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✨ Beyond Self-Acceptance: What If Your Flaws Aren’t Actually Yours? ✨ · Spiritual Sense: Practical wisdom to quiet an overthinking mind and recharge your soul

• 0:01
  Speaker A: Hello, welcome to Spiritual Sense podcast. I'm Shereen Chadha and I'm here with Michael McIntosh. Today we are going to be talking about something really interesting. We've always been told, right, accept yourself, accept yourself. And sometimes this kind of self acceptance could be very hard. And what if the parts that you're trying to accept aren't really yours? Because sometimes self acceptance can actually get us stuck, get us stuck in our past, get us stuck in our old patterns and way of being. And so what is beyond self acceptance? That is what we will cover today.
• 0:50
  Speaker B: It's a wonderful topic. It's very, very deep. We hear this all the time, don't we? Self, accept yourself, love yourself. You know, everything's all good, but what is the self and what is the non self? Like, what parts of us are actually really ours? And what are the things that we just picked up along our journey through life? So that's what we're diving into today because we all have problems, we all have some stuff that we're dealing with. It could be negative feelings, it could be challenges, it could be waste thoughts, or there's loads and loads of stuff that we have internally.
• 1:30
  Speaker A: So one of the things I feel that we need to understand about self acceptance is do we really need to accept certain things, right? And what are these certain things we are not accepting? And so to be able to understand this very deeply, we need to really realize our old patterns. Like, you know, the trauma we have inherited, the trauma we have experienced. Inherited, you know, trauma, you know, like just conditioning, all of this, right? Those are old patterns. And because of those conditioning and because of previously experiences, we behave a certain way. So let's call that old patterns. And then are we taking ownership of these old patterns? Because is that who I really am? So that's a question we need to ask ourselves, right? Because the taking ownership versus my true identity, taking ownership of my true identity versus accepting my old patterns.
• 2:53
  Speaker B: So it's useful to think that there's the original self on one hand, who we are before we were programmed and conditioned and had negative influences and bad experiences. And then there's all this stuff that we've picked up through being alive. And a nice way of thinking about this is that anything negative. This is a really lovely quote that I took to heart a long time ago. Is any, anything negative is the non self is not who you are, right? So anything, whether it's negative thoughts, negative feelings, negative anything that is all acquired stuff that's like an easy way of discerning is this my Original self or is this a bunch of stuff I picked up? If it's negative, then it's not the original self because otherwise we're taking ownership for all this, all these other things. And I personally think it's helpful to consider all of our bad, bad stuff, bad parts as basically like an illness, right? Because let's say somebody, let's say like I'm getting on with my life and everything's fine and then I get sick because of a virus or something. Something or I have an accident or something happens, right? That's something that happened to me. That's not something that was there beforehand, originally, you know. Or let's say somebody's like on. Under the influence of drugs or alcohol or something and then they act differently than they would normally. It's not them. It's the influence of some other external force. Do you know what I mean? So there's a, there's a big difference between what is original and all these things that come in here. And I think if we see that the, the negative stuff is something that's. That's affected us like an illness, then it's easier to have compassion and not take it too personally and get attached to it and identify with it. What do you think about that?
• 5:03
  Speaker A: Right, right. I'm thinking of the mid pack.
• 5:07
  Speaker B: The mid path. Again, the midpath.
• 5:11
  Speaker A: Thinking of the mid path, mid path is acknowledging that they are old patterns versus thinking I'm the old patterns, right? So there has been on a very deep fundamental level there has been an identity theft. You could call it, in our parlance, we call it Ravan, right? Ravana is this villain in the Ramayana. And so, but in our case, like you were saying about the vices, right? Anger, lust, ego, all of those we call as Ravan or Maya or Maya. There's not a physical being out there, but we call these. We club all of the vices together, all of them together and we call it Maya or Ravan. And I like what you're sharing.
• 6:11
  Speaker B: Lives in the cupboard. Lives in the cupboard and comes out and attacks everyone before they know what's happening.
