Blame. It’s a miserable state of consciousness when we blame someone else for our misfortune. We disempower ourselves by adapting a ‘victim mentality’. What is blame going to do besides perpetuate a cycle of action and reaction?

I blame you. You blame me. I hurt you. You hurt me.

The cycle goes nowhere because it’s based in ignorance. All it takes is for one party to accept the blame and the cycle ends.

Today the majority of Australians felt the relief of accepting the blame for the wrongs inflicted upon the indigenous people of this continent. Although an apology can be seen as mere words, it can also mean a lot. In one sense, it slows down the cycle of delusion that arises from the blame game.

Srila Prabhupada gave us this brilliant verse and purport from Srimad Bhagavatam 1.17.22:

rājovāca
dharmaṁ bravīṣi dharma-jña
dharmo ‘si vṛṣa-rūpa-dhṛk
yad adharma-kṛtaḥ sthānaṁ
sūcakasyāpi tad bhavet

TRANSLATION
The King said: O you, who are in the form of a bull! You know the truth of religion, and you are speaking according to the principle that the destination intended for the perpetrator of irreligious acts is also intended for one who identifies the perpetrator. You are no other than the personality of religion.

PURPORT
A devotee’s conclusion is that no one is directly responsible for being a benefactor or mischief-monger without the sanction of the Lord; therefore he does not consider anyone to be directly responsible for such action. But in both the cases he takes it for granted that either benefit or loss is God-sent, and thus it is His grace. In case of benefit, no one will deny that it is God-sent, but in case of loss or reverses one becomes doubtful about how the Lord could be so unkind to His devotee as to put him in great difficulty. Jesus Christ was seemingly put into such great difficulty, being crucified by the ignorant, but he was never angry at the mischief-mongers. That is the way of accepting a thing, either favorable or unfavorable.

Thus for a devotee the identifier is equally a sinner, like the mischief-monger. By God’s grace, the devotee tolerates all reverses. Mahārāja Parīkṣit observed this, and therefore he could understand that the bull was no other than the personality of religion himself. In other words, a devotee has no suffering at all because so-called suffering is also God’s grace for a devotee who sees God in everything. The cow and bull never placed any complaint before the King for being tortured by the personality of Kali, although everyone lodges such complaints before the state authorities. The extraordinary behavior of the bull made the King conclude that the bull was certainly the personality of religion, for no one else could understand the finer intricacies of the codes of religion.

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Here’s a refreshing example of a contemporary political leader who today made an effort to stop the cycle of victimization and blame:

or view the video in its entirety here: http://media.smh.com.au/?rid=35435