There are two different ways that one can watch the television program, “American Idol”.  One of those ways drains us.  The other empowers us.The way our lives unfold, it’s been said, depends not so much on what we see or hear, but on how we respond to it.

In a very powerful ways, “American Idol” is a food for us.  We can choose to make it positive, powerful spiritual food or we can allow it to feed a cancer in us.  Let’s look first at how some of its audience uses their viewing of this program as a way of draining their own power.

First, please understand the following premise:

The only real power is based in love.

Artificial power is that which is based in greed, manipulation, control and judgment.   People tend to resort to grasping for artificial power when they do not know of the existence or means to attain real power.  When people are not doing so well in either the exercise of real power or artificial power, they often resort to feeling like victims.  The mindset then becomes: “If I cannot be powerful, then at least I can get people to pity me.”  Please read this paragraph again and stop here to contemplate what is being said here.

American Idol’s design and structure are masterful manipulations.  Its audience is given a multitude of opportunities to judge the contestants, and judge the judges.  If you want, you can judge Simon Cowell to be mean.  You can judge Ellen DeGeneres to be too easy to please.  You can judge any of the judges to be too deficient in something or to have too much of something else.  The judgment of those judges do not count for anything, but the collective judgment of the audience does.  Viewers can claim the same kind of “power” that spectators of the gladiators collectively shared when the victor was either given or denied the permission to slay the defeated opponent.

The audience gets to judge the greeter and consoler after Cowell has completed the act of crucifixion.  We can judge Ryan Seacrest, too.  Is he being too kind?  Is he offering a performer unrealistic encouragement?

Watching, we can judge the contestants on a variety of levels.  Is that dress too over the top?  How could she pick such a stupid song to sing?  Is he pandering to the judge?  Trying to look too cute?  She doesn’t look like she really feels that ballad!  When all the judges turn thumbs down on a singer, you might harshly judge them and concurrently sympathize with the performer.

It’s easy to rush to judgment, the kind that helps us feel falsely superior to the judges or the performers.

“Even I could sing better than her.”

“He’s just terrible.”

“She’s really stupid to think that she can sing.”

We can choose which contestants and judges we relate to.  We can identify with them because we see ourselves in them.  If your parents didn’t encourage you much when you were growing up, you might identify with Simon Crowell.  If you see yourself as a compassionate person and like to think of yourself as one who always sees the sunny side of things, you might connect with DeGeneres.

One way to view “American Idol” is from the perspective of judgment.  The show can be one massive judge-fest.  Here’s where it can get destructive:  When observing and discerning turn into making someone else better or worse than you, you effectively drain your own power and the collective power.  When you make somebody else wrong, you likewise drain yourself.  Why is that?  Because in doing these things you ignore your oneness with everybody else.  When we condemn others, we are condemning ourselves

This is the dangerous opportunity of “American Idol”.  And yet, there is another way to watch this show, one that will give you a different feeling than watching it from a judging perspective.  I suggest that you experiment with it: The next time you watch the show, view it and all that you see with a sense of loving compassion.  Just decide up front that you will respond to each person on the show with a sense of empathy.

When a performer misses a note, you can remember a time when you stumbled doing something important to do.

When one of them makes multiple errors during their performance, you can choose to recognize that they are in some ways very much like you.

Maybe you can have a little compassion for Cowell, who was likely raised by folks who didn’t have much skill in the child-praising department.  Can you love him anyway?

One way of doing this more effectively might be to see at least a little of yourself in all of the performers and judges.  Whether watching “American Idol” empowers you or just gives you a false sense of power or victimhood depends upon one thing: your willingness to realize that we are one people.  To harshly judge anyone is just a way of judging our own selves…and judging all of us.  This is what we are communally getting over.  The world to come will be one in which we accept each other as we are.  It starts with you.  It starts with me.

Try watching one episode of American Idol with an open and compassionate heart.  As you do this, notice how you feel compared to how you feel when you repeatedly judge.

Judging gives you very transient, artificial power.  Compassion gives you the real thing.

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Spiritual author Carlo Ami lives in Southern California between L.A. and San Diego