Let us not burden remembrances with a heaviness that’s gone.
— Shakespeare, The Tempest
Buddha’s all-important and stunning pronouncement that “life is suffering” is not only true but the implications of that insight seem to be beyond the grasp of an unconscious humanity. Our exploration of the definition, origin and ignorance related to guilt reveals why suffering is such a universal and self-destructive problem. We don’t know what guilt is, where it comes from nor what to do about it. After reading this article, we will know the truth about guilt.
One problem with the human reaction we call guilt is that we confuse it with shame, also a false-self reaction. The following paragraph from The New York Times illustrates our point. “The notion of culpability has been center stage in Western theater since the days of ancient Greek drama. Fast forward a few millenniums and guilt is still the star of the show: The roster of productions opening in New York is dense with accounts of lives crippled by shame.”[i] We must understand the very significant difference between guilt and shame or we won’t know why we behave the way we do in our everyday lives much less what’s happening on the stages of theaters in New York.
We will focus on guilt from the perspective of psychology and then shift to the context of Simple Reality. First, the distinction between guilt and shame to avoid possible confusion. Guilt is the emotion that says that I made a mistake and shame is the emotion that says I am a mistake. The first is a reaction to an event or trigger and the latter is an identity flowing from the worldview of P-B. Or in the words of Joan Borysenko: “[Shame is] an identity, a state in which we feel alienated, despairing, and helpless in general, rather than as a reaction to a specific event.”[ii]
Joan Borysenko has been helpful with her distinction between the behaviors associated with guilt and shame but the whole business of feeling guilty has a convoluted unconscious dimension. “Guilt is an attempt to purchase salvation, manipulate God, and purchase forgiveness by suffering. These attitudes stem from the misinterpretation of God as a great punisher. We think we will assuage His righteous wrath by our pain, suffering, and penance.”[iii] So maybe we need to re-read the previous article on God to get that all straightened out before we can appreciate this insight from David Hawkins.
Religion had better get busy and study a little psychology.
— Thomas Keating
Not only do many religions mis-characterize the Creator as judgmental and cruel but compound human suffering with implied or actual threats of punishments for violating precepts or commandments. “Religious guilt is the most extreme form of unhealthy guilt because it threatens us with an eternal separation from our Source. Religious guilt also separates us from other people who may have different belief systems. And inevitably, religious guilt separates us from ourselves.”[iv] In other words religious belief can be a source of neuroses driven by religion-induced guilt.
Even psychology, which is supposed to provide healing modalities that promise, among other benefits, to reduce the suffering associated with guilt, fails to understand the deeper origins of guilt. Freud’s model is too limited to be profound and can even be misleading when studying human behavior. The superego dictates an other-directed morality that comes from outside such as is found in religion. It is conditioned morality based on precepts such as the Ten Commandments that leads to guilt and or shame and is neurotic guilt based on the illusion of P-B.
For example, Rollo May sees guilt stemming from what Tillich called “the failure to be,” speaking of the failure to express our True self. “Ontological guilt does not consist of I am guilty because I violate parental [or religious] prohibitions, but arises from the fact that I can see myself as the one who can choose or fail to choose.”[v] Failure to choose Oneness as our narrative and our True self as our identity leads to the self-destructive reactions that characterize the guilt-laden human condition.
Psychologist Medard Boss agrees with Tillich saying “we ‘forget being’—by failing to bring ourselves to our entire being, by failing to be authentic, by slipping into [a] conformist anonymity, then we have in fact missed our being [True self] and to that extent are failures. ‘If you lock up potentialities [remain in P-B], you are guilty against (or indebted to, as the German word may be translated) what is given in your origin, in your ‘core’ [True self].”[vi]
Rollo May continues with insights into the origin and outcome of the consequences of denying the existence of Simple Reality and the identity determined by that denial. “In this existential condition of being indebted and being guilty are founded all guilt feelings, in whatever thousand and one concrete forms and malformations they may appear [emphasis added] in actuality.”[vii]
“If the individual did not have some freedom, no matter how minute, to fulfill some new potentiality [a paradigm shift for example], he would not experience anxiety. [Kurt] Goldstein illustrates this by pointing out how people individually and collectively surrender freedom in the hope of getting rid of unbearable anxiety, citing the individual’s retreating behind the rigid stockade of dogma or whole groups collectively turning to fascism in the interwar years in Europe.”[viii] Guilt stems from the anxiety that occurs when the individual chooses not to fulfill his/her potential, choosing reaction over response. Choosing to respond empowers us to transcend guilt.