• 6:16
  Speaker A: The monster.
• 6:17
  Speaker B: Such strange things happen.
• 6:18
  Speaker A: And so this monster Ravan goes under the bed. Under the bed, okay. This monster Ravan is like you were saying, it's a disease, right? Could happen to anyone and it could just erupt. But one thing is to acknowledge that there is an old pattern governing my life and to really look at the old pattern and see how we can do it versus owning the pattern. You see the difference? I feel that's the mid path we have to follow. Don't own the pattern, but acknowledge the pattern.
• 7:04
  Speaker B: Exactly. It's that I'm a big fan of 12 step groups, except for one thing which I don't agree with, is that like, let's say someone's an alcoholic. They are taking responsibility for the fact that there's a bad behavior that's wrecked their life. Alcoholism, right. It's ruined their life. And someone says like I'm an alcohol. I have, I have had this issue. So normally they say I am an alcoholic, right? But the problem with that, I understand why people do that because they're trying to have the humility to acknowledge they need to deal with it, right. That that's the why they say that. But it's not that anyone actually is really an alcoholic. And alcoholism or drug addiction is an acquired pattern. So it's more accurate to say I am a spiritual being and I have alcoholism issue that I'm working through. You know, whatever it is. Like I'm. I'm a spiritual being and I have been affected by this negative feeling or this negative thought or these bad habits, but it's not who I am. It's something that I have. It's almost like I. It's like saying my name is Michael and I have a cold or I have the flu, or I have Covid or I've, you know, I've got an injury in my hand or something. There's a difference, isn't there, between who I am and what I have. And then, then it's up to us to how are we going to deal with these issues that we have? How can we relieve ourselves of them or make them better or heal them?
• 8:44
  Speaker A: Absolutely. I feel that this identity, right, identity, especially elevated identity, is so important. And every time I think, for example, I'm an anxious person, that's who I am, right? That's my nature. I'm an anxious person. So what I'm doing is I'm actually owning because I'm reframing my identity as I'm an anxious person, right? The way to reframe that, the way to reframe that is I'm a soul, I'm pure, I'm peaceful. And at this moment, you're not ignoring the anxiety. Right at this moment, anxiety is going through me. It's temporary, it's going through me, right? Just for this moment or these few moments or whatever, right? So it's going through me, but it's not me. And so even slight reframes like that, which seem simple but are actually very profound, can make a huge difference because ultimately no one really wants to be an anxious person, right? And so each time I keep identifying with being an anxious person, I'm reinforcing a very bad behavior that the soul is adopting. And that's not reality. Reality is not you're an anxious person. Reality is you're a pure, peaceful soul. Right at this moment, you're experiencing anxiety, but when you were born, you didn't experience anxiety. You were a pure, peaceful soul at that point. And so to really go back to that original factory setting, right, that there is a original factory setting for every soul. And there's all this muck right now accumulated on the soul. And every time we identify with the muck, we are moving away from that original factory setting. And because we are spiritual beings, we can revert back to the original factory setting. And so to keep going back to it, think, no, I'm a pure, peaceful soul at this moment. Anger is flowing through me, but I'm not an angry person.
• 11:12
  Speaker B: That's a great analogy, actually. Factories, like, because with computers or phones or whatever, especially laptops and computers, when you get a brand new computer and there's nothing on it, it works great, it works fast. It's all good. There's none of these issues. But then over time, you know, we install programs, more programs, more programs, and then it can get cluttered up. It takes the memory up. There can be viruses and things slowing it down. And so that is really clear because that's basically what happens. We keep adding and adding and adding and adding, and all this stuff starts getting. And then we get affected by things. So it's like we are a original state, but there's all these viruses and all this stuff stuck on it. And we have to clean. You have to remove those things. So you wouldn't say, like, your computer is bad. It's just it might have viruses on it and it might have unnecessary programs and random, like, big files. Because I often have to, like, go through my laptop and look at all the big files and delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, because it runs out of space. Because I do so many videos. That's not who I am. That's experiences that I've had that I can now clear out, and then everything runs better. So that this is actually very clear analogy for this, that it's not that we are kind of clogged up with a bunch of random stuff. It's just that we are dealing with that temporarily. And it needs a good. A good Cleanse a good cleaning. A good. A good deletion process, isn't it?
