School Talk 12 - Blaming

Let’s have a point or two this afternoon—as most of you know, I spend a considerable amount of my time talking on the telephone to people who call in from various parts of the country with what they consider to be a problem--and sometimes I think they are.

This week has been particularly heavy on somebody either blaming or looking for blame. So I decided that inasmuch as I talked on it all week, I might as well continue now—that blaming is the subject we’re going to talk about.

Now we consider that blaming is the bar against doing anything about anything that may come up.

As long as I’m blaming, there isn’t anything I can do about it because I gotta wait until whoever it is to blame straightens up and flies right. That will probably be quite a while from now, no doubt, because if I don’t like you, it’s easy enough to see you as the cause or blame you for anything and everything, When I don’t like anybody, they don’t ever do anything right. Did you ever notice that? No matter what they do, it’s never correct.

Now when we stop to look at all the things in the living process and the living mode of every day living, we frequently come up with the thought that “you made me angry”, or “you made me sad” or “you made me laugh”--maybe even that.

But whatever it is, does anyone make anybody else do anything? Maybe they do something, we compare it to some ideal (which we would want their behavior to be), and it doesn’t fit that ideal I’ve set up, so now I say you are the cause of my difficulty. “You made me angry” or “You made me worry”, or “You made me feel badly” and a jillion other Ideals of behavior or thinking that we could come up with that the person says, “You made me do it.” Now that’s blaming, is that not? I blamed you for my inner state of being. Now the only way that you could have that is “I gave you the authority to annoy me” and I don’t see any reason to give anybody the authority to annoy me. I have to make it important that you do something different.

Now we have one dear lady that comes in fairly frequently and tells me of all her physical ailments-- her inability to work, and her whole difficulty is because of that stupid husband she has. Well, we have been into that two or three times and each time she finally sees that she could be responsible for her own inner state of being. Yesterday we had to get it down to rather brass tacks. I asked her if she could drink a glass of water for the old man, and she said she couldn’t. I said could he drink a glass of water for her and she said no, he couldn’t. I said can he go to the bathroom for you and she allowed he couldn’t do that for her and she couldn’t go for him. And we asked about eating and thinking also.

So finally, it would appear that he had absolutely nothing to do that would affect her unless she set up an ideal as to how he should behave,. He didn’t behave that way; so therefore, he was to blame for her terrible inner state of being, her physical condition, her total disability and she has it that the only thing that’s gotta happen is he’s got to change. So I said, “Well, how would you change him if you were gonna change him?” Well, she went into a whole bunch of things, and I said that wouldn’t be him. She said he’d be kind, he’d be polite, he’d go to work, he wouldn’t do this, he wouldn’t do all these many things. I said that wouldn’t be him. She said no, that wouldn’t be him because he never had done any of those things. Now what is the reason that she’s all upset? Simple, she blames him; she can’t do anything about it. Now she feels she’s a victim and has to sit there and be miserable, huh?

Now we talk about taking charge of one’s own inner state of being quite frequently. We say, there’s a very simple way to do that. That I can act like I would like to feel. First I think about how I would like to feel. So let’s say that I would like to feel enthusiastic. So I know how I would act if I were already enthusiastic, so if I begin to act enthusiastic—in about 15 to 30 minutes, I’m feeling exactly as I’m acting—that’s a two-way street. As you feel you will have a tendency to act, but also as you act, you have in almost certainty to begin to feel like your acting.

Now yesterday, one client, I shall call it, made at least 20 calls, at least 20. Now it was probably more—you took the calls coming in. It was at least 20, wasn’t it? He was utterly devastated--falling apart at the seams--in the greatest depths of agony and misery all because of a certain person he was blaming. Well, I talked about how he could feel any way he wanted to—I didn’t get very far; but today, I had a call from him and he was in pig heaven. You know, he was floatin’ around on cloud nine and everything was literally wonderful—he accused me of performing a miracle. I didn’t do any such thing. I guess I just screamed at him loud enough, and he finally heard me yesterday afternoon.

