Amend Yourself – Part 1

Download article as PDF

Aversion to fault finding is described in the Gita as one of the transcendental qualities of men
endowed with the divine nature. In this issue we look at some of the instructions of Srila
Bhaktisiddhanta Saravati Thakura, Srila Prabhupada’s spiritual master, on faultfinding.
Hopefully this will give you greater insight into why you may fault find and how to overcome
the tendency to see the worst in others.

May you always think of Krsna,

Mahatma Das

___________________________________________________________________________
______

Amend Yourself
 Addicted to Fault Finding
“Look within. Amend yourself rather than pry into the frailties of others.” These are the
words of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura.

Fault finding is natural for the conditioned soul. We don’t

have to learn how to do it or take training to get better at it. In fact, for many people it is an
addiction which gives them some form of perverted pleasure. We could call this the
Ramacandra Puri complex. Ramachandra Puri was a contemporary of Lord Caitanya who had
an intense need to fault find. He took delight in finding faults in others, even where there
were no faults. He was addicted to fault finding.
Fault finding can be so addicting that some people have to get their daily fix. And it’s easily
available everywhere. You can get a fix from all kinds of radio talk shows, news magazines,
comedians, and TV shows (fault finding sells). Or you might seek out friends or co-workers
to feed the addiction. As Elanor Rosevelt said, “If you don’t have something nice to say about
someone, sit next to me.”

How rampant is this addiction? It starts early in life. Children’s cartoons are full of fault
finding, put downs, and cutting sarcasm. Disrespect is cool and the coolest dudes are
portrayed as the ones who put everyone down in the most sarcastic ways.

What’s The Payoff?

So what kind of pleasure do we get from fault finding? What kind of payoff do we get? One
common payoff is to feel good or better about ourselves by putting someone else down.
If putting someone down makes us happy, what does that say about us? According to the
Gita, the happiness one derives from fault finding is in the mode of ignorance. Happiness in
the mode of ignorance is described as miserable in the beginning and the end. Isn’t that an
interesting concept – happiness that is miserable? Fault finding creates a miserable state of
consciousness for one who speaks it and for one who hears it. It poisons the mind and heart.
Yet it is this poisoning of the heart that is taken to be pleasure. That’s how intoxication
works. You take in poison (toxic) and feel “happiness”.
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur points out that there is no benefit in seeing faults in
others, but there is benefit in seeing our own faults. “It is necessary for the best to scrutinize
one’s ineligibility. Why should a person be anxious to pry into the defects of others when he
does not seek to scrutinize his own conduct?”

Yet the very reason that some of us fault find is to avoid scrutinizing our own shortcomings
by focusing on the shortcomings of others.

In addition, we may fault find because we want to assert our belief as the best or only way
(we need to be right). Or sometimes we might fault find to get back at someone for hurting
us. So fault finding becomes a means of revenge.

But the reasons we fault find are not always so obvious. For example, after a long time and a
lot of introspection, one devotee realized that she found fault with others so she wouldn’t
have to get close to them. Once she realized and addressed this, she was able to give up her
fault finding mentality.

Another devotee was finding fault with a close friend and couldn’t understand why. By being
open and honest with herself she came to realize that she was feeling guilty that she hadn’t
supported her friend during a crisis. Finding fault with her friend protected her self-image and
belief that she is a caring and helpful person. Thus fault finding can be a way to build and
maintain a false image of ourselves.
Find Faults in Yourself
What should you do when you are focusing on other’s faults? Srila Bhaktisiddhanta says,
“When faults in others misguide and delude you, have patience, introspect – find faults in
yourself. Know that others cannot harm you unless you harm yourself.”

Of course, if you are like Ramacandra Puri, everyone else’s faults will stare you in the face
while you’ll find it difficult to see any of your own.

Misguided By Other’s Faults

How does seeing other’s faults misguide and delude us? We allow another’s faults to distract
us from thinking of Krsna. It is interesting to note that the word “aparadha” actually means
“without worship.”