• 12:51
  Speaker A: Right.
• 12:52
  Speaker B: I like that.
• 12:53
  Speaker A: You know, one of the things that I feel is we need to understand what actually works, right? Do I really want something? Okay, why are we saying this? Go beyond this whole idea of self acceptance. Go beyond and really establish your identity as a pure, peaceful soul. That's the basic premise of this episode is establish yourself on a higher plane. Don't all the muck. You're the diamond, right? There's muck on the diamond, but don't identify with the muck. You're the diamond and keep looking at the diamond. And so why are we saying that is because we want people to experience their original innocence, their original joy. We want people to experience that thing. And the question you have to ask yourself is, do you want to experience that, right? Or do you want to hang on to is because many times people mistake comfort for happiness, right? You could be comfortable in identifying yourself as an angry person or an anxious person, or being in anxiety could be comfortable because that's who you've been for so long. But it doesn't mean that's not your natural state of joy. That's not happiness. That's just comfort. And so if you want to go beyond comfort and really experience your original state of joy, this is the way to do it.
• 14:36
  Speaker B: That's beautiful. So there's an original state, which is infinite joy and peace and love, freedom, purity and power and all the good feelings. And then there's all this viruses and just random stuff that's stuck on there that we need to disassociate ourselves from so that we can delete it and clear it out.
• 15:01
  Speaker A: You know, we were talking about Raavan, right? And so it's really good to assign this monster Ravan with all your negativity, right? Just say it's Ravan's property, it's Ravan's, right? Even though Ravana is not a being, it's not like this little devil with a little pitchfork and, you know, horns and a tail sitting on your shoulder and talking, it's not that, right? It's these very subtle vices that have sabotaged you your whole life. That's who Ravana is. But to give it to Ravan, to take this thing that has sabotaged your life and just say this is Ravan's property, it's not mine, and give it. Because what Ravan has done is Ravan has did the worst identity theft possible in the history of mankind. The worst identity theft possible. Ravan has done. Ravana has come into you, the soul and told you that you. Hey you. You're not pure, peaceful, you're not lovely, you're not loving, you're not loved. You're all of these lacks, right? You're angry, you're anxious. No one loves you. Life is hard, you know. You're angry person, you are egotistical. Whatever, Whatever, right? You have all of these stuff. That is the worst identity theft ever. And so you need to identify Raavan and talk to Ravan and say, hey Raavan, sit down. I'm not giving in to you anymore. This is not working out. I need to take back my identity. And the identity I'm taking back is I am a pure, peaceful, blissful, loving, peaceful soul. That's who I am. Wise. That's who I am. Powerful. That's who I am. Everything else is Ravan's property. You keep your property and let me take reclaim my property. It's good to have a chat with Robin.
• 17:24
  Speaker B: Yeah. Raavan needs to be talked to firmly and often. Actually, you know, regularly. Regularly and firmly. Because otherwise it's all mixed up together, isn't it?
• 17:36
  Speaker A: Absolutely.
• 17:37
  Speaker B: And. And this whole thing, self acceptance can easily be. I'm accepting Robin's property as my own. And then, then it just carries on and carries on, carries on and there's no progress. We have to say, no, I, who I am is only and exclusively a pure soul. This is a radical thing to do actually. If you really think about it. We're saying all I am and all I have is pure light, peace, joy, love, bliss and happiness. That's it. That's. That's it. That's the whole thing right there. And everything else is all either Ravan or just external stuff that's just temporarily in the world, you know, which I'm having to sort of experience that very radical thing to do and that's why it's so powerful.
