WHEN THE BUCK STOPS

Being a disciple of Rajneesh many years ago gave me some very valuable lessons. One of which is about 'responsibility'. I have this rule: it's not OK to pass on the inconvenience - and I apply it vigilantly. That is, just because someone acts unconsciously someone else should not carry the mistake or the consequences of that person's dysfunction. Of course in reality it happens all the time. And I admit, I have been the perpetrator more times than I can count. In my defence I can say that I have tried not to do that and where possible have rejected that phenomenon of human behaviour called 'kicking the dog'. That is, shit happens, you feel bad, so you just kick someone else.

My 'take-no-shit' rule is a result of events early in my life where I felt disempowered in my relationship with my father who had very little insight or control of his anger. It is the reason I did not have children - I was simply terrified that I would pass the dysfunction onto them.

Its a thing that happens in families, often in very subtle ways. One person seems to carry the angst for everyone else, mainly because everyone else is unconscious. I was reminded of it whilst watching a documentary on the ABC recently. It was about a Jewish family by the name of Wallisch whose matriarch witnessed the murder of her parents and siblings in Auschwitz. She had only been saved from extermination herself because she was a cellist. During her stay at Belsen she was asked to play for Mengler in his 'laboratory' - about which she expressed a lack of comprehension regarding the paradoxical positioning of the beauty of music alongside the horror that Mengler wrought. She was still scarred by her experiences but had been 'saved by music' - which was the title of the doco - and had simply got on with her life after the war. Any lingering issues didn't seem to have been passed on to her son who was also a musician. However the daughter was a psychologist and had obviously been working through her own issues. In the interview she said matter-of-factly: I am the wound.

I have observed this phenomenon in families. A family can move through the stages of life often without any real insight. Many of them get away with it until the time comes to leave the body and this life behind. Of course as I have aged I have developed something called 'compassion' and I realise that most people are sleepwalking through their lives. And even if they aren't - recognising a behaviour and actually re-programming it are two very different things. I know, I have tried - I am always trying. But often, within the family there is one 'black sheep' who carries the 'sins' of the family.

Many years ago I decided that the buck had to stop somewhere and that to change the world I had to start with myself. I would like to say it was a noble pursuit but in reality it seemed like the only thing I could do once I had made certain dicoveries about being a human-being. If the buck stops with you there is no-one to blame any more, you have to absorb all of the projections you usually throw out into the world because there is no-one else out there. You have to grapple with your ego, guilt, confusion, the notion of 'evil' within yourself. If you are really lucky or really strong you will avoid self-destruction or being burnt to a cinder in the flames of transformation.

If you decide that the buck really does stop with you, you are in for one hell of a ride.