I've been noticing lately, in myself, and also in other people, that guilt may not always look like guilt.
I am familiar with guilt in the sense that, let's say, I steal someone's property and then see them struggling without it, maybe I start to feel remorse or shame or that I should give it back, and so acknowledge that it's wrong in some way and start wanting to make amends, feeling guilty that way. This seems a more typical definition of guilt.
But I think there is an experience of guilt which feels much more like a state of self attack, seriousness, and is very prone to projection. It's a state of accusation, and the person feeling guilty starts to accuse others at the same time. This accusing takes the form of projection and is usually hurled out in the form of anger.
As Jesus says, "All anger is nothing more than an attempt to MAKE SOMEONE FEEL GUILTY"
Why would you attempt to make someone guilty? It's really an attempt to project your own guilt onto them, to make them out to be the one who is guilty rather than it be you. This isn't really the same experiencing as feeling afraid and trying to blame the cause of fear onto someone, but the projection dynamic is similar.
And so the clue here is, that there is a strong correlation between anger and guilt. And I've been noticing especially the past few days, not only that if I am angry there is some subtle but definite sensation of "feeling guilty" or "feeling wrong" or "its my fault" tucked in behind it. And I've been suddenly noticing this in other people as well.
I saw a couple of people today who seemed edgy and short and were a little accusational. While on the surface they seemed like they were sort of "raw" and pointing a finger at others, or were holding a sense of "I'm wrong, because of you", I noticed they also were feeling kind of guilty about something. And in that guilt they felt angry at themselves, but typically so caught up in projecting it that they seemed to be trying to make others guilty instead.
The reason I'm bringing this up is because in the past, for example, I was often afraid for various reasons, but I did not know it. I did not RECOGNIZE it. I would have the fear and all the stuff that goes with it, but I did not label "whatever that feeling is" as fear. I was too immersed in it, like being in a fog. I couldn't see it from the outside. So I would've said, in the middle of feeling fear, no, I'm not afraid. I didn't even know I was in such a state of anxiety. Or that what I felt WAS that.
Similarly with this guilt, I've been doing a lot of healing and I notice often that there is this kind of heavy "something" that seems hidden from my awareness, which always seems to drag me down and makes me feel serious and often moving into anger or projection. And as I try to lift up closer to happier lighter states, this same curtain of something keeps pulling me back down. And I'm realizing gradually that this un-recognized something is actually guilt.
I actually feel guilty for a whole bunch of things and I did not even know that i was feeling this way. I was just "doing the guilt" unconsciously. This came to my attention because in one situation I expressed that I felt guilty about something, not even thinking that this was why I was annoyed, that I had not admitted to before, and after expressing this noticed that I felt significantly better. And that was unexpected, like I accidentally discovered what was really bothering me. And then after admitting to feeling guilty and letting it go, I felt so much freer.
Also per some things I've been reading in the course lately, I see Jesus saying things about guilt and about how without guilt you'd be happy and without guilt you'd have salvation and so on. That guilt is the opposite of love as well. And this all seems to add up. The state of ego, the state of fear, guilt, sin, death, suffering, unhappiness, it all seems to be various "forms" of the movement away from God.
In general a belief in sin leads to a belief in guilt and then to a belief in fear of punishment. But in Jesus's descriptions it sounds more like any amount of separation from God, any movement away from love, puts you simultaneously into a state of fear, and guilt, and sin, and suffering and sickness. It's all a movement towards darkness. And in particular, without guilt or a belief in guilt, there is no support for sin.
Sin says, you sinned. If you believe it, you become guilty. If you do not believe it, you become forgiven. It pivots AROUND sin, but guilt is evidence that you've believed sin to be true. If sin is true, then you ARE guilty and will feel it. But if sin is NOT true, you are NOT guilty, and will experience the innocence that lies beyond sin. Sin is kind of like a principle or concept, an illusion, and whether you believe in it or not sets you on a path to listen to ego or to listen to holy spirit. And "the world of bodies is the world of sin" so believing bodies are real produces guilt, while believing they are not produces innocence.
"The laws of sin demand a victim."
"(body's eyes) For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt."
So now I'm working on the removal and undoing and acknowledging and recognition and noticing of "I feel guilty". And I think that it can be quite subtle at times and elusive. And it is "implied" in a lot of situations, even if its minor. And I think this guilt has a heck of a lot to do with all manner of unhappy feelings and conditions and forms of suffering. It's the heavy anchor that we drag behind us. I think most people are living in heavy guilt and don't even know it, and that has been me too."
I have also been noticing lately that I have not been giving myself enough credit for what I've been able to do. And I also notice myself "over-giving" or "over-serving" in a sacrificial way. And that suggests to me that its because I feel a GUILT, and this guilt is driving an illusory form of service which really is some attempt to "make up for" "being the cause of" the problem, which I'm blaming myself for. I think I don't credit myself with enough innocence and thereby end up making myself guilty for things I'm not even guilty for, and then start over-compensating for it.
Without guilt there is no self blame, and without guilt there is no reason to project guilt onto others through anger. And without guilt you cannot have sinned, so must be innocent.
"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death."
"Only by persuading you that IT is you, could the ego possibly induce you to PROJECT guilt, and thereby keep it in your mind."
"All anger is nothing more than an attempt to MAKE SOMEONE FEEL GUILTY, and this attempt is the ONLY basis which the ego accepts for special relationships."
"Projection means anger, anger fosters assault, and assault promotes fear."
"That is why the undoing of guilt is an essential part of the Holy Spirit's teaching."