The cat eats the mouse.
Neither exist.
Do not tell them.
— Jane Roberts
We now turn from psychology to Seth who will enable us to dissect guilt with a sharper scalpel. The Haiku above by Jane Roberts makes the connection between nature and guilt, a connection that most of us are unaware of unfortunately. Not encumbered by the delusions of the false self, Seth’s insights have a broader and a deeper range than our intellects are usually capable of. For example, he will lead us on an exploration of the distinction between “natural” and “unnatural guilt.”
“At certain levels both cat and mouse understand the nature of life energy they share, and are not—in those terms—jealous for their own individuality. This does not mean they will not struggle to live, but that they have a built-in unconscious sense of unity with nature [sense of Oneness] in which they know they will not be lost or immersed.”[ix]
The cat and the mouse are not “conscious” in the sense that humans are and lack “free will.” They do not have any guilt either and their natural instincts guarantee the survival of their species barring any interference from humans. The human species, on the other hand, is capable of self-destruction if it so chooses and that is where guilt enters the picture. Once again, our lack of awareness, our failure to more deeply understand the nature of guilt, leads to problems that wouldn’t otherwise exist.
Once humans became self-aware, they could begin the process of creating consciousness itself, replacing instinct with free will. “Such a task meant that man must break out of the self-regulating, precise, safe and yet limiting aspects of instinct. The birth of a conscious mind, as you think of it, meant that the species took upon itself free will. Built-in procedures that had beautifully sufficed could now be superseded. They became suggestions instead of rules.”[x] We have, unfortunately become too adept at ignoring those suggestions.
It is at this point in our evolution that both the freedom to create our own reality and guilt were born. “The ‘new’ consciousness accepted its emerging triumph—freedom—and was faced with responsibility for action of a conscious level, and with the birth of guilt.”[xi]
“You are to preserve life consciously, then, as animals preserve it unconsciously.”[xii] As we have learned in Simple Reality, the choice of authentic (not illusory) freedom and transcending suffering (which includes “unnatural guilt”) involves choosing response over reaction as the “means” by which life is preserved.
In this last portion of our article on the subject of guilt, notice how Seth reveals what he calls “natural guilt” which is beyond anything found in the discipline of psychology. “Natural guilt then is the species’ manifestation of the animals’ unconscious corporeal sense of justice and integrity. It means: Thou shalt not kill more than is needed for thy physical sustenance. Period.”[xiii]
The human species also feels “natural guilt” but chooses to deny it. Our problem then, is that we go to great lengths to repress our natural guilt, creating “unnatural guilt” and unwittingly compound rather than escape the problem of destroying the selfsame environment upon which we depend for survival. This behavior, we have repeatedly observed, is a valid definition of insanity.
Repressing and not “feeling” life in the present moment also has a connection to guilt. “If you do not feel your individual reality, then you can never realize that you form it, and so can change it. It is this denial of experience, and the energy blockages involved, that build up the accumulations of unnecessary “unnatural guilt.”[xiv]
We can now credit two of psychology’s pioneers and their contributions to a deeper understanding of human identity. Jung and his discovery of the “shadow” and Freud and his “slips.” Both have a connection to guilt. “Over a period of time the conscious mind, because of its position, can override the body’s messages [reactions]. Yet the backed-up accumulation of energy [repressed into the shadow] will seek an outlet [a Freudian slip]. The smallest, most innocent symbol for the repressed material may then bring about behavior on your part that seem out of all proportion to the stimulus.”[xv] After one of our “out of all proportion” reactions people will whisper “what in heaven’s name was that all about?” We will probably be asking ourselves the same thing at some point shortly thereafter. The answer will be, in many cases, that it can all be traced back to guilt.