I had a client in the office who overheard me giving him a little reading for a few minutes of how things worked and I had given this person that was in the room with me almost the identical one a few minutes before and it hadn’t registered with her either; but when she heard it coming through to somebody else, it registered--so she’s feeling real good too. So people can feel any way they want to.

Once you begin to assume responsibility.

Now responsibility is the very antithesis of blaming. Blaming, you are not responsible—I’m the victim. In responsibility, I’m in charge of how I feel, how I act, how I behave, whatever, and basically in most of my circumstances. Now you’re not totally in charge of circumstances because a bunch of other people are standing around close and they got a finger in it also. But you can certainly choose your response to any situation.

So let’s make us a fundamental note that blaming is a bar against doing anything about anything you may be concerned with; and that nothing nor nobody is to blame—EVER—nothing, nor nobody is ever to blame ever! Now blaming yourself is not any different than blaming somebody also. That’s the favorite of a lot of people. They’re self-blaming all the time—they feel that’s very holy and righteous and all this, but it’s still very derogatory. It’s still preventing anything from taking place. So nothing, nor nobody is to blame.

The whole nature of the idea of blame can be replaced very quickly when you see that all difficulties in the human race comes not from somebody else, but from lack of information and misinformation. We’ve all been given great gobs of misinformation and we’ve also lived with a great amount of lack of information. So frequently I relate this as if you went to buy the simplest of little appliance somewhere.

If you bought an appliance, you and I got one just alike this week, a little tiny appliance, right? And it had a book in it telling you how not to tear it up. It even had a label pasted over the front how not to tear it up before you got it to working. It’s got a piece of tape on there that says; don’t move this until you got it working—sixteen hours later. Now if the simplest little appliance that cost almost nothing has all these safeguards, and a book comes with it to tell you how not to destroy it, can you imagine what should be around a baby’s neck when it arrives. They’re far more complicated and we grow up to be extremely more complicated even than the baby is; and do any of you recall having a little book around your neck telling how not to tear it up when you were born?

Now for some forty years, I’ve been trying to write that book, but I haven’t gotten it attached to the youngsters neck when they get here;; but I think maybe we can eventually get that across. That’s the first thing would happen is he or she gets this little book around his neck saying how not to tear it up.

I think most of us have been here for a while and we have worked a bit and number one, we know not to make anything important--that we know we cannot afford emotions and we separate emotions and feelings. People forget that and then call up every now and then and say what about this emotion or that emotion and they’re calling that a feeling—it’s not--to us it is an emotion as we very carefully say, is anger, guilt, fear, insecurity and the many synonyms thereof. We do not put the nice feelings of joy, peace, love, and caring and maybe even empathy—those are not emotions, they are feelings and they are very healthy for you; but emotions are very sickly. So if you had a little book around your neck when you were born that you could not afford emotions, you wouldn’t have them. The book would say there was no need to make anything important--nothing nor nobody is to blame and that you could begin to see that you could take charge of your own inner state of being--you don’t have to depend on what every person around you might be or might not be doing, is that about right?

Most of you have had an experience of having been blamed for somebody else’s situation in the last week? Have you Paulette? Further down the line you blamed her, she’s the one that made you feel bad, Regina? Who made you feel bad? Her? Ok. Of course, the biggest accuser is the not “i’s”. They dream up some terrible things to accuse each one of us with. You ran into one of those not “i’s” the last few days? It caused you all sorts of difficulties that had your heart racing out your mouth and your stomach, and had you tied up in a knots with an inability to breathe freely and so forth—all because a not “I” came along. Now we also would have in our little book about not “i’s” and what not “i’s” are and draw a picture of them and make it very plain and easy for them to be seen.

So if we should take today that we applied that fundamental principle, we’ve all talked about, that once a decision has been made, it’s the rule of attitude-action from that moment on until it is totally re-evaluated. Anybody that has worked with that, that’s the way every not “I” in the world came into being was that I made a decision sometime—forgot about it, but it’s still going on.

