Written by Guy Finley , a renowned spiritual teacher, bestselling self-help author, and founder of Life of Learning Foundation

Can you can see that, "If I'm ever to have freedom, somehow or other I'm going to have to accept everything that's given to me"? It seems counterintuitive, so let me explain why it's true.

There are two orders of transformation. They are not really separate; they are in a constant exchange, just like the river is in a constant exchange as water flows in and out at each point. The two orders of transformation are the transformation of myself and the transformation of the world.

You cannot transform the world into anything right, true, and meaningful without transformation of self. So, the order of things is transformation of self, then transformation of the world ... not create new laws according to ideas of a perfect map that leads to a happy world and then you'll be a different human being. We have seen unequivocally - that doesn't work.

Now, keep in mind this simple idea we're talking about: "How do I learn to accept everything that's given to me, and at the same time, take part in the fundamental understanding I have for the need for being a new human being so that in turn the world can become better?"

How many of us have problems accepting what we are given to be? Of course we do! That's why we have blame: "I can't accept what I'm given to be when you're negative. When you're negative, I can't accept that at all. In fact, I flat-out don't want you, and you stay away from me!"

Am I accepting what I'm given to be if I'm around people and they're negative, and I run from them, or I try to figure out how to make lots of money so I can isolate myself from everything irritating? No. How is it possible for me then to accept what is given to me to be? How do I accept that which I don't want?

It starts by beginning to see that "what I don't want" isn't the feeling of the moment. What I don't want is the feeling that gets stuck in my mind ... like a river stopping in midstream, so that now I'm looking at this one spot that looks bad and I don't want that one spot. I don't want to accept what I'm feeling. I don't want to accept what I'm going through.

Can I ask you a question? Can you change what has happened to you? Somebody says something you don't like. You're full of feelings you don't like, and you don't accept it. Can you change what has happened to you? No, but you try: change the person, come up with some other way to live or someone else to be. Nevertheless, you can't change what has happened! What has happened has happened.

The feeling you have felt cannot be changed; it can only be resisted as you are now. Resistance tries to stop the movement of the river so that you can be further defined by how disturbed you are for what you don't want.  

When you get bugged, when you get frightened, when you get worried, do you know why you stay that way? Because you freeze the river. The mind freezes the river. That's what thought does. Thought is a fast-freeze device.

But while we cannot change any moment, we can receive it. And in receiving it, the nature that receives it - through awareness - is actually part of the process of change itself. Then my real life, like the real river, is one continuous thing. There's no longer me apart from the movement of life, trying to control the way it goes. I have found inside of myself that which can be in relationship with the full movement of this perfect life, perfect purity, perfect energy that is working itself out, and I can accept it. The choice is all or nothing - and I choose all. I can accept what I'm given to be because if I accept it and see it, it is changed, and so am I. Then the river removes it as it moves on.

Look how beautiful it is if you can see it. When a person understands the true meaning of "letting go and letting God," they start to realize a completely different order of freedom, one that the mind cannot begin to imagine because the mind (in order to imagine things) freezes things, stops things.

Great intelligence has a great story that is never not telling itself. We can accept the whole of the story, and if we do, we're not apart from it anymore because we're living from a completely different order of ourselves in which the principle concern is not with proving ourselves or changing things according to our ideas, but instead being wide-awake, letting life give us what we are, what we need to be, and what we need to see, in each moment.

In the light of that awareness, we take a natural part in all the necessary change that the rest of the physical world is intended to reflect as it goes through the perfection process. That is the way to a great life and a great world. But the inner work must be done first, and you can do it right now.  

So, make an aim: I'm going to accept what I'm given to be. If you do that, then you'll see that what you're given to do as a result of that aim will never betray you ... or anyone else.