Recognize Your Tendency to Judge and Blame
We all have this tendency – we judge ourselves too much, or we judge others. Either you start blaming yourself, or you blame somebody else. Either you find you are not right, or you find that someone else is not okay. You should wake up and stop judging.
The First Rule towards Self-development is to Stop Blaming Yourself
Whomsoever you blame, do you like to be with them? Do you like to be with someone you are unhappy with? No! So, if you blame yourself, you can’t be with yourself. So, the first law on the journey or path to self-development is to stop blaming yourself.
Now, don’t say, “Oh! That means I can blame others.” No! Every time you have blamed somebody, when you see what you blamed them for from a broader perspective, you will find that it was wrong and futile.
Why You Should Not Blame Others or Yourself
I say “don’t blame others” because if you blame others, it is going to rebound on you. You should not blame anybody.
I have never blamed anyone or never said any bad words. It has not come out of me at all. I didn’t do anything to make it happen – it was naturally like that from the very beginning. I could never abuse anybody – verbal abuse or any other abuse.
When you pay attention to this, when you stop using bad words, your words gain the power to bless. So, stop blaming yourself and stop blaming others. Things are the way they are, just move on and that is it.
You know, sometimes people say, “Oh! This person is a fraud. He is not genuine.”
But one should have some criteria to say that. Many times, you don’t even have criteria to judge somebody, yet you simply blame them, “Oh! He is a fraud,” and that’s it, finished.
This is an unconscious tendency that has developed in society – blaming others and oneself and then feeling guilty about it. The spiritual journey is to remove this and reverse it.
It is such a delicate thing. This does not mean that you justify all the mistakes you do. When you make some mistake, they you cannot say, “Oh, I am on the spiritual path, so I cannot accept my mistake and I cannot blame myself. So, whatever I do is right.” No! It is a delicate balance. It is not to justify your mistake, but to recognize your mistake and at the same time not blame yourself.
If you don’t accept and recognize your mistakes you will never improve. That’s the end of the story. At the same time, if you recognize your mistake and you feel so guilty and you keep blaming yourself, then too it is a hopeless case. So, you need that very delicate balance – neither this side, nor that side.
Look at Life from a Bigger Context
Remember not to be too hard on yourself. You are part of a phenomenon that is happening. There are trees, rivers, and birds on the planet – just like that, you are also here. So many birds are born and so many birds are dying. Isn’t it? So many trees are coming up and they all vanish. Like this, so many people—so many bodies—have come and they will all vanish. This planet has been there for billions of years. See your life from this bigger context—with a sense of purpose—and then you will stop blaming or judging.
Subscribe
If you enjoyed reading this content and would like to receive a notification on our future updates, you can subscribe here.
You can also write to us on webteam.wisdom@artofliving.org for any questions or comments.
Karma and Reincarnation
Our mind is energy, and by the law of thermodynamics, energy cannot be destroyed. If mind is energy, then what happens to this energy when someone dies?
In this article Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar explains
how Karma leads to reincarnation, and how to eliminate Karma
