It took me a long time to understand this. The "yes" that we say to everything is an internal thing. Internally we become more and more willing to let everything show up as it does. But externally, this internal "yes" shows up as a "yes" or a "no."
An example: Suppose someone asks us to go have dinner with them or go into business with them. Internally we can have a perfect "yes" to that, to that person being the way they are, to the situation being the way it is, to their asking the question. Transparent to whatever it is.
But then externally, we can say "yes" or "no." "Yes, I'll go have dinner with you." "No, I won't go into business with you." We look for the truth of how the energy wants to flow externally and go with that. But inside, we can rejoice each moment at everything being the way it is.
This especially applies to those parts of life that we find disgusting, bad or unacceptable. Internally, we work to open our heart more and more to the world as it is, to put nothing and nobody out of our heart.
Then externally, we might work to alleviate hunger or homelessness or sickness or war or injustice or pollution or whatever. But if we do so from a place of condemnation, we're perpetuating the very same state of mind that caused this negativity to appear in the first place.
Jesus spoke to this very eloquently. Paraphrasing, he said that if we love only those who love us, what have we accomplished?—because that's commonplace. He said that where our hearts really learn to open is when we learn to love even the unacceptable in life.
And as Byron Katie pointed out, it's not that we condone "bad" things. We may very well work to bring light to such situations. But how can we bring light to them from a place of darkness inside? We can't. Only from a place of transparency to existence, of trust in life, of being in love with reality, can we hope to light the way about anything.
—jim sloman, fall 2000 for Oct 6
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