Learning to Accept Responsibility
The principle of responsibility, like that of personal honesty, is of paramount importance in the world of personal and spiritual growth. This is not a rule of man, but one of nature and that rule is actions have consequences. There is a strong correlation between responsibility and honesty. A lack of honesty generally often results in one not taking responsibility for their choices, and vice versa. Further, any kind of significant personal or spiritual growth is pretty much impossible with both of these qualities.
In the Bible, the Ten Commandments are purported to be an interpretation of “divine law” through a prophet. I say this as a statement about them and not as an agreement or disagreement with the Commandments or their wording. The seven deadly sins are another example of man’s interpretation of the laws of nature. The fundamental premise is that there are consequences to our choices especially when they cause harm to others. I say this not in terms of it being a sin or contravention of some divine law. I do say because a basic law of the universe, part of its nature if you will, is that for every action there is a equal and opposite reaction.
Choices are actions and they have consequences for which we have some responsibility. This applies to not just to physical acts as mentioned above but also to our own thoughts and the energies they manifest. In the latter case I am referring to the energies our thoughts manifest, which includes our emotions. When we react to our experiences with lower/thoughts with thoughts such as guilt, blame, anger or hate the energies that arise from them affect us and need to be dealt with at some point in time. If we do not take responsibility for our choice to react in a way that leads to these types of thoughts they remain and continue to negatively affect us.
Using will power to avoid an act, be it one that could negatively affect us or others directly or an internal one such as our conscious thoughts and the emotions they give rise to, is certainly a better option than acting on them. That said, it does not clear the issue within us that gave rise to our choosing to do so in the first place. All we are doing is avoiding an unresolved issue(s). Unresolved issues can lead to serious and long term emotion, mental and even physical consequences. Note that the term will power, as it is commonly understood and used, refers to the ability to resist or control, the power of ones will comes from within.
Breaches of particular religious commandments in deed or thought, certainly in western religion are sins. The idea of sin, as previously stated, is a man made construct, it is not an actual law of the universe. There are simply actions, or choices that have consequences. The reason I have brought Christian beliefs into the discussion is they are the dominant Western religious belief that many who read this essay are familiar with. The same thing can be said in regards to any religions that contains a doctrine of sin.
An analogy can help us grasp the consequences of the kind of lower/negative energies we manifest when we do not take responsibility for our choices and actions. We would all agree that if you heat water to a high enough temperature it boils. In a similar fashion, when we do not take responsibility for the energies we manifest we allow them to build up. If we remove the heat source, the water will cool; otherwise, it will get warmer. In a similar fashion, we will continue to build up of lower energies in our auric field as long as the source of the imbalance remains. The result being we continue to not just manifest and even attract such energies but also experiences of a similar kind. To prevent both we must must remove the source, which is the thought we hold in our minds.
The source of the imbalance is poor programming of our rational mind. We have learned from our experiences how to avoid personal responsibility in situations where our mind determines it will benefit us to do so. This does not mean it actually is of benefit, only that at some level we believe this to be the case. If we want to grow we must accept our responsibilities rather than avoid them. However, learning to do this, making it a part of us is not a simple task.
As with many of the principles I have talked about in this study guide, if you want to start taking responsibility for your choices you do so one-step at a time. It likely took your whole life to put you where you are, do not expect yourself to correct it in a few weeks. Use your developing honesty to help you “see” where you responsibilities lie in any given situation.
Contemplating, and even better meditating on our choices and their consequences, help us explore why we choose to not take responsibility for our choices. We cannot resolve our issues without taking responsibility for our thoughts, to make an effort to examine them. We cannot fix what we do not own.
The task is more difficult because most of the problems that have led us to be irresponsible relate to events in our childhood that have been buried under more such acts over the course of our lives. However, we do not always have to be able to remember exactly what happened to begin to deal with and resolve them. We can do that by working on it in the present.
