Acceptance: Stop Tightening the Knot

Acceptance: Stop Tightening the Knot

In our PVH affirmations, we repeatedly say:

“I deeply and completely accept…”

But what does that acceptance actually look like in daily life?

I’m still learning what this means in practice, but sharing what I realized so far through PVH teachings, lived experience, and observing senior teachers.

Acceptance doesn’t mean not caring, having no preferences, or becoming passive.

We can care deeply about something and still accept what is present.

What acceptance asks us to release is the emotional grip around the outcome — whether that grip comes from desire, resistance, fear, frustration, or the need for things to unfold differently.

Express, Then Accept

In PVH, one of the ways we express what we want is through Divine Fire. We construct Divine Fire sentences around the aspects of our lives we hope to improve.

We can ask for a wonderful job, a wonderful husband or wife, a healed relationship, a supportive boss, prosperity and money, better health, or other improvements in our lives.

We express what we want to improve.

But we don’t have to dictate exactly how it must arrive, when it must arrive, or what form it must take.

We express, and then we accept whatever is now, and stay open to whatever comes/not, whenever it comes or doesn’t not come at all.

It is almost like asking our mom for food.

We can say, Mom, I’m hungry. I’d really like this.

Then we trust that she heard us.

She may be busy in the kitchen. She may serve exactly what we asked for, or she may give us something else because she knows what we need. And she will serve it when the time is right.

We don’t need to stand at the kitchen door repeating:

I’m hungry, I’m hungry, I’m hungry.

We asked. We stay available and open.

Now let her cook. 

We express the preference. We do what is ours to do. Then we surrender the form, timing and outcome.

What we need for our soul’s growth may come very differently from what our mind imagined.

And once we have expressed what we want, the question becomes: what do we do while we wait? 

Just Do

We can go in the kitchen and act, mindfully, lovingly, engage in the cooking process, chop vegetables, take over that soup, set up beautiful table for whole family…

Siva sir talks about this in a very practical way.

We don’t keep repeating:

I want this. I want this. I want this.

And no matter how hard it feels, we don’t keep saying:

I don’t want this. Why is this happening? Why me? Why again?

These are excellent questions for diagnosis so that we may address and heal all aspects. But then, we don’t have to spend all our energy analyzing every angle of life.

Just do.

Do good. Be good. Do good work.

Whether it is PVH work, helping another person, earning a living, supporting our families, or simply handling what needs to be done that day, we keep doing the work in front of us.

And then we let the divine take charge of how everything unfolds.

Note: To do this, we must stay genuinely connected to the divine. We keep our energy clear and divine cord strong. We make sure it is truly our Higher Soul and the divine guiding us and that nothing else has quietly taken over that connection. This is one of the key reasons of the emphasis on spiritual hygiene.

This keeps our actions and our mind grounded.

Siva sir also asks us to look at motive:

Why do we want this?

If we only want something for ourselves, it may come or it may not. But when the desire is connected to doing good, helping others or serving, something changes. Dr. Siva himself is an example of this.

Again and again, the teaching comes back to something very simple:

Keep doing good.

That sounds simple. In practice, our emotions and attachments can make it harder even if we are doing a lot of Divine Fire and healing.

Buddhist Middle Path

Siva sir and Rosario Madam often speak of the Buddhist path of suffering. Pain is inevitable but there is an end to the suffering.

The Lake

The image that often comes to my mind is a lake.

Imagine us trying to paddle across a large, irregular lake on a windy day.

The water is choppy. We are constantly correcting the boat. If the wind is also carrying in thick haze, we cannot see very far either.

We may focus intensely on one patch of shoreline because it is the only thing visible and convince ourselves that this must be the destination.

Or we may become frightened by something immediately ahead and start paddling frantically away from it.

Emotional attachment can be like that.

Strong wanting creates wind. Strong resistance creates wind.

Fear, anger, judgment and constant questioning create more turbulence.

But when the strong emotional charge begins to settle, the water becomes calmer.

In PVH, we can work toward this through actively monitoring our speech and mind, Emotional Freedom Healing, Divine Fire for ourselves, our souls and the resolution, and by deeply and consciously accepting what has manifested.

The air clears.

We can see farther.

Not necessarily the whole lake.

Most of us do not have perfectly clear intuition or complete access to our soul’s divine path. Sometimes we genuinely have no idea where we are supposed to go next.

But perhaps we can see the next opening.

So we paddle toward that.

Once we round the bend, something else may become visible. Maybe the original destination still feels right. Maybe another shoreline appears that we could not have seen from where we started.

Acceptance doesn’t mean giving up direction.

It means giving up the demand to know the entire route.

The lake analogy helps us understand what emotion does to our clarity and effort. 

There is another aspect - of resisting - that hijacks are best efforts. The tangled thread helps me understand what resistance does to the problem itself.

The Knot Tightens When We Pull

When something difficult appears in life, our instinct is often to pull.

Get this out of my life.

Pull.

Why is this happening again?

