Ask: Accepting What Is and Accepting what is

This week’s article follows up on an earlier article about living in the flow of the universe (http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2015/03/in-flow-of-universe.html) as well as last week’s “Ask ACIM Mentor” article (http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2015/08/ask-any-insights-on-accepting-not.html). When you accept What is – that only the Truth is true – it follows that you also accept what is at the level of form without resistance or judging the self’s role in the unfolding story of the universe of form. When you find your wholeness in Truth you stop living through the self so you accept it as it is and just watch it unfold.

The play/movie “Amadeus” always comes to my mind when I think of an example of how miserable a life is when one does not accept it as it is.  The story is a fictionalization of the relationship between the genius composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the composer Antonio Salieri. In the story Salieri as a young boy is so moved by beautiful music in church that he makes a deal with his god: He will devote his life and his chastity to his god if his god will give him the ability to make beautiful music. Salieri indeed goes on to become a composer and is talented enough to rise to be the composer to the Austrian emperor’s court.

Then one day Salieri hears the beautiful music of Mozart and knows that only someone touched by his god could make such “forgiving” music. He is eager to meet the man whom his god has blessed. But in the story Mozart is depicted as vulgar, uncouth, and undisciplined. This man is blessed by god? Salieri is appalled and feels mocked and abandoned by his god. He vows to take revenge on his god by destroying Mozart, whom he sees as his god’s favorite. He does everything in his power to obstruct Mozart and he terrorizes Mozart with visions of his late disapproving father. When Mozart is dying (kidney failure) Salieri can’t resist taking an opportunity to be touched by his genius and helps him finish his final composition (Requiem). Mozart dies in poverty and is buried in a pauper’s grave. Salieri’s obsession with Mozart lands him in an institution and he ends his life lamenting his own “mediocrity”.

Salieri made a deal with a god that existed only in his own mind. Even if there was such a god the deal was all one sided – Salieri alone decided the terms of the deal. For this deal with an imaginary god he made sacrifices no one asked him to make. When things didn’t turn out the way he demanded he destroyed his own life as he tried to destroy another. He never saw that it was his own arrogance and resistance to what is at the level of form that led to his sense of persecution.

Now imagine if instead Salieri knew What is - that only the Truth is true. He would have found wholeness in Truth. So he would not have needed to seek through the self’s life in the world for wholeness. He would’ve accepted the self’s talents and limitations, without judging either. When Mozart came along he would’ve felt blessed to be around to hear such music rather than feeling deprived because the music didn’t come through him. Instead of judging Mozart he could’ve used his power to assist Mozart in getting his music out to the world. Salieri would’ve understood that his love of music was for playing out the role, not of a composer genius himself, but of facilitating the genius of another (Mozart). How much more harmonious and peaceful would Salieri’s mind have been if he had accepted the self’s role rather than insisting that it play out the way that he decided it should?

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