As I observed some activities in my mind, I noticed a lot of thoughts which went like "I wish this wasn't happening" "I want this to go away" "When will it stop" "Its so annoying" "I don't want it."
Then it occurred to me that these are all a form of avoidance, or in other words, trying to escape. So I figured, this must be an attempt to escape from reality. I could feel how I was not wanting to just 'face' something. I wanted to get away from it, to make it stop and go away.
I also notice that attempts to have things stop and go away is also fear, because fear is a form of attack that tries to get rid of what's happening.
So then I thought, well, if all of these thoughts are basically trying to get away from something, what if I was to try to go toward it instead? What if I was to be present with it, welcome it, sit with it and let it be? What if there is a present reality that I'm trying to avoid and escape from?
It then became clearer that trying to escape from present reality puts the mind into a state of imprisonment. It thinks it is then trying to escape from something bad toward something good, away from what it doesn't want toward what it does want, but it is in fact doing the opposite. It's trying to move away from reality into illusions.
I also noticed the mind was just chattering away with commentary and judgements and so on, all of which were further forms of having something to say about everything. Ways of pushing it away and being displeased with it, not wanting to accept something.
So I started trying to do the exact opposite, which at first felt a bit alien. As if all the thinking before was going in the wrong direction, and what I was trying to do was completely 180-degrees totally opposite to what was correct. To just approach the reality of the situation and be with it without trying to avoid it or stop it or run away from it, seemed unfamiliar at first. But it also felt like a surrender.
I noticed that really most of the thoughts that arise, even those thoughts to do with waking up and being spiritual and pursuing truth and all that, they all seem to still be thoughts moving away from reality. On the surface they seem like a keen interest in approaching the truth, but they are actually ways of getting away from it.
That's a bit shocking to realise that what you thought was a genuine desire to improve somehow was actually an avoidance and an attempt to make sure it doesn't happen. And of course, that's all part of the ego.
From there I noticed a sense of greater awareness somehow, that the thinking commenting judging 'me' that I thought was me, was actually something less than me, just some kind of bundle of thoughts and ideas that I thought was myself but isn't. I was more outside of them, and there a was a sense of some space or a gap between what I am and this incessant mind that rambles on and thinks it knows.
It makes me wonder actually if all this thought is really the ego in disguise, an attempt to actually avoid reality and attack it while framing it as an attempt to move toward something that I want. And maybe living life more has to be to do with confronting the present moment and engaging with reality, rather than with the commentary about reality.
There can be a whole lot of intellectual activity which can all sound like it's totally geared towards awakening and being spiritual and all that, while simultaneously being a way to avoid actually being it. Jesus in the course for example says that we attack the real world every second of every minute of every day.
So If we're constantly in a state of avoiding God, avoiding reality, avoiding the present, trying to escape, we're really trying to escape from reality into unreality. Except it's always framed as trying to escape something we don't want, that is bad or wrong, or we think it's not what we're supposed to be closer to, which is an attack upon it.
So we're like... framing God and reality as something we don't want, judging it, attacking it, and then justifying that we should be moving away from it, not wanting it, resisting it, in order to get away from it, as if we'll be better off.
I also realised that the more you try to escape the more you become imprisoned, even if you don't recognise it as imprisonment. And in fact, the way to find freedom is to stop trying to escape. Of course the ego will not agree with that because it'll say if you stop escaping you'll be imprisoned forever. But it's totally insane.
When you stop trying to escape from reality and accept it and let it be, that's when you actually find a sense of freedom. Because your mind is really inventing the sense of imprisonment itself, as the effort to resist and get away from freedom.
I guess long story short, we should be being more present with what actually is, rather than all our attempts to avoid it.
Jesus asks us to be responsible for everything we experience. Part of this entails being responsible for all of your feelings and reactions.
This sounds simple enough but you might not realize how much you don't do this. I know I am just starting to find out.
Most of the feelings we have are 'caused by', or are reactions to, things outside of us. External causes. These external causes seem to have power over us. Anything that happens in the world seems to be 'reality', and what is real is true. So as anything happens, it's as though it is a statement of what is true. For example, if someone attacks you, and if it's a statement of what is true, then its saying "it's true that you deserve to be attacked".
Left unchecked, your ego will take this suggestion and agree with it. "Yes, it's true that I deserve to be attacked", Ie that you don't deserve love. And in order for you to align with that, you'll attempt to CHANGE YOURSELF into a different identity. You'll try to make yourself into "a self that isn't loveable". And what will that feel like? It'll feel like guilt, like unworthiness, like sadness, like shame.
So 'reactions' are actually your attempt to comply with the power that an external cause is trying to have over you, which is trying to dictate and change what you are. So if you go along with it, you will 're-act' by acting as if you are what it tells you you are. In other words, you attempt to be an EFFECT of this external cause. By being the effect, you are 'affected by' it. And this doesn't feel good to turn yourself into a condition that runs against your true nature.
You'll also notice that when you have these reactions, these effects, which accounts for most emotional responses other than real love or joy, the way you EXPERIENCE the feeling entails a sense that the feeling isn't just inside your body. Or that it isn't yours. Because you perceive the feeling as having been caused by something external, the feeling ITSELF will feel like it is connected to, attached to, and dependent upon that external cause. If that thing caused you to feel this way, then the feeling essentially "came from" that thing, and was dictated to you by that thing. In your awareness, as you have this reactive feeling, you feel like your feeling is going outside your body and projecting onto that external source, or at least that it is "about" something other than you.