Let’s make a decision today that I’m not blaming anything any more because that’s a bar against doing anything about it. I don’t want anything that totally prevents me from doing something. So I can leave off all blaming. Is that easy enough to do? I make a decision. I’m through with blaming because it is deadly. One of the things is it incites all sorts of things up—so I’m through with blaming.

If we make that decision, you’ll find that it really is gone because it is a very fundamental that once a decision is made, it is the rule of attitude action from now on. So it’s fairly easy to make it. We also have to look to see that we unmake the one that says anything and everything’s to blame—especially he, she, it and that. But we get that out of the way first and then we can make a decision, I’m through with blaming because it does absolutely nothing for me in any direction. Ok?

I’ve talked long enough, let’s have a discussion now. Who wants to be first?

(I made the decision to give up blaming, but I know……….)

…….the “but” cancelled the first one.

(…that when a situation comes along, it’s going to come up again, I can be aware of it.)

You’ll be aware of it enough to say, “I’m not going to do that.”

In other words, it doesn’t matter how--it works out that you don’t go through you’re blaming bit which you’ve been through how many years now Jonvieve, it has been 35 years that Jonvieve has been blaming; and every time she blames, she comes up angry, fearful or insecure any one or a combination of those painful and disintegrating emotions, right? And then those make you feel terrible and tie you in knots; so then you look for a cure for that or some way around that horn. We call it the vicious cycle.

Now if you really determine that you see what’s going on and you’re not going to be a blamer anymore because you’re interested in you’re well-being. It’s not to please all those people, you blamed—the heck with them. They don’t know whether you blamed them or not, but the point is to not blame for your own well-being, so you will always either remember not to or you won’t do it at all.

Now if you remember it, you can put a stop to it before it gets going, is that right? So you don’t feel too well when you’re angry or fearful or these good things, and you do all sorts of things that’s not to your advantage while you’re in that state, is that right? You know they used to call the word angry—mad. Mad means insanity. So a person is temporarily mad or insane. People do a lot of very strange things that’s not to their advantage in that state, is that right?

So there’s a whole bunch of ways to handle it besides that. You don’t even have to get angry at Ron or anybody. Who cares, what’s the difference. If you can handle that, you can handle anything.

Next point out. Who has next?

(Well, I’m not going to blame and worry anyone, but the not “i’s” do.)

If they want to worry and fret, just let them have fun, as long as you know it’s not “i’s” and not you, it doesn’t matter. But if they can’t convince you that they’re you, they don’t do it, ok? So you just don’t have to be angry or “house” the angry not “i’s”. You don’t have to give it residence there because he’ll try to convince you sooner or later that he’s you, is that right?

Who’s next on here?

(You made a statement, “Don’t make anything important”. Would you elaborate on that a little?)

Well, we said we don’t make anything important—you see very few things in this world are very important including you and me. The world was getting along fine before I got here and I’ve noticed it’s been getting along fine since you got here is that right? And if we should goof up and get out of the world, it will keep on getting along all right. So we’re not important. We have a tendency to make almost anything that’s “to have my way” important. The biggest thing that people make important is it’s important to have my way right now, and the way to get it is to complain, stick up for our rights, blame, try to please everybody, quote proper authorities, improve ourselves or whatever the case may be, but we’re all trying to make it important for things to be different than they are--than we stand around very holy and say life makes everything come out wonderful, God’s in his heaven and all’s well with the world—except for the things that aren’t exactly my way right now.

So if you make it important, you become very anxious and when you’re anxious, you’ll have a very difficult time performing accurately or to your best interest even. Sometimes we have to call a consultant or something to even look at some of our businesses because we’ve made it important; and so we call in somebody who just looks at it and doesn’t make it important and goes on and straightens it out quickly--makes some kind of deal that we can function with. We might come up with the idea, well, the only way I can keep going is borrow $50,000 and I don’t know a soul in the world that would trust me with $50. much less $50,000; and so I feel I’m totally stymied, locked out and undone. A person who hasn’t make it important can look at it coolly and say, “Well, you can do this, you can do this,” and pretty soon it’s all working without all that “important” stuff.