Pull harder.

I need this other thing instead.

Pull from the opposite direction.

And the knot becomes tighter.

Sometimes the challenge itself may contain something we need to experience, understand, release or learn through.

If we directly or subconsciously fight the existence of the difficulty, we may simply tighten ourselves further into it. Sometimes, the same challenge starts repeating itself. 

But, there is a way to approach this. 

We don’t even have to understand why the knot is there before we begin loosening it.

We stop pulling.

We look for the little place where the thread already has some room.

We work there.

Then another opening appears.

Then another.

That, to me, is acceptance that surrenders.

Not collapsing in front of the knot or pretending it isn’t there. Not saying we have to like it.

Simply stopping the fight long enough to see where movement is possible.

And step by step, it untangles.

Our work continues. But it is in calm surrender, calm confidence.

The Goal Is Not a Life Without Knots

During a challenging time, Madam Sreenithi explained something to me that was inspiring in a hard moment.

As we grow spiritually, we may complete one lesson, grow stronger through it, and then move on to the next — one that asks more of the strength we have just developed.

So the goal is not a life without challenges or pain.

The goal is to keep growing through them.

And perhaps there is trust in that too: if a bigger lesson has appeared, we may already have more strength to meet it than we realize.

After all, life is a school for the soul, and we keep graduating to the next level.

I wonder if acceptance is something we ever finish learning but keep strengthening. 

Sreenithi Madam, in her expansive work, faces high level of dark energy and entities. She speaks of surrendering to God even in this - “I will keep doing God’s work.” She maintained this stance even in scary moments when most would fold in panic. And came thru it. 

Daily Practice Makes the Knots Easier to See

Siva sir often reminds us that regular basic PVH maintenance matters enormously.

When we keep our energy clear, we are not starting from complete turbulence when the next knot appears.

The water is already calmer.

The air is already clearer.

And because we have kept paddling, our muscles are stronger and the movement has become familiar. We have built a kind of muscle memory for returning to clarity, connection and acceptance.

So when the next knot appears, we can often recognize it sooner and find the opening more easily, supported by clearer energy and Divine blessings.

But clearer energy does not mean that life stops bringing challenges.

Being an Instrument

Rosario Madam taught me another dimension of acceptance: what to request, when we are working thru a challenge. She spoke of the sun, who shines the life giving light relentlessly, without any judgement and frequently reminded me whenever I would feel down:

Ask God to be an INSTRUMENT.

It goes beyond:

If I get what I want, I’m fine. If I don’t, I’m fine.

It is about staying centered around:

Whatever happens, God please use me as your instrument. I am your spark. Use me to be the light that shines no matter what comes my way.

If this door opens, use me there.

If it doesn’t, use me wherever I am now.

Maybe the person in front of me is part of the work. Maybe what looks like a delay is not a delay from the soul’s perspective at all.

I don’t have to know.

I just have to stay available. Be the light. (Affirmation: I am light.) 

My Own Experience With This

I learned a version of these lessons during a long, stuck job search.

Months of strong referrals and good conversations, and still nothing was moving.

Siva sir kept telling me there was a lot of dark energy around me.

I couldn’t understand why.

I had deliberately stopped thinking about a difficult chapter with a former boss and told myself I had already let it go.

Then someone deeply grounded in Buddhist practice asked me one simple question:

What happens if you don’t get the job?

My answer came out before I had a single thought.

My ego will be crushed! It already was, from the layoff. But it would be so much worse.

That, he said, was exactly the problem.

My former boss may not deliberately have been doing anything to me or even thinking of me. But the old energy could still reach me because I was still holding on, even while telling myself I had let go and I was in acceptance.

The attachment was still the hook for the dark energy blocking movement.

Once I reached a place of real acceptance, something shifted very quickly.

Siva sir confirmed that the energy was finally clear. Soon afterward, I received an unexpected, unplanned call that led to an interview, and things moved quickly from there.

After I got the job, challenges continued to appear. But now I had learned to ask myself:

Am I being an instrument here, or is this my ego?

Am I responding to what is actually happening, or am I fighting because reality isn’t matching my opinion of how it should happen?

And sometimes:

Have I stopped trusting the divine because I cannot yet see what is around the next bend?

That question doesn’t magically take me into perfect acceptance.

It simply creates one little opening.

A loose place in the thread.

A brief clearing in the fog.

And from there, I can take the next step and allow the situation to unfold.

That experience also helped me understand why Siva sir’s emphasis on regular PVH maintenance matters so much.

Still a Student

I remain a student of life and a student of PVH.

Another situation always comes along, and I have to practice again.

That is also one of the beautiful things about the global PVH community. We are not practicing alone. Our teachers, senior members and PVH friends support and remind one another. Sometimes someone else sees the knot we are pulling before we do.

For me, acceptance is not something to master and finish.

It is something we keep practicing: staying clear, staying connected, supporting each other, doing what is ours to do, trusting the divine plan, and learning to recognize the opening when it appears.