• 18:28
  Speaker A: There's another thing that you can do, another Yukti. Another method that I use is return to the sender. So Ravan keeps sending me stuff, right?
• 18:43
  Speaker B: Robin's very good. He's very persistent.
• 18:45
  Speaker A: Very.
• 18:45
  Speaker B: Let's, let's. Before we, let's. Before we complain about Robin, let's give him some credit, right? Ravan is very persistent. He's very determined and has. Because. Let's just talk briefly about the word Ravan, right? Because people don't know this, right? This is like in India there's the Ramayana and in the Ramayana there's a demon King called ravan who has 10 heads. Right. Do you want to talk a little bit about Ravana? And the thing why I found interesting, I'll let you share in a minute, is that Ravan is actually quite a charming, sophisticated person in the story. He's not just this monster, he's a good king.
• 19:22
  Speaker A: His kingdom is actually quite wonderful.
• 19:26
  Speaker B: Exactly. So like Satan in, in Christianity, Satan's just clearly red and he's got horns and he's just prodding people with his pitchfork and everything. Right. But that's, that's too obvious and too sort of like basic. Right? Ravan is sophisticated, successful because. And this is Ravan's kingdom. And so if you look at the world, there's lots of good, good stuff going on and all this technology and all these things. So it's much more nuanced what we're talking about than this kind of black and white angel and the devil on the shoulder type of thing. So do you want to talk a little bit more about Raavan so you get a better sense of what we're dealing with here?
• 20:02
  Speaker A: So when we say Raavan, we obviously don't mean the guy in the Ramayana, right? The king in Ramayana. What we are saying when we say Ravana is that there are five vices for men and five vices for women. Or you could say there are five vices and they have their masculine form and their feminine form. And the five vices are lust, anger, greed, ego, attachment. And we are not just saying those are the only vices. They are the primary vices. Just like primary colors, you mix and match primary colors and you get the whole color spectrum in the same way you mix and match these five vices. Lust, anger, greed, ego, attachment. Then you get all of the vices in the world. And so they're masculine form of these vices and their feminine form of these vices. For example, let's talk anger, right? There's this very obvious anger where I'm really upset. Angry, angry, right. That would be masculine form of anger. And the feminine form of anger would be dislike, annoyance, jealousy, passive aggressive. That would be feminine form of anger. So Ravan has 10 heads, right. I feel Ravan needs to have 30 heads. But the problem with having 10 heads is that you kill one head, the other nine heads are still living. And before you can tackle other nine heads, the head that you killed comes back five. And so you have to be really careful with Ravan. Ravan, like you're saying, is very nuanced. But don't be Scared? Don't be scared. You know what people say, right? Keep your friends closer. Keep your enemies even closer. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Or something like that. So Ravan, our vices are our enemy. Not a human being. Not any person. Not a little guy with, you know, horns and a tail. Not that's not our enemy. Our enemy are our own vices which we will call it Ravan. Right, Ravan. Right here. And so this Ravana needs to be talked to. You need to identify what is originally you and what is not you. And like you were saying, anything that is not your pure, peaceful, joyful self, right? Anything that is not that is Ravan's property. And that's a very radical way of looking at things that you don't take ownership of anything that is not the original you. Because that is what is returned to the sender. Is right? Like I think of certain things, right? Like I'm thinking, like let's say this past weekend we had a retreat and I was so exhausted and I was having all these waste thoughts. And then I sat down and I said, no, this is Robin's property. This is not mine. Originally. I'm a pure, enthusiastic, peaceful soul, right? Whatever negative things are coming, I need to acknowledge the pattern that is the trauma that is going on. The pattern that is going on. I need to acknowledge it. But this is who I am. I'm a pure, peaceful soul. The other property, just keep giving it back. Sending it back to Ravana, sending it back. Every time it comes. Even if for 10 minutes you sit down and do this exercise in a day where you are not taking ownership of things that are not yours. In reality they are not yours. It's like you are this beautiful diamond and there's a lot of mud around the diamond. You're a diamond. The mud is not you, right? Every time I think, oh, I'm the mud, I'm taking ownership of the mud. And the mud keeps sticking even more when I take ownership of it. And so this, you need to understand what the mud is. And you need to keep giving the mud back to Ravana. Keep it, keep it, keep it. Return it to the sender.