You're very used to this, so it seems to you that it's completely normal for reactive 'feelings' to feel like they go outside your body. Since you're so used to believing that you are "affected by" external stuff, and that this upsets you (changes you into an upset person by redefining what's true about you), you don't believe you are responsible for your feelings. It's someone else's fault. Something else is making you upset. It's not 'yours'. So quite literally you perceive that YOUR OWN FEELINGS are NOT YOUR OWN FEELINGS, that they belong to someone or something else "out there". And that therefore you don't have control over them. And this makes you into a victim. This also has a lot to do with why you block and deny and do not want to feel these feelings, because you believe they are not really yours.
Now, what I'm going to suggest is that you need to learn to take full responsibility for the *experience* of feeling. Whatever the feeling is, no matter who seemed to create it or cause it, you need to OWN IT and own up to the fact that this is YOUR FEELING, not someone else's. And that means, this feeling is actually INSIDE YOUR BODY and not extending out to project into other people as the cause of it. And it also means, these feelings are not really there BECAUSE OF someone or something else, but BECAUSE OF YOU.
A phrase which I've begun to remind myself with is:
"I am responsible for these feelings".
So no matter what's going on, if I'm feeling upset that my neighbors are making a lot of noise.. I have to say, "I am responsible for these feelings". I'm not having these upset feelings 'because of' my neighbors. I'm having these upset feelings because I AM THE ONE who is having them, which means I am the cause of them, which means they come from ME. They're mine. If I were to assert that I'm being caused to be upset by my noisy neighbors, then I would have to believe my feelings are caused by them, so my neighbors are responsible for my feelings, and not me.
Or how about, your parent doesn't love you enough and you come to believe it means you're unworthy (because you believe they're treating you with the truth so that must imply you don't deserve love). If you feel hurt because of them, by them, or they caused it, then you will not be responsible. So long as you disown how you feel, and blame the cause of the feeling on them, you are stuck. So really... your feeling of hurt or abandonment or unlove or unworthiness is NOT because of them. It's NOT them that caused it, otherwise that would mean these are their feelings. Yes, you tried to take on their feelings as your own. But it's not yours. What YOU are feeling is YOUR feelings and YOU are the one choosing to feel this way.
"I am responsible for these feelings". This frees you. It affirms that no matter what you feel, that feeling is IN YOU, because it is YOURS. It's confined to your body. And as you claim this responsibility and detach from blaming it on someone outside of you, you'll notice something odd happens.
You'll start to become aware that no matter what, no matter how severe circumstances are, no matter who is doing what 'to you', your feelings are YOUR responsibility. Which means you cannot project the onto anyone else or blame anyone else. This is a whole new level of responsibility. To walk around in this world with all kinds of stuff happening and people doing stuff and to NOT see them as having the POWER to CAUSE YOU to feel a certain way. This is a step toward invulnerability.
This takes pracice, mainly because we're so used to being victims and so used to tying our feelings to other people and events. I have to own up to the fact that no matter what I'm feeling or 'why', I am ONLY feeling it because I WANT TO and because I'M CHOOSING TO. Otherwise I am a victim. These are MY feelings, and it's nobody else's fault.
The odd thing that happens, and I've found this quite unexpected, is IF and when I claim responsibility for what I'm feeling, quite often I suddenly start laughing, or the feeling disappears really quickly. If I see that this feeling is entirely within me and has nothing to do with anyone else, it has nowhere to go. This perceptive change of 'being responsible' prevents me from buying into victimhood, or into believing that someone external 'caused this'. This SETS ME FREE. It completely undoes the foundation of victimhood, which largely undoes the foundation of the feeling itself, which really was just a mistaken thought or attitude.
I've also noticed something else very weird. A couple of times now I have been in situations where, normally, I would have a 're-action'. Like getting cut off by a driver in traffic. I noticed I was 'supposed to' or normally would react in some kind of anger or skapegoating. But instead, I didn't do anything. I stayed responsible, which meant staying responsible for my own feelings, which meant that person didn't have the power to cause me to feel differently. And I watched as my feelings.. ... didn't change. It was like, I'd switched off 'reacting'. Same event still happening, but no reaction. Hmm.
There is something else odd that I've been experiencing. If all my feelings are my own and I am feeling them BY CHOICE and not really because of or at the effect of anyone else, then I must be quite literally walking around INVENTING feelings on-demand, just spontaneously, in order to take the opportunity to try to scapegoat, but nevertheless creating these feelings for NO REAL REASON. All of my supposed re-actions are really just me choosing to feel something at a given time, all on my own, all within myself. It's got nothing to do with anyone else. Ano if that's the case, then WHY am I doing that? What's the point? Maybe I should just stop making this shit up!!
This is part of how we show our brother that they have not done anything to us, by demonstrating that WE have not been affected. We haven't been affected because we are not the EFFECT, we are the CAUSE of what we feel. This happened to me one other time too and I found it remarkable that, even in a situation which would have 'called for' a big reaction, there was no reaction at all. It's like being unplugged from the story. Being immune and invulnerable. It seems like CHEATING! Lol .... But it works.
I know I will keep practicing this and will continue to become more responsible for what I am and what I feel. I encourage you to do the same.
Last night I used the below process, but in a different way. I did it VERY slowly. I re-stated each phrase several times over and really let it sink in before moving on to the next one. I actually found this to be quite powerful.
For example, in saying that I decided wrongly.. when I really dwell on that I come to realize that I actually DECIDED and I get in touch with that sense of responsibility and decision-making at having been the one who not only put in place this upset, but actually chose it myself.