Another way we are misguided is that we often use the defects of others as an excuse for our
own shortcomings. We see this all the time when children play. When they don’t treat their
friends well, their normal excuse is, “Well, he did the same thing to me.” We do similar
things more often than we’d like to admit. We use another’s misbehavior as a rationale for
our own misbehavior. Also, fault finding has a boomerang effect – its own karmic
reaction. The very fault we are seeing in others comes back to infect us.
Why are other’s faults so noticeable? Srila Bhaktisiddhanta said that because I am so
honeycombed with faults I see those same defects in others. The strainer is finding fault with
the needle, “Oh you have a hole in you.” Bhaktivinoda Thakura writes, “Fault-finding arises
only from imposing one’s own bad habits on others.”

How Detrimental is Fault Finding?

Is fault finding really that bad or really that detrimental to our spiritual lives? Srila
Prabhupada describes it as a sinful activity. “Those who are committing sins like illicit sex,
fault-finding, and unjustified violence rarely attain spiritual knowledge or realization. Sinful
activities deepen the dark gloom of ignorance, while pious activities bring the light of
transcendental knowledge into one’s life.”

PRABHUPADA PUTS FAULT FINDING RIGHT UP THERE WITH ILLICIT SEX AND
UNJUSTIFIED VIOLENCE (MEAT EATING).

I have seen many devotees leave Krsna consciousness after becoming increasingly critical of
devotees.
Look Within
The next time you are about to talk about someone else’s faults, replace their name in the
sentence with your name. That will give you a more accurate take on reality. And that will
help you “amend yourself.”

Exercise
Make a mental note of how often you fault find and why you do it (both with devotees and
non devotees). See if you can break the habit and go a day, a week, a month or more without
saying anything bad about anyone (calling a thief a thief is not considered fault finding).

The goal is to break the habit. It is said that if you do something everyday for ninety days, it
will become a habit. So if you can go ninety days without finding fault with anyone, you will
have developed the new good habit of not finding fault. And you will be in the good company
of those pure devotees who refuse to speak or hear ill of others.

Are you up to the challenge? Take the no fault ninety day challenge. And if you don’t want to
take the challenge, ask yourself why not?

Amend Yourself – Part 2

Download article as PDF
I received some feedback from a godbrother of mine about the last Illuminations newsletter
on fault finding. This resulted in an exchange of several emails between us. Since our
conversation went more deeply into the subject, I decided to share it with you because I
thought you would find it enlightening. So this newsletter is that email conversation.

Within our conversation suggestions of things that can be done to overcome the tendency to
fault-find naturally came up. I encourage you to take up those suggestions (exercises).

I chose to have this godbrother remain anonymous. So I refer to him as “Prabhu.”

May you always think of Krsna,

Mahatma das

___________________________________________________________________________
______

 Amend Yourself – Part 2

Prabhu: I will take your challenge to not find faults for 90 days. And I will do this by finding
only good things in others.
Mahatma: I already blew it. I have to start over again. It has to be 90 consecutive days. So if
you get to 89 days and find fault, you have to start over again and go for 90 days without
finding fault. By then you will have developed the habit of not noticing other’s faults.
Prabhu: In a morning walk entitled “The Nature of Rascals,” Srila Prabhupada makes these
famous quotes regarding faultfinding of devotees by devotees:
Just try to understand that whatever it may be, what is the mentality of  these rascals, that
“The good things do not come to your notice.” If  something is bad, “Oh, here is…”.
Pamarah dosam icchanti gunam  icchanti panditah. Saj-jana gunam icchanti dosam icchanti
pamarah. That  means they are not even a Vaisnava. Even one has got some fault, a
Vaisnava does not see that. He takes the good qualities.
Prabhu: So here Srila Prabhupada points out that vaisnavas don’t fault-find. So I guess I am
not a vaisnava. But since I want to be one I should stop faultfinding.
Mahatma: Prabhupada said if one is jealous he is in the material world and one who is non-
envious is in the spiritual world.
The vaisnava only sees the good in others. What an elevated consciousness that requires. But
you can imagine how happy and satisfied one would be with that kind of consciousness? But
like Ravana couldn’t give up his desire for Sita even after his ministers told him it would be
the cause of his downfall, it is difficult to give up faultfinding even though it brings no real
pleasure. And what’s worse is that it harms our tender bhakti creeper.
Prabhu: If Krsna could spit out the poison from Putana’s breast and just think, “Oh here is
my mother,” and then give her the same position as Mother Yasoda in the spiritual world,
then what is my problem in overlooking other’s shortcomings?
Mahatma: Good point. This morning I was thinking that strong determination to develop
good qualities and give up bad ones takes place when we become disgusted with our non-
vaisnava behavior. There may be so many techniques for improving ourselves, but unless we
really want to change they won’t be very effective. When we execute bhakti but don’t really
want to give up anarthas or improve ourselves, our bhakti tends to become niyamagraha,
just rules and ritual.
I can’t make anybody change, but I can try to convince people why they should change. That
is the point of my newsletters.

