Each Dark Knight is a ‘concentration level’ – a way of thinking through your perception, prejudices, experiences and so on. Blame has the capacity to cause physical harm: whether you blame yourself or others, blame can lead to aggression or even violence.
Why do we blame others? Because we believe our opinion is correct and theirs is not? Because of misunderstandings? Due to lack of awareness of others’ motives and situations? Because we don’t want to take responsibility for fear of the consequences? Because our personal agenda has been compromised?
All of the above.
This fourth Dark Knight defends the agendas of the other Knights and of the network as a whole. It’s an aggressive knight with a short fuse. Magdalena regularly confronts me about my personal agendas, and most of the time my first reaction is to point the finger and say, ‘But what about you?’
The Knight of Blame has been in action all over the world, from the ancient wars to the present. Men and women have murdered, destroyed, savaged, crucified, assassinated, executed and annihilated to protect themselves and their agendas. Since the beginning of history, blame has been prevalent among human beings. But why? Why do we repeat this cycle over and over again?
As I said, this fourth Dark Knight is a reactionary one: it serves the other knights. If we want to understand it, we need to know what it’s protecting and why. A Dark Knight can easily be summoned unintentionally, and the Dark Knights use blame to protect themselves from the middle path – see chapter 4, Understanding opposites. Let’s look at this in a logical way. We’ve analysed three of the Five Dark Knights so far – laziness, endless searching and doubt. If we become aware of and stop ourselves from being lazy, endlessly searching and feeling doubtful, is it possible that the Dark Knight of blame will have nothing to protect? The gatekeepers can’t protect the castle if the castle is no longer there, after all. It would be easy to say, ‘Let’s just eliminate the Dark Knights, and we’ll no longer have problems. We can live our lives in freedom and enjoyment.’
Very easy to say, but to do? That’s another story.
My Buddhist monk friend indicated to me that it’s always possible for fear to resurface. Even if you defend against the Dark Knights for a long time, their illusions can still be reactivated by external or internal influences. A good example of this is my obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Throughout my life, my OCD has fluctuated. When I have minimal stress in my life for three or four months, it’s less intense – but when I’m attached to future or past fears, it’s reactivated almost at full strength.
If you slip into the past or future, you enter the domain of the Dark Knights. The Dream demands that you focus on the ‘now’.
There are many books that focus on how to stay in the present, but one in particular stands out for me: Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now: A guide to spiritual enlightenment. Tolle is a world leader in spiritual development and has influenced the hearts and minds of millions around the world. Obviously, the main focus of the book is the importance of embodying the present moment. I believe Mr Tolle is absolutely correct in this, but I’m also aware of the relentless bombardment of the Dark Knights’ illusions. It’s difficult! ‘Being in the now’ is our doorway to salvation and the fulfilment of the Dream, yes, but we still have to take the journey step by step.
Over the years of my battle with OCD, I’ve done a large amount of research to find ways to deal with it. One key piece of advice I received was, ‘Never react to the voices.’ One major obstacle a person with OCD has is that they believe the negative voices in their head are real. They are not you! As mentioned in chapter 9, we experience eternal and finite realities. The negative self-talk dialogue in your mind is finite. A very simple example: your colleague seems upset with you. You wonder, what did you do wrong? When the time is right, you confront your colleague about their behaviour, and ask why are they being so insensitive? Your colleague quickly apologises and explains that they are preoccupied with a difficult project at the moment. It had nothing to do with you! But your negative self-talk dialogue believed it was real because it was influenced by your perception: a mixture of logic, facts, emotions, feelings, personal interpretations and prejudices. Your negative self-talk dialogue is vulnerable to questionable influences.
This is the key to subduing the Dark Knights and not allowing blame (or violence) to dominate. Which wolf are you feeding? Is it possible to reduce the number of times you react to the Dark Knights and slowly build your resilience to them? You can also build your resilience level by practicing Vipassana (see chapter 3).
Only through not reacting can you silence the Dark Knights and stop blame from surfacing. If you fight the Dark Knights, you only give them greater impetus to influence you further.
It’s possible. I’ve built my personal resilience to drinking alcohol, for example. As a young man, I enjoyed a drink or three; when I met Magdalena, I still had my little party times but they became less frequent. My wife doesn’t like excessive drinking and we had a few strong disagreements on the topic. I gradually recognised the unnecessary nature of binge-drinking, even if it was only on a night out with the boys once every six months.
There were three important aspects to my transformation:
1.I never said, ‘I won’t binge-drink again.’ Identifying with the opposite behaviour to the one you’re changing will only suppress your urges.
2.Consequences change behaviour. I value my happiness with Magdalena more than binge-drinking: the idea of losing her over it was a powerful motivation.
3.Over time, I built resilience to the desire. After not participating in binge-drinking over a long period, I no longer have the urge to do so.
Not reacting over an extended period of time allowed me to build a resilience which protected me from the Dark Knights.
If you can accept every situation and remove your own agenda, you will be free. For example: if you come home after a long day at work, and you expect your partner to have cooked dinner, and they haven’t, you will be disappointed. You have made the assumption that a future event will occur, instead of staying open to what will happen. Note: in saying acceptance is the key, I’m certainly not suggesting that you accept unreasonable behaviour from others. I believe in assertiveness and in stating your position to others, and that all parties should respect others’ opinions. However, you can accept the situation by showing tolerance, not judging, and stating your point of view without biases or ulterior motives.
EXERCISE 28: DEFENDING YOURSELF AGAINST BLAME
Are you currently behaving in a way that you have no control over in specific situations? If yes, what are they?
If you could behave differently, what would you do?
What would be the logical compromise for these opposite behaviours? Is there a middle path to be found by accepting your own behaviour and another’s and creating a ‘win/win’ situation?
Do you currently have a habit that you feel you have no control over?
Consequences change people’s behaviour. What’s the consequence of your current behaviour?
How could you build your resilience to this habit? What’s a realistic six-month plan that won’t create stress for you?
Note: There is no judgement or pressure in the process of changing your personal behaviour. Realising the Dream is all about forgiveness. So please be honest with yourself and change dangerous behaviour(s) slowly.
1.Realising your Dream means that you must focus on the present; the past and future are the domain of the Dark Knights.
2.Only by not reacting – by accepting a situation – can you silence the Dark Knights and prevent blame.
Blame is the bodyguard for the other four Dark Knights. It is trying to protect illusions. When you point the finger at another, your intention is to protect something of value to you, because you are afraid to lose it. Would you blame that person if you didn’t value your idea or belief? Probably not. If you arrive at the point where you need to be aggressive in order to achieve your objective, then what you are protecting is not being protected. You are only irritating the situation by increasing the likelihood of further harm to you, or the thing you are protecting. Don’t react to provocation, become proactive, and look for achievable solutions and compromises.
Step 1: Take a moment to reflect on situations in the past where you have had a short fuse.
Step 2: Analyse what you were protecting during those situations, and why? Are the things that you protected important now? Did you achieve a positive outcome for you, and the other person or people in the situations?
Step 3: Close your eyes, choose one dangerous situation from step 2 and imagine it is recurring in the future. This situation is becoming very volatile and if it goes unchecked, could have a disastrous consequence for all people involved. How would you react differently this time? What would be an optimal win-win solution for everyone? How can you accept responsibility for your actions and empathise with the other person or people involved? Please remember: one reflex action of blame can permanently damage a relationship.