There is tremendous power in getting in touch with your power of decision. Your decision making is not just a neutral act, it has power to it. It is causal. And I've also started to dabble in the idea of... .instead of just reacting to stuff and going along with it, instead, stopping and DECIDING... "I am" or "I am not" .... and feeling a kind of instantaneous change simply by making a firm decision.
I also inquired about the last sentence... letting Him decide for God for me. Jesus clarified that this really means allowing Holy Spirit to 'favor' or 'choose FOR rather than AGAINST' God, on my behalf. Allowing Him to favor God and to then accept His viewpoint. In this way, "for God" really means "towards God" or "in agreement with God". That made more sense to me.
"I must have decided wrongly because I am NOT at peace.
I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.
I WILL to decide otherwise, because I WANT to be at peace.
I do NOT feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo ALL the consequences of my wrong decision IF I WILL LET HIM.
I WILL to let Him by allowing Him to decide for God for me."
It's also quite important to keep in mind the statement Jesus makes just prior to this prayer:
"But let me first remind you of something I told you myself. Whenever you are not wholly joyous, it is because you have reacted with a lack of love to some Soul which God created. Perceiving this as sin, you become defensive because you EXPECT ATTACK. The decision to react in that way, however, was YOURS, and can therefore be undone. It CANNOT be undone by repentance in the usual sense, because this implies guilt. If you allow yourself to feel guilty, you will reinforce the error, rather than allowing it to be undone FOR you.
Decisions CANNOT be difficult. This is obvious if you realize that you must ALREADY have made a decision NOT to be wholly joyous if that is what you feel. Therefore, the first step in the undoing is to recognize that YOU ACTIVELY DECIDED WRONGLY, BUT CAN AS ACTIVELY DECIDE OTHERWISE.
Be very firm with yourselves in this, and keep yourselves fully aware of the fact that the UNDOING process, which does NOT come from you, is nevertheless WITHIN you because God placed it there. YOUR part is merely to return your thinking to the point at which the error was made, and give it over to the Atonement in peace. Say to yourselves the following, as sincerely as you can, remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond fully to your slightest invitation:"
Yesterday was quite a breakthrough. After making a video about immortality and writing a long post about how fear is self attack, Holy Spirit invited me to "practice" the ideas during a visit to a doctor. Usually at these visits (for another person) I pick up all kinds of anxiety and have reactions and fear thoughts.
So what I did was, remembered that every single fearful thought is in fact my attempt to attack myself, and attack others. Every fear thought is actually me trying to undermine my immortality. Every fearful idea or response, whether it's mine or not, is an attempt to get rid of, push away, attack, myself and others.
So as I sat there, and as fear thoughts started popping in, I instantly saw.... hey, that's me attacking myself. That's me trying to attack. And it completely diffused the thought in a split-second, made it disappear, and didn't allow it to "progress" or linger. I felt empowered because I realized that I was doing all of this fearing TO MYSELF, and I did not have to do that. It turned out to be the calmest, easiest, most relaxed visit ever. Total success.
Because you see, while I think that fear is "just fear" and it's justified or caused by external things, I'm not really being aware of what's happening. If I reframe it that fear is actually an attempt to attack (e.g. my attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability, and fear is an attack thought), then I'm much more compelled to not do that.
I mean, if you realize that fear is actually you attacking, yourself and others, and you don't want to attack yourself or others, perhaps even because you would feel guilty about doing so, and if you realize that your fearing is you attacking, then you become motivated in quite a different way. It's now about not wanting to be a murderous asshole towards yourself and others, instead of it seeming to be about you being just some victim that is entirely affected by others doing stuff to YOU, and not the other way around. When you are afraid, YOU are the one doing the attacking!
So it's a complete reversal of cause and effect. It acknowledges that fear is coming OUT of you, towards the situation, towards other people, and NOT that the fear is being caused from the outside in. And that really is the secret of salvation. Because it then suddenly becomes starkly obvious that you are doing the fear to yourself. You are literally attacking your invulnerability with your fearful thought. You are trying to undermine, weaken, overthrow, get rid of, diminish or destroy your immortality. And you don't want to do that.
The reframing of fear as "attack coming from me" is very very useful as a tool. Because it has truth in it. Fear actually IS coming from you. It IS your attempt to separate. It's your attempt to push things away (which is attack/murder). It's your attempt to stop things (which is attack/murder). It's your attempt to 'kill off' the thing that you perceive as a threat.
All of the sense you have that you are "afraid of" something and "want it to go away" or "want it to stop", if you look at it, is really you trying to destroy it. You want to get rid of it. That's murderous thinking. You want it to end. That's an attempt to end life. Resistance isn't passive, or a defense, it's an attack. And similarly, "if I defend myself I am attacked". Fear seems like a defense, a protective mechanism. It's not, it's totally a weapon.
And in fact you will hear stories from some people as to how 'fearing' caused someone else to suffer. How being anxious and doubtful and uncertain and concerned and worrying about someone, actually sends nasty psychic attack vibes to them. These kind of thoughts are actually attacks. They're attempts to picture someone as weak and suffering and vulnerable and threatened. It's a belief that there's something wrong with them, they're sinful, they're capable of being hurt, and this "fake concern" is entirely an ego thing. A weapon of attack disguised as "caring".