• 24:32
  Speaker B: Yeah. Again and again and again. Surrender it. Surrender it. Let go. Let go, let go. Let go. The moment it arises. That's the secret. Soon as it comes, we say this is an illness. It's not who I am. I picked this up, Ravan gave it to me. I don't want it. And I'm consciously choosing to let it go rather than acting on it. Because rather than. Is like a possession, actually if you think about it, it's like an evil spirit and we've all had the experience of everything seems to be fine, then we get triggered. Then we get this like weird energy come over us and we do something. Then the energy dissipates and then we think, what the. What, what, what was that? Right. Then we might have to apologize to somebody or whatever. Right. Like anger is obvious example of this. Angry, everything's fine. They get triggered, then get really annoyed, say something that we regret. And then I'm sorry I got angry with you. I'm really sorry. That wasn't because Raven is possessing us. I mean, I don't want anyone to freak out about this. Like, it's not like a, like a psychic possession, but it, it does feel like that, doesn't it? When. When the. Anyone who's had any addiction or any negativity knows exactly who I'm talking about. It comes through, it takes, takes possession of the mind and the body and then it does what it wants and then it moves out. And we're like, what happened there? That's Ravan right there. It's another way of saying it is the severe illness, the very severe illness of the five vices that has taken possession of the body, mind and soul. You know, this is a real thing, right? Like we could freak ourselves out talking about this too much, but we're trying to be somewhat light hearted about it because we want to separate ourselves from.
• 26:22
  Speaker A: Yes. The whole point. Yes. Michael.
• 26:24
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 26:25
  Speaker A: I'm glad you brought up. The whole point is separating yourself from it. Right. Don't identify with it. The. You have to reframe again, the identity statement that needs to happen here is every time, let's say you're getting angry. Right. Acknowledge. Yes. Anger is moving through the soul. It's happening. But I'm not angry. I'm a pure, peaceful soul. Right. That's what you have to do. Pick anything that's moving through you. Anxiety. Give me some more examples. Something that moved through you recently.
• 27:01
  Speaker B: You could say, I am a pure, peaceful soul who's feeling stressed right now. Right. Or irritated, you know, or whatever it is. And any of the. I like what you're saying. Like the, the colors can all be mixed together to any color. So when, when you hear different spiritual teachings, they have a different list. You know, like it might be resentment, it might be sloth and pride. And there's a whole bunch of different words rather than lust, anger, ego, greed and attachment. Because you mix them together and you End up with this very, very, very long list of negative things. But it's all Ravan basically. So the, the kind of shortcut to see is it Ravana or not Ravana is that if it isn't peace, love, joy, happiness, purity and power and freedom, then it's Ravan basically. If it's not an elevated state of joy and happiness and spiritual awareness, then it's Ravan.
• 27:58
  Speaker A: When this identity theft happens, right, the whole world is in collusion with it because everyone is looking at you that way. They're looking at you thinking, oh, she's angry, right? No one is looking at you and saying, oh, she's a pure peaceful soul.
• 28:23
  Speaker B: I'm so peaceful and relaxed.
• 28:25
  Speaker A: And so it's up to us. The onus is on us to reclaim this identity back. I'm a pure, peaceful soul. But my original nature, right? This is what my realization was this past weekend. My original nature is benevolence. My original nature is pure feelings and good wishes for all. That is my original nature. And you know the amazing thing about this original nature is that is everyone's original nature. Benevolence, pure feelings and good wishes for all. And so you talk to Ravana and you give to Ravana everything that is not you. And you keep identifying with this. I'm a benevolent soul. I'm a pure soul. I'm have good wishes and pure feelings for all. Even if you don't, just keep talking to yourself this way and one day you will have good wishes and pure feelings for all.
