Can You Win the Blame Game?

The Blame Game – you love this game if you’re on top, and absolutely hate it when you’re on the bottom. This is the game that is played by everyone, in every walk of life. You’ll find politicians, entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers, teachers, students, parents, terrorists, and even many so called “highly revered” spiritual gurus playing this game. It may seem that the blame game has become part of our nature, but the truth is that this is an acquired behavior, not our true nature.

I was totally awesome at this blame game. I blamed my parents for all the challenges in my life. I blamed them for all the countries to which we had to relocate, because I had to leave my old friends and find new ones. I blamed them for moving to Taiwan because it was so difficult for a foreigner to find a job. I even blamed them for my health conditions; after all it was due to their defective genes that I was sick, wasn’t it?

However, I realized that whenever I blamed my parents, there would be no resolution. By not accepting their “fault” for my life, it was left up to me to take responsibility. This simple conviction and resolution to take control of my life changed my attitude and behavior. Unfortunately, the blame game did not end here, since I had many deep-rooted beliefs that were surfacing in the form of blame.

So, when I lost partial vision, which was a huge challenge for me, once again I started the blame game. Although, this time I could not blame my parents because they were suffering from my pain as much as I was, or even more. Therefore, my blame turned towards God. Unfortunately, God did not become defensive, take responsibility, or justify Himself. Due to God’s non-responsiveness, I turned the blame upon myself, upon my Karma.

The situation I have described here may be different for you, but the context is the same. First we blame our parents, friends, and society, next we blame God, and finally we blame ourselves. Based on my experience none of these types of blame games are healthy or resolve the situation. It’s simply a way to escape from the responsibility to take any action.

Therefore, if you have the courage and inner resolve to put an end to this blame game, here are a few mind shifts that you can adopt.

·      Observe life from a higher perspective – Observe from a mindset that everything happens for a reason, and the situation has contributed or will contribute to the expansion of someone’s consciousness. At best, allow it to raise your consciousness. Either choose to take some action to prevent the situation from occurring in the future, or change your mindset on how you perceive the situation. In addition, if the individual has taken responsibility for the situation and accepted the mistake, it’s time to quit the blame game. Unfortunately, very often, we bring up the situation and create unnecessary conflict. Why?

Simply because we haven’t developed mindfulness, and our reactions are automatically triggered whenever that individual annoys us.

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   Raise your level of mindfulness – People will tell you that you always have control over your behavior and attitude. I would disagree. Most people don’t have control of their attitude because their lives are running on autopilot. The habits that they have developed and strengthened over time are dictating their thoughts, speech, and actions. To take back control in your life, you must first raise your level of awareness by practicing mindfulness. Start by observing your emotions, and then observe the thoughts behind those emotions, and finally the beliefs behind those thoughts. Once you are able to become aware of your beliefs in the present moment or at the time that you’re blaming, you can re-focus your awareness into recognizing that belief, and then you can clear it.

·      Cultivate the art of acceptance - We all face challenges in life, and will continue to do so. This is the nature of existence and the key to our expansion. However, because we do not accept our current situation or life as it is, we slow down our growth. In addition, realize that because you are involved in the situation, you are also partly responsible. Your soul’s contract has placed you in that situation for your personal development. Most importantly, the lesson may be to learn acceptance.

·      Recognize your hidden agenda - Are you blaming someone because you are jealous of them? Maybe their life has been flowing well, with very little effort, and no matter how hard you try, you have to struggle in every situation. Could it be that you are blaming someone because you unconsciously have some grudge against that person? This may be the opportunity for you to learn how to forgive others, yourself, and notice if there are any other hidden agendas in your beliefs.

In conclusion, remember that the past cannot be changed; only the perspective of the past can be changed. And changes must start in the present, if you have made the decision to take responsibility.

Finally, the blame game will continue until the blamer takes responsibility of his own life and forgives the individual who “so called” was being blamed for the situation. This behavior is ultimately caused because of deep-rooted beliefs as well as our minds being programmed by our family, society, education, and especially, the media.

I invite you to shift your mindset and decide not to participate in any blame game. Take full responsibility of your life, and accept every situation that you cannot control. By putting a stop to this blame game, you will save a lot of time, energy, and maintain good relationships.

“I pay no attention to anybody’s praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings” – Mozart

Serve with Joy & Humility

The topic of my speech today was “service”, and I won the best speaker award. The following is a summary of the speech.

I have always been the type of person that would go out of my way to help others. Whether it may be repairing their computers, teaching them something, or even renovating their apartments. I would not help others because of any incentive, but simply because I enjoyed being of service.

A few years ago, after my eye surgeries, I felt like the tables had turned. I was no longer able to serve people; I was now on the receiving end of service. This situation tremendously hurt my ego, because I started to feel helpless and worthless. To make matters worse, people who would see me walking down the stairs with assistance would often ask if I was mentally challenged. This would pierce my heart like an arrow, and I would respond by saying, “No, I have low-vision, and by the way, I’m a network engineer”. I felt the need to justify myself by telling them about my successful career.

Fortunately, a few weeks later, an incident occurred that completely changed my perspective about being of service to others. One evening, once the elevator reached our floor, my mom assisted me to get on so that I would not trip on the step. There was an elderly man already in the elevator when we entered. He felt extremely sad when he looked at me, and asked my mom “What is wrong with this boy?”

I responded to him with a smile and said, “I have low-vision.”