The opposite of being concerned about someone and telling them "be careful you don't...." or "try not to"... etc... is to EMPOWER them, to support their integrity and strength, to affirm why they are confident and fearless and will prevail. To focus on their strength, not their potential weakness. That's empowering, and it's totally the opposite of what can pass for "caring" in the form of worries and fears and "concerns". Concern is fear, full stop. Concern is seriousness. Seriousness is attack. And fear is an attempt NOT to acknowledge someone's immortality, but to deny it and make the person weak.
It's very eye opening. The way I felt lighter, brighter, stronger, fearless, and more tranquil after nipping all these self-attack fear thoughts in the bud, was a reward in itself. Definitely something to keep applying. I had like 10 fear-driven attack thoughts before breakfast this morning. I had to re-frame every one of them as attempts to attack myself, and to stop doing so. I had no idea just how many of my thoughts are attack thoughts. It seems that almost all of them are driven by fear. And every one of them is my attempt to prove I am not immortal.
The world is full of advice. Some of it seems useful, most of it is bullshit.
The son of God does not need any advice. This is because He does not need to 'get' anything from anyone because He is not lacking anything in himself. He has been completed by God's presence in Him.
All he does is extend the truth that is already within Him.
So what happens when someone else comes along and starts telling Him.... you should this... you need to that..... you can live longer if you eat this..... you can live longer if you don't do that.... 5 tips for losing weight..... 10 tips for being a better this and that.... etc... all bullshit. All unneeded.
You do not need anyone's advice. You do not need anyone to tell you what you do, or to give their so-called "opinion". You do not need suggestions for how to live or how to exist or how to behave or what to do to be yourself. You don't need anything.
When I was in the middle of having an experience of God, I felt like I did not need anything. And I mean that literally. I felt like I did not need to eat food. I had to eat a meal but I felt like I was shoving lumps of material into my mouth for absolutely no reason and that it was completely foreign. I also felt a great amount of joy radiating out of me toward others - extending to others - such that it was all give give give give give. It wasn't take take take or get get get or need need need. I had no needs. And yet all these people kept trying to "help" and kept offering advice and suggestions and trying to tell me what I should do or who I should be. And I was like, why are they doing that, I don't need anything.
You don't have any real needs other than God's love. All of the other advice is bullshit. You don't need any "teachers" to come along and tell you what's what. The only teacher you need is the Holy Spirit who speaks for God.
You especially don't need to be inundated by a society that is chronically judgemental and insane, constantly shoving shit down your throat to tell you that you have to be this way or that way, or you're not enough of a person if you're not doing this, or most people do that, or you should be doing this more often. We're addicted to being told what to do. Victims. And people are addicted to telling each other what to do. Look at me... sitting her typing this shit and offering more 'perspective'. Disregard!
You're already you. Stop listening to the ego.
Do you notice when people most likely give advice? It's when you show that you are suffering or upset. It's when they look at you trying to make guilt real and they make it real right along with you and then come across as being a savior and rescuer. And then comes all the advice. If I post something on here and I say, well, I've had a pretty rough time lately or feeling shitty and confused or something like that, people will suddenly chime in and start giving advice. The response SHOULD be to remind me of how I'm mistaken and how I am loved and to offer true correction for my mistaken perceptions, not buying into my bullshit story. But this isn't how people function. They launch into an instant hero role and start telling you what to do. We're addicted to this. And it's just another part of the way we skapegoat - conveniently finding poor broken sheep in the flock and then targeting them either with our fears and guilts or with our judgements and rescue attempts.
Bleh.
The ego is simply a state of self-attack, taking place within a mind which has become divided against itself.
In this state, part of the mind has disassociated from the other part. There now appear to be two identities.
One identity is consciously identified with as "me" and the other as "not me".
The "not me" self, is very often equated with "the ego". It appears to be the self that we're always blaming and scapegoating, attacking and accusing, thinking of as other people etc.
But the trap there is not realizing who is doing the perceiving of an enemy. The person who sees enemies, AND the enemies themselves, are both two parts of ONE delusional thought system. They are both you.
The ego is not so much "that enemy" or the thing which is against you or your problems etc. It is the attacker and that which is attacked. It is both sides of every war. It is the state of *separation* taking place within yourself, between who you are and this illusion of who you are not.
Separating yourself from God was also an attempt to separate yourself from yourself. This could only create a condition in your mind where your original self remained, and a second self was added. You now think that only the second self is the "bad self", and label it the ego, but it is no more or less the ego than the self which describes it, because your real self was placed with a "persona" that pretends to be who you really are. It is the separation BETWEEN the two fake identities that is the ego.
So basically, if no-one else existed and there was just you and your mind, the entire separation from God would have to be taking place inside of yourself. And any conditions of conflict in which there seems to be wars or threats or enemies, those things MUST be also included inside your own mind. They're not outside of you.
So this is the key - the secret to salvation, that you are doing this to yourself. You have to realize that this so-called "not me", aka "my enemy", actually IS you. It's you who are against yourself, not other people. It's you who are at war with your own self. You do not have any enemies beyond yourself. That "not me" self is just part of your mind and will which you're kind of pretending not to have any control over, as if it's running on autopilot.
You have to therefore learn to recognize, that whatever it is which seems to loom over you with power and a separate will and a sense of threat or causality, making "you" at its effect, is actually your own self doing this to yourself. In other words, it's one disassociated part of your mind attacking the part which you're still associated with. You think it is not you and is attacking you - that's just part of you that thinks you are not you, attacking part of you that thinks it is you.