While you work through this challenge do not let setbacks deter you. Try to take it easy, pick your battles and work on them when you can. Just try not to be lazy about it and let the opportunities to work on it pass you by. The thoughts that gave to a choice not to take responsibility for our actions are most active when this is happening. Hence we should try to stop and consider and meditate on what is going on at the time as we are more likely to find some of them. The key is to become committed to accepting total responsibility for our actions.
Another challenge with responsibility is determining what we are actually responsible for. When it comes to our actions that affect others this is not as easy to determine as it may sound. Those affected by our actions also have some responsibility for we attract the experiences we have so that we can learn from them. It can help if, as I have mentioned before, we try to deal less with our actions being right or wrong or good or evil. It is a matter of choices and consequences regardless of our conscious awareness of them. You will find essays listed at the end of this one under the title of Further Study helpful in this aspect of things.
Responsibility is generally defined as accountability or being answerable for a particular duty, trust or obligation. We can add being answerable for our choices to this definition. This gives rise to the question of "Who determines what our responsibilities are?" One can argue that society , our employers, friends, associates and so do. The actual answer is that all of these and none of these do.
Our responsibility lies in the choice we make but less so in the outcomes. This is why we get karma for our choices, not their outcomes. If I choose to act to cause someone harm I get karma regardless of whether I am success in doing so or not. It also has nothing to do with external influences on us that had us choose to do so. We must take personal responsibility for our choices and blame others for them. We make these choices, based on our experiences, and our awareness and acceptance of responsibilities presented to us from without through experiences.
Let us consider a situation where a rock falls off a mountain and someone dies as a result. Is the rock responsible for crushing them? It is true that the falling rock crushed them; however, no one would say the rock is not responsible for the act. The rock did not make the choice to fall. Responsibility enters the equation when we choose, whether we are conscious of the choice or not.
The question of how far our responsibility extends is another matter. Take the case someone’s feelings are hurt by someone I have said. Am I responsible for hurting the others feelings? The answer is no. The person whose feelings were hurt are responsible for their own feelings, I am responsible for the reasons that led me to say it and for speaking it. If the intent of my words was to hurt, belittle, show superiority and so on, then I have an issue to deal with; however, it is separate from the issue the person I said them to has. What we have in this case is two people with separate issues expressed through a shared experience.
The above situation is simplistic to help clarify the basic responsibility we have. In reality, our interactions are rarely so cut and dried with only one factor in play. Our interactions occur on many levels so it is helpful to consider our responsibility in relation to our interactions one aspect at a time. At the same time we must also be as honest as we possibly can.
For instance, we all have dealt with situations where we have been asked a question and we believe the other persons feelings could be hurt by our answer. Do we say the truth as we see it or say something dishonest to spare their feelings or avoid answering altogether perhaps by dodging the question? There is no definitive answer to this. This is part of the lessons of life.
In the situation I outlined we could say the truth and risk their getting bothered by it or perhaps lose a friend and future opportunities to help them because they are unable to handle the honesty. Alternatively we could spare their feelings by lying or avoiding yet miss the current opportunity to help them. Further, both of these are based on our presumptions or thoughts of what is right or beneficial for them.
We must examine our thoughts and feelings about answering their question and when we do answer it is with the best interests of all in mind. We also must be careful that we are not trying to control the person, situation or outcome by how we choose to answer. There will always be some measure of uncertainty until such a time as we have learned to quiet our restless churning mind with its desires, needs and wants and learned to listen to our intuition unfettered by our thoughts. In the meantime, we make choices and observe and integrate the outcome. This is how we learn.
Our responsibilities extend to all our interactions with others and over all our thoughts. We have responsibilities in the moment based on our actions, and responsibilities for the ideas we support and believe in. In a basic one on one interaction, it is is easier to see/know who is responsible for what than it is when many people are involved or affected by the potential outcomes our our interaction. what can be harder to realize let alone accept is that our thoughts about certain concepts become part of the collective consciousness of man, and hence can influence others we do not even know. This is how cultural/societal norms get established.
