accept. The complete cessation of rejection is the absence of all defense and resistance. This precipitates the aspect of Acceptance. Thus Acceptance involves the cessation of ego, or of a segment of its structure. We see here the intimate relationship between the aspect of Acceptance and the process of absorption. Acceptance is really necessary for absorption to occur, for absorption cannot proceed if there is still resistance, which is rejection. The word acceptance is somewhat misleading, for the aspect is not an active attitude; there is no activity of acceptance. It is a presence of Being when there is no attitude of either “no” or “yes.” A “yes” could mean a prejudice, a certain point of view. But this aspect does not have any attitude. It is a pure, delicate and gentle presence, of utmost humility and exquisite refinement. It is like a gentle rain, that brings freshness and life. Most individuals, when they experience it, refer to it as blessings.

True acceptance doesn’t contain any kind of attitude of rejection. It is not a humiliating, violent throwing up, nor does it bring up any repulsion in the soul. It’s just there. Something arises, and you don’t respond with a moral or preferential invested judgment. You just recognize the feeling or experience for what it is, whether it’s something that feels good or doesn’t feel good. You experience it with presence and awareness. Your sense of satisfaction or contentment doesn’t depend on whether it meets a particular standard that you have set up for your experience.

First, you realize that you are rejecting and pushing, you see it and you don't identify with it, then there is understanding of the rejection and cessation of the rejection. And finally a certain essential state flows that is called "acceptance". It feels like a blessing, a melting, a kind of vulnerability, a kind of non-defensiveness.