Truth is, you are not EITHER of these two fake identities. You are not the attacker or the attacked. You are not the victim or the victimizer. You are also not the self who looks upon the "bad enemy" and condemns them. That self is the other half of the ego, and the ego is always attacking itself. You are not the persona who rejects the shadow, and you are not the innocent victim who believes the perpetrator is not their self.
If you could see, that every pain and suffering, every attack, every torture, was actually being administered by a split-off part of your own mind, which you had disowned and disconnected from your sense of "conscious control", or your sense of the scope of your power or the reach of your influence, and if you can learn to recognize it and see yourself actually working "through" it to do things to yourself, then you will realize... you can stop doing that.
You can stop attacking yourself. You can stop hurting yourself. But even moreso, since the self being hurt is not you either, you can realize that you are no longer going to play EITHER role of victim or victimizer, and are going to give up the sense of identity that you were trying to protect from a fake enemy, transcend both of them, heal the *SEPARATION* that was creating them both, and return to a mind of wholeness and oneness.
if you could but see that you do everything to yourself, and get in touch with that choosing and doing, then you would simply realize how futile that is and stop it.
Sometimes you'll find in the day that a song is playing in your mind. It seems to be on autopilot. It can play for hours without you even noticing. And then maybe you notice and can't get it out of your head. But the thing is, it's actually being played by a part of your own mind, a part which is mostly unconscious, and you are just "allowing" it subtly to keep going. When you reclaim that power and recognize, it's YOU who is making this song keep playing in your mind, you reclaim the ability to stop it from playing. And it will stop. Because no-one else was playing that song. It was you.
It's the same thing with any aspect of the ego. You think it's outside of your control, beyond your choosing, disconnected from your influence, outside your power, and separated from "you". Reclaiming and owning that is the key to salvation. Taking back responsibility for everything you are experiencing.
No-one and nothing can happen to you against your will. No-one dies without their own consent. If you do not choose to attack yourself, you will be in capable of experiencing attack. No-one else has the power to go against your will. Your will is as powerful as the Son of God. There is nothing that can cause you other than God. You cannot be at the effect of anything but God (and that's a good thing). It guarantees that you are immortal and invulnerable forever, if you will just stop doing stuff to yourself unconsciously.
So there I was, doing something which I was feeling guilty about. But I didn't realize I was feeling guilty. Instead, I noticed I started having fearful thoughts. Except, I didn't realize they were fearful thoughts. But by that point, I seemed to have no direct awareness of feeling guilty, only that I felt uncomfortable and that something wasn't right.
I couldn't get my ego to stop making up thoughts about this thing, or bringing it back up, or imagining it happening. I thought fear was the problem so I started working on trying to undo the fear, which helped to some degree, but it wouldn't stop. My ego kept recreating thoughts about it.
So I had to stop and step back, and ask myself, what is happening here mytaphysically? If I am afraid.. oh, it must mean that I am guilty. Because all fear comes from guilt. Without guilt there is no basis for fear, because there is no punishment to be afraid of. Suddenly the guilt came back into my awareness and I realized I did in fact feel guilty. This guilt was manifesting as fearful thoughts.
So then I set about undoing this guilt, which at first didn't seem easy and I didn't believe it. Somehow because I felt guilt, I felt like I was supposed to be guilty. I felt like I deserved to be guilty or that what I was doing was wrong. But as I looked into this, I had to ask myself whether God would find me guilty. And the answer to this had to be a resounding no.
It's not possible for God to condemn or accuse or to find me guilty for anything. But there I was, still feeling guilty, and still feeling as though I was supposed to be guilty. It seemed the guilt was justified. It felt like shame. It felt like whatever I was doing called for guilt. Of course there was a sense of sin behind this, because it's only possible to be guilty if you believe you sinned, and you can only believe you sinned if you do not believe you are innocent.
It seemed odd though, that the entire foundation for this idea of "you should be guilty", really had no basis. God doesn't find us guilty. God does not for one second see us as guilty, ever, for anything. So I had to look at this. Apparently I had bought into this idea that guilt - or a guilty conscience - is somehow natural or normal. That we're supposed to feel this way. That it's a sign to us that we have done something wrong.
It's as if guilt is a deserved punishment. It's as if the guilt says, "there is something wrong with you", rather than, stopping to question whether there is something wrong with the guilt. And as it turns out, there IS something wrong with the guilt. The guilt itself is false!
If God is not finding me guilty, there is actually something wrong about being guilty. Being guilty isn't correct or rational or justified. It's actually a mistake. An error. We're actually doing something wrong when we go into guilt. Guilt is not love. God does not find us guilty so if we're feeling guilty, even if we're pouting and feeling ashamed and upset and like we deserve it, we're actually going against God's will.
Guilt is nothing but another way to lick our wounds and pretend we didn't want to do what we did want to do. This justifies the guilt, keeps it, makes out that we deserve it, and then we proceed to the next step of making it unconscious by turning it into fear of punishment. If we're being guilty, even though it feels awful, we're actually being egotistical, we're being selfish, and we're trying to make out that we have regret or remorse or "normal" shame, as if we recognize that we did something wrong and did not mean to do it. It's a bullshit lie.
There is nothing noble or moral or ethical, nor is it a sign of a healthy conscience, to be guilty. God does not find us guilty, ever. Not ever. For any reason. God's judgement is that we are eternally innocent and we have not sinned and we cannot sin. That's VERY different to the ego's plan to make us guilty for stuff. So now this brings guilt ITSELF into question. The entire idea of guilt is false!