• 29:30
  Speaker B: That's beautiful. So return to sender. This is, this is, I mean, what a wonderful breakthrough. Just to know there's a difference between who you really are and all this other stuff. It's a big deal to separate it out. So any negative feeling is. And it's not that we don't, we don't say, oh, you know, like let's say I got angry with somebody and they're like, why did you get angry with me? Oh, nothing to do with me. That was Robin, right? You don't do that. You don't say, oh no, no, I didn't do anything. That was Robin. Obviously, you know, it was nothing to do with me.
• 30:01
  Speaker A: It was just Robin talking.
• 30:03
  Speaker B: You know, that's. We don't do that to people. We say, no, no, it's my responsibility, I'm sorry, I, Robin kind of like got the better of me and now I'm choosing to release that and re. Identify with, with who I am. So it's, we're taking responsibility for like if someone's sick, right, they can say, oh, I'm sick, I'm sick, I'm sick, I'm sick. It's like, well, what are you going to do about it? Like, have you got medicine for this? Are you going to do anything to cure your illness? Or are you just going to sit there and blame the illness for everything? So we do everything we can to free ourselves from Robin's seductive force. And obviously we're getting something out of Rav. And otherwise this wouldn't be such a problem for us to give it up. So we have to be willing to surrender up the attachment that we have to these various vices. So this is a big, big, big topic. Main thing is, send it back to the sender. Recognize who you are and who you're not and identify with that beautiful shining diamond. Yay. So let's have a blessing, shall we?
• 31:13
  Speaker A: Before the blessing, I was thinking about something. I was thinking our life is a great reclamation project. We are reclaiming what is rightfully ours. But you can only reclaim what is rightfully yours if you really want it. You should really want. Can't be half baked. You should really want it. I want my original self back. My authentic self. I want it back.
• 31:52
  Speaker B: And the authentic self is so much more joyful, happy and liberated. Ravana is literally like being sick. So it's like, do we want to be sick in a sick state? Like you have a serious flu, or. Or do you want to be healthy and free? I mean, that's really what we're talking about.
• 32:10
  Speaker A: But you know what happens, Michael, is people want to be sick because they've been sick for so long. They don't know any other way to be, right? So don't mistake comfort for joy. It's just you're being comfortable. That's not who you are.
• 32:30
  Speaker B: And also I suppose what it is is that if someone hasn't experienced their higher self, their original self, they don't. Like I talked to someone recently who said if I let go of all that stuff, there'll be nothing left. And that's, I think, what a lot of people think because we're so used to these things that we think if I release all of it, like imagine you deleted everything off your computer, well, there'd be nothing there, you know, but it'd actually be better in many cases, right, to only have the things you need on there. But there can be that fear what's going to be left afterwards. So there's a certain amount of trust required here, right? Come back to the point.
• 33:12
  Speaker A: So based on that, should we do a med. Do a blessing?
• 33:17
  Speaker B: Yeah. I'm not sure if you've got a blessing on send back to Ravan, but. Or original self.
• 33:23
  Speaker A: I was thinking faith.
• 33:26
  Speaker B: Faith that once you let go of negative things, what you're left with is bad, better stuff that's more happy and wonderful.
• 33:35
  Speaker A: So this blessing is to you from God. Faith. Your trust in yourself has made a lifetime of triumphs possible. Your faith unlocked treasures within yourself that you never knew, you never thought existed. Through your appreciation of the gifts God gives you, you push boundaries and achieve success.
• 34:09
  Speaker B: Beautiful. Ah, freedom. Freedom. Freedom. Freedom. Freedom. Freedom.
• 34:25
  Speaker A: Acha.
• 34:26
  Speaker B: Acha. Thank you very much. Wishing everyone freedom and success. Connecting to your higher self, your original self. And send all that junk back to the junkyard where it came from. Many blessings.