Why do we blame others for our mistakes? || (2015)

Acharya Prashant

4 min
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Why do we blame others for our mistakes? || (2015)

Questioner: Why do we always want to blame something on others? Why is accountability so important?

Acharya Prashant: When you are able to blame others, then you are able to earn certain rights for yourself. Those rights cannot come to you if you do not say that others are in a position to harm you. Even the law agrees to killing in self-defense. You kill a man just like that, you will be jailed. But if you kill a man in self-defense, it is considered alright. So, you can label somebody an aggressor, an attacker and what right do you get? The right to kill him. Even when the police want to stage these fake encounters, they do not say that, “We brought these people here to the jungle and just shot them.” What do they say? They say, “You know these people were shooting at us, so in self-defense, we had to kill them.” Even the police need some kind of an excuse to kill.

So, blaming is quite nice to the ego. Blaming is a good defense against responsibility. So that you do not have to do the right action; you can just blame somebody. To not blame is to take the onus of Right action. To not to blame is to say that, “Whatever be the situation I have to do what I have to do”. The situation demands a response and I must come up with it. Otherwise, you can just say, “What do I do? I am a poor little woman and it is a dark, gory, evil world. I must hide in my nest. I cannot take any responsibility. How can I act?”

You know, for all kinds of really evil acts, you will always find a justification. One country wants to develop a nuclear weapon. The blame is never upon the ambitions of the people of that country or the politicians of that country; the blame is always upon the neighbor. The neighbor is such a trouble maker that we had to develop this nuclear bomb. Now, without the neighbor, how will you develop the bomb? So, you always need somebody to blame.

When you go to get a license for a gun, even there you have to justify why you want the gun. You must have somebody to blame. My uncle is a rascal and I have a property dispute with him. And he has been stalking me, so I need the gun. If you don’t have an uncle, you won’t get the gun. So, we all need evil uncles and we all need property disputes, to brandish that AK-47.

You are studying and it's midnight, and there is a power cut. And there is no backup. Now, either you can say that “Oh! Too bad! We have a power cut”. And you can go off to sleep. Or you could say, “Study I must. So if there is no power, a candle is not too bad. Or I will make some other arrangements.” It is the age of technology, even mobile phones have torches.

It depends on who you are; the same situation can be responded to in two opposite ways. You could either go off to sleep because you anyways never want to study, and now you have a convenient excuse.

“What can I do? Power cut”, “What can I do? The system is bad”, “What can I do? My computer crashed”. Or you will find a way out? Finding a way out is not very difficult.

In fact, when you are having fun doing the work then finding a way to do that work too becomes fun.

Have you noticed that sometimes? If you really love what you are doing and the situations prevent you from doing that; then finding a way to continue doing that too becomes an act of love. You are enjoying it and you are figuring out a way of how to continue doing it.

You go to meet your lover and you have decided to meet in a park, and the park is closed. Now would you beat your chest and cry and kick your lover? Or is it an opportunity? What is it?

Depends on who you are.

Depends on the depth of your love.

This article has been created by volunteers of the PrashantAdvait Foundation from transcriptions of sessions by Acharya Prashant
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