We are in fact never supposed to feel guilty. If we do, we're putting on a show, nothing short of victimhood, where we're pretending to regret our actions while in fact secretly we are delighted at having made God suffer. Guilt is a lie, it has NO MERIT whatsoever, it is NOT supposed to keep us in check, and it is not grounds for behavior modification. It is entirely an ego creation, a delusion, designed to manipulate and hide the truth.
So I found this very interesting. I had to open up to the truth as given by God... how God sees me. God sees me as innocent. I am NOT guilty for doing what I've done. Even if every rule under the sun says I should be.
Now of course, we have to be careful with level confusion here. This does not justify suddenly going out and doing despicable things. If we're truly coming from love we will act lovingly not recklessly or harmfully. And in fact I heard my ego starting to jump in on this, trying to get me thinking that, well... if I'm not guilty for doing something like this, then I can surely do whatever I want with no remorse... well, that too is ego bullshit. That's level confusion and the ego trying to bend the law of God to its purposes.
We are to be directed by God's love, informed by God's love, guided by God's love, to life within God's love, and to act from God's love. We are innocent and holy, unconditionally, even if we may have seemed to do something that WE think (our ego thinks) is worthy of condemnation, a label of sin, or justification for punishment. There is NO VALUE in being guilty. There is no merit. It does not make people well behaved. It makes people separate from God, it makes people unloving, and it confuses truth for lies.
Guilt is not love. Guilt is not real remorse. Guilt is a lie.
I am not guilty. You are not guilty. Guilt is fake. There is no such thing as real justified guilt. It is part of the ego and therefore it is a lie. In God's Kingdom there is only innocence and the Son of God is free.
Innocence is goodness. If guilt is equated with evil, then innocence is equated with good. In order to forgive someone or something requires looking for the good in them - looking for their innocence. Seeing their harmlessness, their gentleness, their holiness and their perfection.
"Dream softly of your sinless brother, who unites with you in holy innocence. And, from THIS dream, the Lord of Heaven will Himself awaken His beloved Son."
"The good" is also combined with love, and light, and power, and strength. It is the realm of miracles. In effect, evil is a breakdown, malfunction, failure, weakness and a loss. So its opposite, good, is all that can actually work, solves all problems, repairs all sickness and resurrects.
"The good is what works" is a sound though insufficient statement. ONLY the good CAN work. Nothing else works at all."
The Holy Spirit also represents the state of forgiveness and the miracle, as the power of God which performs miracles, as the healer as the resurrector. Therefore seeing the good in your brother for example also equates with seeing the Holy Spirit in him.
"And now I place you in His hands, to be His faithful followers, with Him as Guide through every difficulty and all pain that you may think is real. Nor will He give you pleasures that will pass away, for He gives only the eternal and the good. Let Him prepare you further."
Jesus encourages us to find the good in things. To "look on the bright side". To make of the world a forgiven world where all is seen as innocent and harmless and guiltless and sinless.
"Have you been similarly grateful to each other? Have you consistently appreciated the GOOD efforts, and OVERLOOKED mistakes?" Indeed forgiveness puts you in touch with your true nature, brings you closer to God, aligns you with your soul, and reawakens the power of God in you. It is your natural divine function to create the good and to do only good.
Ultimately "the good" is God, and anything of God is good. The world, as an illusion, is not good, and can at best only reflect God's goodness. Moving away from evil takes you toward the good of God. And in God, everyone and everything is good.
"Child of God, you were created to create the good, the beautiful, and the holy. Do not lose sight of this."
""I am blessed as a Son of God."
Herein lies my claim to all good and only good. I am blessed as a Son of God. All good things are mine because God intended them for me. I cannot suffer any loss or deprivation or pain because of who I am. My Father supports me, protects me, and directs me in all things. His care for me is infinite, and is with me forever. I am eternally blessed as His Son."
"You have been told that everything brings good that comes from God."
"And as you gave your trust to what is "good" in him, you gave it to the "good" in you. In terms of concepts, it is thus you see him MORE than just a body, for the "good" is NEVER what the body seems to be."
"By focusing upon the "good" in him, the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight, and will at length be seen as little more than just a shadow circling round the "good.""
"And look upon the "good" in him, that you may not be fearful of your "evil" thoughts, because they do not cloud your view of him." "ALL things work together for good. There are NO exceptions except in the ego's judgment."
"Man will ultimately look upon his own creations, and will to preserve only what is good, just as God Himself once looked upon what he had created, and knew that it WAS good."
"For what God gives can only be for good. And I accept but what He gives as what belongs to me."
"God is said to have looked on all He created and pronounced it good. No, He declared it perfect, and so it was."
"Something good must come from every meeting of patient and therapist. And that good is saved for both, against the day when they can recognize that only that was real in their relationship."
"And so there is a place for all relationships in this world, and they will bring as much good as each can accept and use."
"We look on everyone as brothers, and perceive all things as kindly and as good."
"The real world can ACTUALLY BE PERCEIVED. All that is necessary is a willingness to perceive nothing ELSE. For if you perceive both good AND evil, you are accepting both the false AND the true, AND MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM. The ego sees SOME good, but never ONLY good. That is WHY its perceptions are so variable. It does not reject goodness entirely, for this you could not accept, but it always ADDS something that is NOT real TO the real, thus CONFUSING ILLUSION AND REALITY. For perceptions cannot be partly true. If you believe in truth AND illusion you CANNOT TELL WHICH IS TRUE."
"The perception of goodness is not knowledge, but the denial of the OPPOSITE of goodness enables you to perceive a condition in which opposites do not exist."
