Art of Living

 DEALING WITH BLAME

 When someone blames you, what do you usually do? Blame them back or you put up resistance in yourself. When someone blames you, they actually take away some negative karma from you. If you understand this and don't put up resistance and feel happy about it, then you drop your resistance. "Oh, good. That person is blaming me. Good. Something is going away." And when you drop the resistance, your karma goes away. Do you see what I'm saying?

 So when someone blames you and you put up resistance in your mind, and you don't react, then you are not allowing them to take the negative karma. Outside you may resist, but inside if you don't resist, and feel happy, "Oh, good, somebody is there to blame me and take some negative karma," you will feel immediately lighter.

 How does it feel to you when someone blames you? Do you feel some heaviness? Usually, when someone blames you, you feel hurt and you feel unhappy, you feel sad. This is all because you're . . . resisting. That is it. What you resist, persists. The ignorant person tells someone, "Don't blame me because it hurts me."

 An enlightened person also says "Don't blame me." Do you know why? Because it might hurt you. This is a beautiful point. What are the points? You get hurt because you resist the blame. When someone blames you, you resist it inside. Outside you may not resist, but inside when you resist, then that hurts you.

 An ignorant person warns you, "You better not hurt me, you better not blame me because I will feel hurt." Someone warns you not to blame them because it will hurt them and they'll do something harmful to you out of revenge.

 An enlightened person says "Don't blame me because it will hurt you." So here you say, don't blame because of compassion. You can tell someone, don't blame me out of compassion, or you can say it out of anger.