Have you ever done something you regretted later? Or, perhaps, you didn’t do something that you thought you should have done? You are a human, so I bet you will answer “yes” to both questions. What is the residue that these actions or non-actions leave in your soul? It’s the feeling of guilt.
Guilt is really a poison that can destroy someone’s life, if carried over a long period of time. It’s the feeling of not being able to live with yourself, not feeling comfortable in your own skin. Your mind keeps going back and replaying what is causing the guilt and each time a thought pokes your heart with a sharp needle “I should have…, but I didn’t”. With each replay, your self-image, self-worth get diminished. Heavy chains of guilt can drag you down and keep you from any sort of constructive thought or action. Not infrequently, guilt can lead to a tragic end. Does it have to?
Of course not, because right now you are being introduced to a poison vaccine. This vaccinel will open your eyes, your mind and your heart and it will make the dark clouds of guilt vanish in an instant. After taking it, guilt can no longer bound you. In fact, it can’t even reach you. That’s because guilt’s illusory nature is about to be revealed.
Go back in your mind to an event that’s causing you to feel guilty. At that second, how did the action come about? Of course now, looking back, your mind thinks that you had a choice to act differently and you didn’t. But did you really? Do you ever?
Every day, out of millions of possibilities only one gets manifested in each moment. Start paying attention to your actions. Are you presented with options A, B, C and D before each action? At the speed that the present unfolds, do you even have time to think about choosing what you do? You may think you do, but you really don’t. Everything just happens in the moment and in every moment you are doing the best you know to do. The regret arises after the fact when the mind brings you the idea “I could have done it differently”. That’s the poison seed.
If you don’t believe me, starting today pay attention to your actions. Watch each moment. Watch what you say and what you do. You might be surprised to what extent your actions happen automatically. When was the last time you had to think consciously about turning the wheel or hitting the breaks in the car? When was the last time you had to think and make a decision with which hand to pick up the glass of water? Don’t these all just happen automatically?
Consider this next sentence as the vaccine that will neutralize the poison seed each time it arises. “The thought that I could have done it differently, is nothing but an idea in the mind that only and always arises after the fact”. Read the preceding sentence again. Can you feel its power? Can you see that if something exists only as an idea in the mind doesn’t have inherent reality? Realizing this will provide an enormous sense of relief. Knowing that the action just happened in the moment and that it couldn’t have happened any other way because it didn’t, brings release from guilt. Let’s name this vaccine “acceptance”.
While total acceptance is by far the most powerful and universal antidote to guilt, it’s not the only one. Self-forgiveness is another one. Here and now forgive yourself for everything you think you have done wrong. You already know why! Once you are able to forgive yourself, forgive others. They are also acting in the moment without much conscious choice, just like you. Forgive, and you will realize that forgiving is the most liberating thing you can do for yourself in your lifetime. Lastly, action towards remediating the consequences of the event causing the guilt can provide gradual relief and bring peace.
What happens after you drop the heavy chains of guilt? For many people it has become a part of their self-identity. For some people, it is all of their identity. Several questions will arise. “Now what? If this is not who I am then who am I? What do I think about now? What do I do now?”
The answer is extraordinarily simple. It doesn’t matter what you do from this point on. What matters is that the quality of whatever you do will shift. Your thoughts and actions will be coming from a lighter place. Whatever you do will carry a quality of ease, lightness, peace and this in itself will spread to everyone around you. Like a bird that is released after years of living in a cage, you will soar high in the sky, full of light, and you will sprinkle this light on all the other birds that are living in their cages now, and show them the way out.
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