Thoughts are energy, and they do not simply vanish after we think them. This energy moves like a wave and if strong enough can affect similar energies in others inducing the thought in them (this is the basis of many forms of telepathy). For example, few realize that disapproval of gays or women or anything for that matter in part facilitates the negative actions taken towards them by others. Our thoughts radiate from us, they can influence the weak minded or those predisposed to them. We are not responsible for the act itself, that resides with the person doing it; however, our thoughts can play a role, hence we do have responsibility for them.
Our responsibilities for our thoughts are much more challenging to discern than say an act where the consequences are visible. We are responsible, in whole or part, for various aspects of any given interaction. A different degree of responsibility is associated with each aspect of our choices. We can consider them as layers of responsibility.
The layers of potential responsibilities in an interaction include:
- My responsibility
- The responsibilities of the person(s) in the interaction
- Responsibilities all parties share
- My responsibility for others
- The part those connected to us share in it
- The part shared by all humankind
- The parts I do not know about that I also share.
In every action we perform, there are shared aspects. As inconvenient as it may be if I hit you then I have to take responsibility for my choice to do so. You would have to take responsibility for being in the place and time where I could hit you. You may be inclined to say that you were there by accident, but in the universe, there are no accidents. Everything happens for a reason. In this example, my responsibility for the act is clearly visible, while the other person appears to have none as it is behind a veil, hidden from view. That is we do not know what drew them to the shared experience to be at that place and time to be hit whether consciously or otherwise, The fact that we knew each other is not sufficient.
This notion is hardest to accept when the act appears to be completely random. But the lesson for us in this case is not in what happened to us, it lies in how we reacted to it. We tend to take our lives very personally and act like they are our only one and fail to realize that our past lives and the karma we built up from them play a role. If one does not believe in reincarnation or karma then this notion does not even factor in. This increases the likelihood of the feeling we are a victim and played no role in attracting the experience.
There are countless reasons why we allow ourselves to become victims. We need to ask ourselves what actions or energies are we manifesting that the other person reacted to, and as mentioned above, what put us in a certain position or location that led to what occurred in the first place? Perhaps he or she ignored the feeling that they should have stayed home, maybe they were in a hurry, they were not paying attention to their intuition or maybe they made choices long ago that resulted in their being there.
I realize this may sound like I am blaming the victim for being in the wrong place. This is definitely not so. I am blaming no one. There is no blame, only responsibility. Blame is a tangle of negative emotions created through our response to an experience. An example from my youth may help with understanding this notion.
In my late teens I was put in a very difficult situation due to an issue that arose between myself and my father. I was thrown out of the house just before mid term exams in my second year of university without notice and he kept the funds I'd earned to pay for my education. I tried to deal with it and did not do so well. I had little help with funding and so ended up moving around a lot and living in rough neighbourhoods. I got involved in some people with "poor character" even though I had already starting to try to live a more spiritual life and work on my personal and spiritual growth.
Eventually one a series of events led a person I had shared a small condo with to physically assault me out of the blue. He was much larger and caused damage to my face that took near half a year to heal. Others I knew offered to get revenge for what he did to me but I said no. While it was not not easy to accept I realized that I had put myself in that position to be assaulted by associating with people who had little control over themselves and acted emotionally rather than rationally.
I chose to accept what happened and spent a lot of time meditating on the experiences and choices that put in the situation I was in... and moved on. In the aftermath of what happened I resolved to work more on myself to understand the thoughts that led to my choices so I did not put myself in such a position again. I did not know exactly what all the lessons associated with it were and some aspects of it still remain a mystery especially those related to the person who assaulted me. However, I believe the experience was necessary for me to change for I might never have done so without it.
