Be the Parent, Not the Child

There is a sense of separateness called 'me.' It whispers, 'You will solve the world's problems if you just find the right party to blame.'

But this very need to blame is the world's greatest problem. Blame corporations, blame religions, blame governments, blame the rich, blame the poor, blame the liberal, blame the conservative, blame the 'other.' The truth is, there is no other.

Blaming another is the sign that I have shirked my own responsibility for world peace. My primary duty is to awaken, and see that who I blame is inseparable from who I Am. There will never be peace on earth without my wholeness.


Parenthood is the sign of wholeness, signifying how unconditionally we enfold one another. The one person we never blame for our world's problems is our own child. When we see humanity as our own children, flame disappears.

In the Metta Sutra, Buddha taught us to pray, 'Just as a mother embraces her child, her only child, let me embrace the whole world in this heart of compassion.' And through the Prophet Isaiah, God sings, 'Can a mother forget her sleeping child? Can she forget the infant at her breast? So I will never forget you!' 

This is why we pray, Our Father, Our Mother. Not that we are children, but that we reach toward our highest potential: to take responsibility for the earth, as a parent.