Prabhu: Another point is that the tendency to fault find can become fueled because of low
self-esteem; we want to bring others down. Leaders in ISKCON have become the favorite
target of many. But if any of us were in their position would we really do that much better?
Mahatma: Practically everyone finds some faults with their bosses or blames them for their
problems.
Prabhu: It can be difficult to be personally accountable. Sometimes it hurts or it’s scary to
admit that the buck stops with us. If we blame others it somehow makes us feel like we are ok
– or makes us feel artificially better about ourselves.
Mahatma: The other day Hrdayananda Maharaja gave class here and said that if you want to
feel better about yourself, be a better person.
Prabhu: There is a saying that if you kill a skunk, your hand will smell. So if I try to bring
others down, I will go down also.
Mahatma: Yes, when we find fault in another it seems that fault comes back to haunt us.
And how can one be happy and peaceful focusing on other’s bad qualities?
Prabhu: If I had spent as much time rooting out my own faults as I had spent seeing others
faults, I’d probably be a pure devotee by now. At least I’d be a lot happier.
Mahatma: Not seeing another’s faults does not mean we make something wrong they did
right. We don’t condone misbehavior. We can take someone to court for a crime they
committed against us in order that they be rectified or to protect society – and at the same
time forgive them. The tendency is to condemn them forever. But by doing that we also
condemn ourselves.
Prabhu: We are all born into this material world due to our envy of Krsna, and that envy of
Krsna, and even of our guru, is reflected in our relationships with one another. This is
something that can be difficult to see or admit.
Mahatma: This is such an important point. Once a teacher had her students draw a picture of
someone they hated. Then she put those pictures on the wall and gave each student darts to
throw at their picture. When she removed the pictures from the wall the students found that
there was a picture of Jesus hanging on the wall behind each of their pictures. When everyone
saw that his body was full of holes from the darts they threw, they all starting crying. Then
the teacher quoted a saying from Jesus, “As you treat the least of them, you treat me.”
Prabhu: I think the antidote to envy is to develop an appreciative mentality. A good exercise
is to find at least three people a day and say something we genuinely appreciate about them.
Mahatma: I am recognizing more and more the importance of appreciating others. Everyone
has some fault, but if we focus on developing an appreciative mentality, we will tend to
overlook those faults. There is so much to appreciate.
Another exercise is to make a list of all the people in your life who have helped you in some
way. Then write them all a note of appreciation for what they have given you. By doing this
we might see that there are actually persons on this list who we still have some bad feelings
towards.

Prabhu: Appreciation is a quality of higher consciousness. Prabhupada always appreciated

whatever little service any of us rendered. And that appreciation encouraged us. Faultfinding
simply discourages. Sometimes a person may be discouraged about what they are doing and
just one word of appreciation can completely change their attitude.
Mahatma: This exchange we are having reminded me of the story of the father and son and
the donkey. This story shows how ludicrous faultfinding is and how it serves no purpose
(unless it is given in a loving and constructive way).

A young boy is riding a donkey and the father

is walking along side the donkey. When they enter a village everyone criticizes the boy for
not letting the elderly father ride the donkey. So he gets off and the father gets on the donkey.
But when they arrive in the next village everyone criticizes the father for making the young
son walk. So they decide that they will both ride the donkey. Guess what happens? In the
next village they are criticized for mistreating the poor donkey by making him carry so much
weight. So they both get off the donkey and they all walk. Then in the next village everyone
faults them for walking when they have a donkey to ride.

It’s a nice story to remember when we are tempted to fault find because unless we are called
to give constructive criticism, and unless we do it in a mood of service, it serves only to
disturb others and ourselves.