When we choose to avoid our responsibility for creating consciousness by failing to respond to the promptings of “natural guilt,” we are missing the opportunity to express our natural compassionate identity. “When you do not embrace this conscious knowledge, but refuse it, you are not using one of the finest ‘tools’ ever created by your species, and you are to a large extent denying your birthright and heritage.”[xvi]
Notice the connection between guilt and compassion. “It is often said that man believes in devils because he believes in gods. The fact is that man began to believe in demons when he started to feel a sense of guilt. The guilt itself arose with the birth of compassion.”[xvii]
“The birth of compassion then took the place of the animal’s innate knowledge; the biological compassion turned into emotional realization.”[xviii]
We can begin to see that recognizing Seth’s “natural guilt” as part of our fundamental narrative is crucial to creating a sustainable human community. “It does not carry with it any built-in connection with punishment as you think of it. Once more, it was meant as a preventative measure.”[xix]
Now Seth makes the connection between guilt and violence. “The interpretations and uses to which this quite natural guilt has been put are horrendous. Guilt is the other side of compassion. Its original purpose was to enable you to empathize on an aware level with yourselves and other members of creaturehood, so that you could consciously control what was previously handled on a biological level alone. Guilt in that respect therefore has a strong natural basis, and when it is perverted, misused or misunderstood, it has that great terrifying energy of any runaway basic phenomenon.”[xx]
“If you shed the distorted concepts of unnatural guilt and accepted the wise ancient wisdom of natural guilt instead, there would be no wars. You would not kill each other mindlessly.”[xxi]
The projected energy of reactions triggered by guilt can be directed toward the other but can also be turned inward. “If you believe firmly in poor health you may use this repressed energy to attack a physical organ—a gall bladder may become ‘bad.’ According to your own belief system, you may trust the integrity of your body and instead project this guilt out upon others—onto a personal enemy, or a particular race, creed or color.”[xxii]
Guilt has the purpose of sending us a warning that we have done something that is, in fact, self-destructive. “If you think you are guilty because you read one kind of book or another, or entertain certain thoughts, then you run particular risks. If you believe something is wrong then in your experience it will be, and you will consider it negative. So you will collect an ‘unnatural’ guilt, one that you do not deserve but accept and so create.”[xxiii]
“Any violation against nature would bring about a feeling of guilt so that when a like situation was encountered in the future, man would, in that moment of reflection, not repeat the same action.”[xxiv] The Point of Power Practice is that “moment of reflection.” If we would pause and breathe, choose not to react, then we would eventually learn how to respond to one another and to the Creation we are immersed in by not conforming to our community’s self-destructive behavior.
Guilt then, is a natural response prompted by our inner wisdom and revealing to us “who” we are and “where” we are. For example: “The hunter, freed more or less from animal courtesy, would be forced to emotionally identify with his prey. To kill is to be killed. The balance of life sustains all. He must learn on a conscious level then what he knew all along. This is the intrinsic and only real meaning of guilt and its natural framework.”[xxv]
[i] “Inside the Times: Shame on Them, But Good for Us.” The New York Times. February 21, 2016, p. 2.
[ii] Borysenko, Joan. Guilt is the Teacher, Love is the Lesson. New York: Warner Books, Inc., 1990, p. 30.
[iii] Hawkins, David. The Eye of the I. Sedona, Arizona: Veritas Publishing, 2001, p. 143.
[iv] Borysenko, op. cit., p. 125.
[v] May, Rollo. The Discovery of Being. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1983, p. 116.
[vi] Ibid., p. 113.
[vii] Ibid.
[viii] Ibid., p. 112.
[ix] Roberts, Jane. The Nature of Personal Reality. New York: Bantam, 1974, p. 146.
[x] Ibid., p. 145.
[xi] Ibid.
[xii] Ibid., p. 146.
[xiii] Ibid., p. 149.
[xiv] Ibid., p. 148.
[xv] Ibid.
[xvi] Ibid., p. 153.
[xvii] Ibid., p. 145.
[xviii] Ibid., p. 146.
[xix] Ibid., p. 152.
[xx] Ibid., p. 147.
[xxi] Ibid., pp. 148-149.
[xxii] Ibid., p. 147.
[xxiii] Ibid.
[xxiv] Ibid., p. 152.
[xxv] Ibid., p. 146.
