Acceptance requires the exact opposite of combative engagement. Engaging with an annoying person drains your energy and adds that energy to their annoying reality. The result is more annoyance, because you have added your power to their reality.  

When you allow people to be the way that they are, and you allow the world to be the way that it is, then your energy is not absorbed in futile dramas. Instead, you have all that energy to put towards making the world a better place, and it will be a better place for your efforts.  

6. Awakening
When you see behind the illusion of separation and, instead, connect with the unity of all life, you have awakened.

Human life on Earth was designed to explore the concept of separation from other people, separation from your environment and separation from the universe on all levels. This is achieved by the projection of unified consciousness into an infinite variety of objects of apparent separation.

When you reach a deep enough meditative state to experience the oneness that underlies all of reality, then you have arrived at the main destination of the journey through life on Earth. Once you experience your unity with the universe and all that it contains, you realize many things. You realize that you have always had this connection, that you always will have this connection, and that nothing can ever take it away.

Awakening brings an aliveness and a great sense of love for life in all of its forms. Upon awakening, you realize that your friends are not just people with whom you share a mutual love. You realize that you and your friends are one, that you share a common empathy and a mutual kindness, one that knows no boundaries of self.

You are the One that always was, even before time was created.

Owen Waters is editor and cofounder of Infinite Being LLC. He promotes a philosophy of spiritual empowerment through inner connection to the source of your ultimate potential. For more Spiritual Words of Empowerment subscribe to his free weekly newsletter. For the full picture, read Owen's book, "The Shift: The Revolution in Human Consciousness".

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