In terms of our experiences with others there is something beyond “my part, and your part”... what lies there is our part. That which binds us to that place and time together. It is what drew us to share the experience. If the event is a catastrophic one, or one with huge consequences in our lives then the bond is greater, perhaps linked to other experiences in this life, or in another. Family relations, close friendships and strong relationships, be they "good or bad" are often this way. There are also responsibilities we share based on our culture, our laws.
For example, take a culture that has imposes the death penalty for a crime. Is the person who pulls the switch a murderer? No, the culture that allows such a penalty shares the burden. The person who acts for the whole takes some responsibility though not the bulk of it. I am not referring to feelings of hate, as these belong mostly to the individual expressing them.
At the same time, when a community, culture or society condones, fosters or allows such acts to occur then all people associated with them share some responsibility for it. While this may be a graphic example, it is useful in illustrating the concept of shared responsibility. We cannot use the notion of shared ignorance to excuse the acts of our society; to do so is an abdication of personal responsibility. Society is not a separate entity; it is the collective “we”. When we change, it will, not before.
Learning to accept responsibility begins with starting to recognize where in our lives we not accepting responsibility or have not. Looking at our personal strengths as well as what we are not so strong on helps us in this. Our weaknesses will point us to a number of areas where may not be taking full responsibility. This gives us a place where we can start to do so.
As we did in our work on honesty, we can examine areas in our life where we struggle with responsibility. Ask yourself similar questions to the ones you did when you worked on the Honesty Table. This will help pinpoint the areas where you struggle with responsibility. Target those areas where you can improve your sense of responsibility with the least effort or the ones you must deal with. By going after them, and succeeding, we build an additional foundation to stand one, one from where we are more likely to succeed when we work on the harder ones.
Accepting responsibility also makes a significant difference in the development of our spiritual and psychic aspects. By this, I mean responsibility for all our deeds and all our thoughts as well. When we accept responsibility for every aspect of our lives, there is less clutter in our minds. Those who do this find it easier to meditate, to relax in general. It is likely they will also be happier, friendlier and more at ease with life in general.
When we work on clearing the thoughts that had us denying or avoiding our responsibilities we have fewer issues to work past, or around. This also raises our vibration rate. Our daily meditations become easier, fuller, more satisfying and successful. By accepting responsibility for our actions, we begin to enable the skill to listen to the world around us. We are less frightened of the "ghosts in our closet", able to see ourselves more honestly accelerating our growth.
It is true that our responsibilities are not always clearly visible and we often proceed with uncertainty. However, when we are open to accepting personal responsibility, they start to show themselves to us. It is as if they hide so long as we are not serious about doing anything about them. They end up wrapped in knots of blame and guilt, of anger and jealousy. These in turn are likely “causes” for some of many of our personal and life problems.
At the same time, we must be careful that we are not accepting responsibility for others lives. We are not here to do their work for them nor are we here to try to control what they do. Legal obligations or parental or other such obligations aside, we must be very careful of assuming assume responsibility for the choices, actions or lives of others. They have their own lessons to learn and further, our need to be responsible for them may be due to our lack of being responsibility for ourselves. After all, if we can get others to be as we believe they should be we make them responsible for our need thereby avoiding responsibility ourselves.
It should be obvious, at least at an intellectual level, that accepting responsibility helps us to clear up some of mental debris we have built into our rational mind. Developing the personal awareness that one should be taking responsibility for the experiences in their lives is the initial step towards actually doing so.
Improved clarity gives us a greater return for our efforts. This is due to spending less time working against ourselves and wasting our time and energy. We can then put them towards other goals. We get stronger and internal resistance starts to fade. Push yourself in this area as much as possible. I encourage you to take time to forgive yourself for your perceived mistakes, we all make them. What matters is that you keep pursuing both honesty and self-responsibility in all your acts and thoughts as often and as best as you can.
Elements of Personal Responsibility
Further study
© 2009 Allan Beveridge
Last updated September 5, 2023