Guilt
Question: When I was 17, I did something very wrong and still feel shame, guilt, and remorse. Even though I am 60 now, I still regret what I did in the past and occasionally get depressed about it. I know it is not helpful to hang on to this, but it haunts me.
I feel like what I did was evil. I let go of the behavior, but still live in fear of imaginary repercussions in some time to come. I try being present and seeing what this says about me, but I still feel miserable and undeserving of forgiveness. I can't see a way out of this negative state. Please help me see this in a better way.
Answer: All is well, and will prove itself so if you remain aware of this conflict without falling into the mud that has stirred it up within you. The past is the past. It has no foothold in us save for the parts of us that are fascinated with reliving the pain for the purpose of confirming the reality of self.
The darkness that torments us over what we did does so to keep its place in us now. By misdirecting our attention to a time now passed, it's able to "hide" in us the present. Refuse to relive what was... instead, agree to see yourself as you are now. This is the only way for one to die to what lives within us at our expense. Yes, it's painful, but "evil" isn't an act; in some ways it's in the part of us that clings to what was in order to "be" now.
(Excerpted from student correspondence)
Question: I have been dealing with fear and guilt in regards to the ever-changing insights and truths I believe I have found while working on my own spiritual growth. Studying other religions has shaken the Catholic Church foundations on which I was raised. How does one know the truth of things when there are so many other religions, etc. who all claim they know what it is? Does one ever know when a conclusion is not an illusion? As I work toward releasing myself from myself, I find I am still in this guilt mode of being wrong and that I will burn in hell forever.
Answer: The fear you feel is something that will fade in time as it is replaced with the true Faith now being born in you. Fear of things, even of "hell," is the mis-creation of a mind set against itself. Faith is not "in things seen"... therefore, not in thought. Faith is our gradual realization that God IS Good, and that whatever we are asked to bear in the moment is His request for our benefit. The more surely we discover that the Divine is never not present in possibility -- IF we are willing to receive its Light -- the more the old fears of an everlasting darkness fade away. So, as far as conclusions go, notice that whenever you reach one (in thought, or through some negative reaction, like fear), that the conflict you feel at the moment is evidence of its falsity. Truth, the Christ, is a living Light... always changing whatever it touches. Christ never "concludes" anything, but continues to perfect whatever His Light touches. Only the sleeping, divided mind wants to conclude things, so it can stand apart from its frozen creation and know itself accordingly. This act is division, and the only hell there is because each such movement separates the one involved from the love of God.
(Excerpted from student correspondence)
Question: What is the best way to make up for wrongs you have done in the past to others (betraying, lying, stealing, etc.)?
Answer: All of us have wronged others. Truth be known, until we wake up, we are all -- in one form or another -- in some kind of wrong relationship in life. That is why the key to correcting what we consider to be a faulty past is to work to be awake in the present. The wrong parts of us want to keep themselves alive by continually dragging before our mind's eye all that we have been wrong in doing. Then we react to these images and -- in one form or another -- resist them. All this unconscious act accomplishes is to secretly continue the life of this mistaken perception and the wrong behavior it perpetuates. Drop all of your concerns for what is no longer, and be intent on being conscious of what is before you. This changes things.
Excerpted from Seeker's Guide to Self-Freedom
Question: Is there any value to clearing away the wreckage of the past? It seems to help, yet I feel wrong in trying to correct so many wrongs that are behind me.
Answer: The wreckage of the past exists only in the thoughts of the self that keep it alive. Work to make things right in the here and now. Come awake to the pain in rehashing regrets and you will see yourself revisiting the scene of a "crime" long past. These scenes are the nightmares created by a sleeping self and are kept alive by remaining asleep to yourself. Learn to prefer your fresh awareness of the new moment over your frustrating memory of moments gone by. Do this special kind of inner work and the healing you want will follow, which includes the healings necessary with, or in, others. This is a spiritual law.
Excerpted from Seeker's Guide to Self-Freedom
Question: What about the idea of repentance? On one hand, being repentant for ourselves -- as certain old religious teachings say we should be -- seems as much a part of being self-punishing as is just "cutting loose," going wild, and then feeling terrible afterward for our reckless actions. Is there a true repentance beyond this idea of just living full of regrets that change nothing?
Answer: Let me offer this: True repentance has nothing to do with any ideas or images we may hold about ourselves as either being "bad" or "sorry" for what we have done. Real repentance is an unmistakable, instantaneous moment of insight where we see, to our shock, that something untrue, un-joyful, and self-destructive has been living our life and getting us to call ourselves -- and know ourselves -- by its presence. Lastly, this shock -- and what it brings -- leads to the birth, or the discovery, of a new kind of inner peace that has no opposites.
Excerpted from Seeker's Guide to Self-Freedom