I could feel the pain in his heart as he said to my mom again “but he is so young.”

We just smiled as the elevator continued to the ground floor, and my mom once again assisted me out of the elevator.

It was on that day that I realized one of my purposes in life – it’s to generate compassion within others. I would always feel offended when others would ask about my condition, or hold my hand while we walk. But today, I have realized that these individuals are not just doing me a favor, I’m also helping them by offering them an opportunity to serve. There have been many days during which it is bright enough for me to walk alone, but my friends or family members would still choose to hold my hand. Even when I would tell them that I’m fine walking, alone, they respond saying something like “why am I not allowed to hold you?” Sometimes there’s even a competition of who gets an opportunity to help me, from kids to elderly people.

It is the feeling of compassion that empowers a person to serve others. Compassion is a feeling of shared suffering for another form of life with the desire to alleviate that suffering. Compassion is often observed as a type of selfless service, generosity, or kindness.

Through my experience, I would like to emphasize that service is never a one-way street. If we serve others in some way, we are also receiving service in another form, whether it may be a sense of gratitude or a boost to our ego. Therefore, we must be humble when we are serving. We must remind ourselves that we are blessed to have the opportunity to serve others.

Similarly, if we are on the receiving end of service, we must also curb our pride. We must allow others to serve us. In addition, you may have noticed that many individuals who are on the receiving end of the service sometimes express a bitter or frustrated attitude. This is not because they do not appreciate the service they are receiving, it’s simply because they feel helpless in that situation and they do not know of any way to relieve that feeling. However, there is a way to calm this bitter and frustrated attitude. It is by practicing mindfulness such as meditation, which will enhance the person’s sense of gratitude as well as create inner peace and acceptance.

I invite you to start practicing compassion towards others, but most importantly towards yourself first. Simply observe your inner voice, is it critical or is it kind?

Compassionate individuals are those of us that have experienced our share of suffering, and feel empathy for others who are facing similar challenges. We realize that just like us, others are also seeking happiness and trying to avoid pain.

Finally, through compassion our hearts open and we experience oneness with all. The most elevated emotion radiated by the heart is compassion, and it benefits our health in addition to helping us develop spiritually.

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” – Tagore

Remove Sorrow from Relationships

For a majority of us, it is our relationships that bring us the most joy and most sorrow. However, when we are in a relationship, whether it may be parents, siblings, spouse or friends, it is confined to the level of the mind and the body. Even though we express the word love, it is through a body-conscious level. And this is the true cause of many of the relationship problems.

Parents often say that they love their children un-conditionally, but how often have we noticed that when a child acts against the parents wishes (maybe for their own happiness), the parents disown them. This causes a tremendous amount of sorrow to the child who always believed that his/her parents would support them all the way, and the parent who thought that their children would always follow their guidance feels a similar sorrow. The parents always have the child’s best interest in mind, and do not want the child to get hurt. But true unconditional love would allow the child to choose his own path, no matter how ridiculous it seems, knowing the fact that the child will learn through its positive and negative experiences.

Parents must understand that they have brought their children to this earth, but they do not OWN them. Each soul has come with its purpose of learning through experience, and if a point comes when the parents block the experience of the child, naturally the child will break-free. It is because the parent and child are so connected on the body-mind level, they are unable to accept this situation. If parents simply realize, that their main purpose of bringing the child to the earth is to care for him/her for a certain amount of years, it will be easier to accept that the child is an entity by itself with its own journey of self-discovery. The challenge is to let go of this sense of “ownership”, and realize that the parents are simply the delivery company. Imagine if FedEx starts taking ownership for every package it delivers, don’t you think there would be a serious problem? Or, if every tree behaves as though it owns the fruit, would we have anything to eat?

A similar issue occurs in marriages – the sense of ownership. By all means, it is important to be committed and faithful in relationships, but it is also imperative to realize that each person in the relationship is also on their own journey of self-discovery. By accepting and allowing that person to grow in his/her own manner, instead of molding him/her in our own ways will reduce much of the sorrow.

Furthermore, the over-exaggeration of the concepts of soul mates also causes a lot of trouble, once again because we see soul mates from the body/mind consciousness. During the early stages of marriages, we often hear the phrases “I found my soul mate”, “you complete me”, “you are my better-half”, etc.  A few months later, we hear that the couple that at one point had “completed” each other, have divorced.

The fact is that the soul is “complete” by itself. This is why it is born alone, and dies alone.  The soul is basically a seed, and every one that has a relationship with that soul is simply nourishing it by offering so called “sunshine” and “rain” for it to grow. However, from a body/mind-consciousness perspective, we try to mold that seed into the type of flower we would like to live with. And this goes against the nature of the flower. Every flower in the garden is different because each seed is unique. The only place we see flowers that are exactly the same, is in a controlled environment.

To prevent the dis-belief of the fact that the person who we once thought was our soul mate, no longer “completes” us, we must realize that we are already complete. We do not need anyone to complete us. The body and mind may need a mate, but the soul does not. It is simply because the mind and body feel incomplete, that the individual thinks that the soul is incomplete and needs a mate.  

Each soul is a complete seed within itself. All it needs is water and sunshine to blossom to it’s full potential. Let us try not to mold each soul in a manner that best suits us. Education and society have been molding human beings in a manner to suit their self-interests, and this is why, today many individuals cannot fully express themselves, and have forgotten who they truly are.

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