The reason you are so in love with cause and effect is that it leads easily into blame, a huge favorite diversion of the ego.

 

Blame is just a special case of cause and effect. You search out some act that can be named as the prime cause of some negative effect. This allows you to displace anger onto another.  Blame. It produces a temporary relief in the sender of that anger.  It is easier to blame someone else for the divorce, if the new car got a dent, if the dinner is spoiled, if they didn’t choose you.

 

 

You can blame either silently or aloud. If silently, you do it frequently, polishing the stones of anger, betrayal and unhappiness. You can carry on blaming silently for years, for all of your physical lives. If you do it aloud, the person blamed doesn’t want the displaced anger and will fight you to give it back. Back and forth it goes in recriminations, keeping you in the unhappiness you wished to avoid. This makes you upset and solves nothing.

 

 

The trouble with blame is it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter who you think caused the unwanted thing. By assigning blame for it, you only affirm its reality.  You are saying, “Indeed, this thing that happened has me so upset that I must use it to spread and perpetuate a bad feeling.”

 

Once blame is assigned, then what? The problem is still there, stronger than ever now since you’ve been paying all this negative attention to it. You are at square one with a vengeance.

 

Who would want this?

 

 

 

To deal in blame is to be locked into the past. Think of blame as a chain that you must not pick up.

Only when you are ready to accept responsibility for every part of your experience, can any part of it change.

 

To deal in blame is to be locked in the past

 

Even if you have some strong blame patterns, they can still be weakened.

 

 

Question everything, friends.  Especially question your most habitual thoughts, those beliefs that seem strongest, that rouse you up the most.  Take out your habitual thoughts about the divorce.  Shine the light of truth, honesty and sincere inquiry upon those thoughts.  One by one, over and over, entertain each thought and question it for at least seventeen seconds.

Negative thought, here you are again. When was the last time I had this thought?  Ten seconds ago. And how long again before that? About two hours ago, I was busy getting the kids ready for school. How does this thought make you feel? It makes me very stressed and unable to think. How often would you like to have this thought? Not at all, no one wants to feel like this.  Would it be possible not to have this thought?  Possible? Yes, of course, millions of people don’t have it. And so on.

Thus are you the master of your thoughts.

 

Question reality