"What would give you the ability to be aware of all the facets of any problem, and to resolve them in such a way that only good can come of it?"
"But "good" and "deprivation" are opposites, and CANNOT meaningfully join in ANY way."
"Any ability that anyone develops has the potentiality for good." "Nothing good is lost, because it comes from the Holy Spirit, the voice for Creation. Nothing that is not good was ever created, and therefore CANNOT be protected."
"There is always some good in any thought which strengthens the idea that life and the body are not the same."
"The Resurrection demonstrated that NOTHING can destroy truth. Good can withstand ANY form of evil, because light abolishes ALL forms of darkness."
"It is secure in certainty that obstacles can not impede its progress to accomplishment of any goal which serves the greater plan established for the good of everyone."
"What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything which happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life."
"Now close your eyes and see him in your mind, and look at him a while. Try to perceive some light in him somewhere; a little gleam which you had never noticed. Try to find some little spark of brightness shining through the ugly picture which you hold of him. Look at this picture until you see a light somewhere within it, and then try to let this light extend until it covers him, and makes the picture beautiful and good."
"The laws of God work only for your good, and there ARE no other laws beside His."
"The Biblical quotation should read "In this world you need NOT have tribulation BECAUSE I have overcome the world." THAT is why you should "be of good cheer.""
"He will remove all faith that you have placed in pain, disaster, suffering and loss. He gives you vision which can look beyond these grim appearances, and can behold the gentle Face of Christ in all of them. You will no longer doubt that only good can come to you who are beloved of God, for He will judge all happenings and teach the single lesson which they all contain."
"The Holy Spirit USES time, but does NOT believe in it. Coming from God, He uses EVERYTHING for good, but does not BELIEVE in what is not true."
"Out of Love he was created, and in Love he abides. Goodness and mercy have always followed him, for he has always extended the Love of his Father."
"You can do ANYTHING I ask. I have asked you to perform miracles, and have made it VERY clear that these are NATURAL, CORRECTIVE, HEALING, and UNIVERSAL. There is nothing good they cannot do."
A couple of days ago, I rubbed my eyes a bit too much and triggered some swelling. Maybe a small blood vessel was broken or something. My upper eyelid swelled up and was red and sore and uncomfortable all day.
I at first wasn't sure whether to try to perform some kind of miracle on it or not. I knew that if I were to "fight it" I would be making it real and making a drama about it, which wouldn't help. At first that made me feel like I had to just accept it and live with it.
But part of me also wondered, what is it that stops me from accepting a complete and total healing instantaneously right now? Why should I tolerate this? How can I accept it and have it disappear as well?
So then I went to Holy Spirit. I asked, should I do something about this?
He said no.
But I had this sense that, I hadn't asked the right question. I indeed needed to DO nothing in the truest sense that, really, this thing had not really happened. But this also keyed me in to realize that, I needed to believe that it had not happened in order to truly embody the need to do nothing.
So I set about cancelling it by collapsing every belief and sense of truth about what had caused it. I told myself plainly that it did not exist, was not there, was already healed, there was no swelling, no soreness, no discomfort, no damage.
I undid all belief in the various causes that I'd convinced myself of such as "because I rubbed it" or "too many tears" or "didn't want to see something" or that issues about certain people were responsible.
When there were no more imagined "reasons why" it should be there, I really got into the sense that it is gone already and did not exist at all. This is an important point because we need to assert the state that we choose to manifest right now, not something off in the future. It's like painting a new picture of what you believe is real now - a vision of divine health and present happiness - rather than in any way accepting that sickness still exists.
So as part of that, I started to affirm gratitude to God that He had already healed this, that it was already resolved, already undone, had already disappeared, and that there was now a completely restored and healed eyelid free from all problems.
This was when I think Holy Spirit stepped in and suddenly I started with the energetic shaking. But also something 'new' happened, right after I thanked God for having healed it already.
Thanking God for healing in effect invites the receiving of healing while simultaneously affirming that the problem is gone, which is the proper mental "direction" for allowing God to extend and flow. God works in the now and in the awareness that the problem is solved already, so we need to learn to shine "thank you that it is healed already" (acknowledgement of receipt) rather than "please heal it because it's not healed".
Note that in the bible there is a phrase about asking, and that if you believe you have received it, you shall have it. The believing it is received, through thanks to God, and therefore acknowledgement of its PRESENCE, is the key to miracles flowing.
The area in question suddenly was filled with what I can only describe as an extremely high "heat", so hot and intense that I wondered for a moment if something had burst or become worse. It was very intensely focused right in the middle spot where this issue was located. It seemed to cover an area no more than a couple of millimeters, and held there in one spot.
I just observed it for what seemed like maybe 20 seconds or more. It didn't move or change. It was just there. It seemed hotter than any physical heat you could experience. Yet it didn't burn and was not uncomfortable at all. It was not pain. It almost felt like an intense presence, hard to ignore. Like some kind of "liquid fire".
I've heard some Christian healers etc talking about Holy Fire and this idea that Holy Spirit can bring some kind of intense healing "fire" from heaven or something, which heals stuff. I am presuming this was my first encounter with it.
I then relaxed and eventually went to sleep. I could already tell even then, that it was much less sore, I couldn't barely feel it anymore, and it was much more comfortable. This morning the problem has almost disappeared. It looks and feels a lot better.
Sometimes I am grateful for little, relatively minor physical issues, because they can present good opportunities for practicing miracle-working and healing. They indeed are lessons when used appropriately.