So you cannot function well when you’re anxious, is that right?

And if you make anything important, you’re very anxious. So the reason we don’t make anything important, we don’t enjoy being anxious; and if there is something important in the world, I haven’t been able to find it, and I’m not going to make anything important today.

Now I can make it important that the weather cool down 20 degrees tonight and I’d probably whistle Dixie in Arizona, is that right? And I’d be very frustrated and upset. People make it very important what kind of thoughts run through their mind sometimes.

Well, I consider the mind is a whole lot like a freeway, and I would be very unwise if I sat on the side of it and said, “I’m going to make up my mind there’s not blue pickup trucks going to come down the road today; and very soon, here comes one. Now I’m all anxious and upset. I can’t stop him, he’s out there coming. So we go around and say, “I’m free to experience what may arise in my way today”. And you know, you’re going to experience it anyway—might as well do it gracefully, kindly and with a smile. And that way, you keep the anxiety out and with the anxieties out, you function at a much higher level that you do when you’re anxious.

(It appears that the basic assumption of all of this is if you want to call it an assumption is that there is an order that is not necessarily apparent; and if we merely meet what happens in a practical and efficient way, then we cooperate with this order. Now we don’t really seem to have any choice about it; but if we blame, then we interrupt the order)

We’re fighting with the order if you want to call it an order. I call it something else, but it means the same thing. So if we’re fighting with Life by trying to say, I know what ought to be; and if it’s not that way then I’m going to throw a fit, huh? That’s what it amounts to. So there’s certainly none of us knows what ought to be because I don’t know what the outcome of a given action is two weeks from now, two hours from now, two years from now or anything. So it’s here and it must have some reason apparently, so I can cooperate with it and go along with it. We sometimes refer to all this resisting things that comes into our life as second force. In other words, first it’s initiative, then it’s the resistance, then there’s a form and then a result.

So when the second force is acting up, if we try to fight it, it usually grinds us down. If we go along with it or use it as a tool in one form or another--we ignore it for a while and step to the side and let it go on by, things go pretty well.

It’s like a Mexican matador fighting the bull. He doesn’t run head-on into the bull, he holds the cape out and sidesteps and the bull goes on by. If he stood out there and fought with that bull every time, there’d be a lot of dead matadors—I’ll tell you. There’d be big crowds at the bull fight, but there wouldn’t be many matadors, so they side step second force always, the resistance they step over, and sometimes it’s the better part of valor to sidestep a little bit and let it smooth out--just let it be. It’s like when people want a given action to come about, a given circumstance—I till them to get out of the way and they say “Well, that feels like I’m doing nothing.” But sometimes it’s the better decision. Doin’ nuttin’—maybe—now you are doing a lot when you stay out of the way, I’ll tell you. You’re doing an awful lot.

Next question comment?

(I have an idea of the first attitude-action of blaming. It was founded on feeling the four dual basic urges.)

The 4 dbu’s that it’s important to have pleasure and comfort and escape pain, it’s important to have attention and to escape being ignored, it’s important to have approval and escape all disapproval, that I had made important to have appreciation and to escape all emotions of being inferior and whatever the case may be, right? It’s all based on that.

(So if you’re going to have a foundation for new decisions in order for it to be an attitude action, you want to get it moving.)

Right.

(….founded on thankfulness.)

Rather I would say a new purpose in living, and it could be any number of ones. I wouldn’t set it for you. You choose your own purpose in living. We’ve talked about that somewhat, that I will choose my purpose and now I have my own frame of reference where the other one was not self chosen, it’s been there by accident. It was chosen by a very tiny infant and probably reinforced by about everybody that came by--is that the whole purpose of living was to be non-disturbed, and I’m very thankful for all second force.

