Dismantling the Victim and the Bully….

We have become a nation of victims and bullies. Everyone is encouraged to adopt one role or the other. We seem to have lost our sense of character and of the honor of taking responsibility for our actions. Our media and public officials have taken to name-calling rather than discerning what actually may be going on. We are all so sure that we see everything correctly. We are good and right; they are bad and wrong. And everyone is saying the same thing. Each person is looking to usurp the role of victim.

Looking at the foursquare, we see that if we are a bully then we are also responsible and in charge. The problem that I see with the victim is that the victim believes he is powerless, at the mercy of the bully. The bully will often say that it is not his fault and even feel victimized by the victim. Everyone is looking to be powerless and not responsible. Everyone wants not to be accountable.

The fact is, we are all responsible. Both the victim and the bully cannot say that they have no responsibility. How we act is totally our fault because we choose to be entangled in these attachments. We will claim that we don’t participate; we will say “I wasn’t planning on this”. And though we say God is everywhere, we also say God wouldn’t do that. What? God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-present, and He wouldn’t do something that you decided he shouldn’t do? So the God who does all is only responsible for what you decide? Who then is God? Your small self has set itself up as God—do you trust in that God?

Baba used to say, “Love everyone, trust no one”.  From the standpoint of Absolute Reality we should love everyone; and from relative reality we should trust no one. We do not know someone as much as we would like to think we do. Going back to the Christ narrative, we see Christ followed this creed. He was not surprised by what occurred. He was not a victim; Christ knew what was going to be played out and surrendered to his role and everyone else’s. After Gethsemane there was no victim or bully—only God.

Baba also said, “Strange are the ways of karma”. We are never sure where we stand in any given situation. We may be creating karma when we think we are reaping it, and vice versa. The answer for all of us is in the way the great beings have modeled for us. They were detached, and uninterested in taking on the identity of either victim or bully.