Second force is all disturbing, but one would be nothing if one never had any second force. I’ve seen some parents try to raise a child with the child having no second force. It was rather a disastrous situation to say the very least—didn’t end up lasting that way because second force came from all sorts of directions and those were tremendous in size. So the first off, we see that we don’t have the purpose of living as to be totally non-disturbed. It would be a very pitiful situation. I like these challenges coming from all directions. Some of them look like they’re exaggerated for the time being, but so what, we’ll live over them one way or another, ok? Next question, comment?

Gina, what’s going on in your world today? Everything’s fine. Regina had her second force all in one big “blap” not long ago and she got everything in the book, didn’t you—all one morning. So all about taken care of, she got it about worked out. Yes sir?

(I don’t see what this is talking about; you might say the unification of life’s being. That if you want to be one with Life, but not two with life.)

That’s right, so we’re talking about integration or oneness with being, but we’re going about it a piece at a time, ok?

(…….one piece at a time.)

One piece at a time because if we tried to take the whole bite, it won’t work; but we are talking about a person being the one in charge rather than having conflict of two or more forces or more ideas trying to run here at the same time.

Many times there’s many more than two. At least there’s two and usually three or four or five, six something like that running around—each one trying to take over and run the body, run the person’s life. We want to get it all out so that there is only one there and that one is conscious and in charge. We take it a little bit at a time here and there because it’s too big a pill to swallow with one jolt. In fact, it usually takes quite a length of time to get it even swallowed by pieces. It’s usually easier to cut a steak up and swallow it a piece at a time than it is to try and swallow the whole steak.

(So you would say that to blame is the result of an inefficient feeling and an inefficient idea?)

Well, inefficient, it’s a one little bunch of ideas says you’re to blame and they’re sticking up for their rights and blaming—we have something called the picture of man which you’ll run into pretty soon and each one of those takes over and fights with everybody else. One of them says “it’s important to have my way now and the way to get it is complain” and another one says, “It’s important to have my way right now and the way to get it is to bitch a little bit, fight”. and another one says the way to get it is to please everybody and another one says quote authorities and another one says improve yourself and another one says blame. So they can all go around. We’re only talking about one of the six little guys that pounds on everybody at one time that’s in there and complicates the day. We’re basically talking about just one of them. We get the others from time to time.

Jonvieve, did you have your hand up?

(The underneath part of blaming somebody else is ultimately blaming I.)

Well, that’s about true, but it makes no difference whether you’re blaming yourself or somebody else. The way you would blame yourself is when you get ticked off, you blame yourself for having listened to that SOB.

(True.)

In the first place, why did you even go to work there? It’s all your fault you went there and went to work. So when you get terribly angry which you have been known to indulge in slightly now and then is that you’re very angry at Jonvieve for having even been near these stupid bastards. It was all your fault for ever having worked for Glen Taylor wasn’t it?

(Yes.)

..and now then you got another one? I don’t care, send Glen a copy of it, it’s all right with me. I don’t care.

You can edit it out if you want to, but it’s all right, let Glen have it, he knows I love him dearly.

(So it’s really a fact or the result is no different if you’re blaming?)

No, it’s all the same, I said blaming anything that you’re one of those, so self blaming is as detrimental or more so than blaming others because you can stay at it longer.

(Blaming self?)

Yeah, you can stay at that longer. You got you there to pick on all day and all night. The other guy’s liable to leave and go home. He’s out of sight, out of mind, but you’re there all the time, so you can pick on you all the time for years, can’t you? You have done it, and you have been an expert at it.

Ok another question, comment—anything to blame and that includes number one.

We will call it a day. We will have another school talk next Friday afternoon—it’ll be some subject about living, whatever it may be, we’ll depend on what the phone calls are about all week, or something else—who knows, but it will be something.

*Audience participation is in parenthesis.