¶WORKING WITH YOUR GUILT
Group question: Could you give us information about where guilt comes from and how to work with guilt in our spiritual evolution?
(Q’uo, January 3, 1999, Sunday Meditation)
We are those of the principle known to you as Q’uo. We greet you with joy in the love and the light of the One Infinite Creator. It is a great blessing for us to be called to your group, and we bless and thank each who is a part of the circle of seeking this day.
Your question concerns guilt, and as we talk upon this interesting subject we share opinion rather than speaking as authorities over you. We would ask that each who hears use personal discrimination, for that which we have to say is opinion and may or may not be that which is of help to you personally. If it does not constitute a resource for you, if it does not fit in with that which resonates with you, then we ask that you simply leave it behind and move on.
As this instrument was tuning and challenging our contact earlier, the instrument, as is her habit, challenged us three times. In the first two challenges our impression was that this instrument was exercising her own discrimination in being certain of the vibration received. However, in the third challenge the instrument carefully described that facet of Jesus the Christ which identifies this entity to her: the nailing of the body upon the tree of wood to take upon the self the sins of humankind, to love others to the point of death, is to this instrument the great characteristic of Christhood that has riveted the instrument’s mind for many years. And it is this characteristic which gives us a place to begin to speak about guilt.
Each comes into incarnation with a personality already set up to be created. There is some play in the way in which the personality develops, but its conscious resources are set in place before incarnation. Consequently, some entities have a far keener sense of justice, fairness, sharing, and giving than others coming into incarnation. Whatever this basic bias of given personality is, the cultural norm for parents is to attempt to increase the infant in its supply of love for others and service to others. Small children are routinely taught to share their playthings, their sweets, and their good times. There is training concerning many behaviors starting with the word, “should.” One should keep one’s hands in one’s lap at the table. One should be respectful to one’s mother. One should avoid murdering anybody. At every level of a child’s upbringing these enculturated biases are repeated and reiterated until they are inculcated into the basic emotional vocabulary of the logic of the deeper mind. Not that mind which moves beyond self, but that portion of the self within incarnation which lies below the limen of consciousness.
Consequently, when one has become enculturated with the bias towards service to others that the society offers, when one has digested this incoming data and responded to it according to its own biases, then each individual is left with a, more or less, threshold of guilt. To some the voice of authority remains dim throughout life and the basic nature of the personality shell has a deafness to the suffering of others. When there is no guilt displayed for one’s hurtful actions against others, the medical person attempting to place this entity would call such an entity one who lacks any social behavior or psychopathic. For it is assumed by the healing professions among your peoples that guilt is a natural function of the psyche. This instrument has called it “shoulding” all over your self. And, indeed, when a sensitive entity takes the club of guilt and beats the self about the head and shoulders, metaphysically speaking, that damage is very real and the pain very great.
As you can see, depending upon the basic personality shell of the entity and the amount of enculturation that has stuck with the entity, there are varying degrees of guilt. Needless to say, those who are already oriented towards service to others and who are consciously working upon spiritual evolution tend far more towards a ready acceptance of guilt than those whose viewpoint is less broad. Thus the very entities who are sensitive enough to be in pain because of guilt receive the more substantial amounts of guilt from their catalyst. It is as though the Creator were adding insult to injury by offering more guilt to those who are already sensitive to it, who are already responding to it by increases in their level of service to others.
The justice of this can only be seen from the standpoint of learning. The feeling of guilt, like many of the negative emotional systems of feeling, is designed to place one in a position in which it is possible to polarize. Now service to self, in itself, does not necessarily bring great polarity. Many entities upon your sphere indeed live their entire lives in service to those about them without thinking unduly of it or considering it something that can be worked with or maximized. And for these entities the opportunities that awakened souls see are simply unnoticed and unused. However, we may encourage each of you, as those sensitive and consciously awake in the world of spirit, to see that the feelings of “should” are a catalyst to be praised and to be used. When one experiences this emotional set called guilt, one is experiencing a fear that one has not done enough, and, again, the term, “enough,” is relative.
Thus, in a way, the more times one feels guilt, the more times one thinks “Is that enough?”, the more one is asking the self to polarize towards service to others without expectation of return. We would not necessarily encourage each to respond automatically to such feelings of “not enough.” For sometimes that guilty feeling of “not enough” is simply an instinctive reaction, one that cannot be pinned down to specific lacks within the self or within the behavior of the self. We encourage, rather, the noticing of such an emotional system of weather, shall we say, having blown into the mental and emotional bodies with an eye to evaluating, as honestly and accurately as possible, the opportunity for increased service. When there is no opportunity for increase of service, the guilt felt is as that phantom pain coming from the limb that has been amputated. There is no actual physical limb there, simply a body so habitually used to experiencing that physical leg that the form-maker body continues to hold that idea in place, the body then feeling all of the pain of the amputated leg. In some cases, and as entities become more inclined to spiritual work, this becomes more true. The guilt is vestigial and unhelpful, for nothing can be done to ameliorate the situation about which the guilt is felt.
A good example of this is the feelings of family in the event of suicide. Even those who are not related to the family member but were friends will consider to themselves all of the things that could have been done had the person realized in what bad shape the entity was. Even though the entity has moved on and nothing can be done, these phantom feelings are very real and must be dealt with as though they had something to do with consensus reality. When feelings arise of guilt and fear to which the entity cannot find any source, it is then that the entity does well to work upon the discipline of the personality and the discipline of the will. The discipline of the personality is involved in such a case in allowing the entity to sit with, to accompany, to be one with this feeling, to allow it to express and to give it respect and to be a witness to it. The use of the will, then, is that which asks the personality to let those feelings go, to let them be balanced by the awareness that all that has been done is all that can be done, and that it is time to move on.
When an entity experiences guilt and finds it to be of this type, we would recommend this general way of working with the dynamics involved. When an entity finds itself feeling the fear of not having done enough, and when further detailed examination confirms that there is indeed more that can be done, then it is that we encourage the seeker to view such feelings as good and productive catalyst. For it is not just the willingness to serve others that creates polarity but also the willingness to work upon the self to find ways of becoming more capable of giving. For that giving of self is a kind of muscle, and it atrophies in those who do not use it. For those who catch the process of guilt and choose a response to it, rather than simply drowning in it, there is the possibility of deepening the faculties of will and faith, and of using those to pray, and to ask, and to humbly entreat the One Infinite Creator to give grace to become more able to give without thinking of the return.
Not all guilt, then, is good. Some guilt is a knee-jerk response to a catalyst that is truly not there in any sense of being able to work with that catalyst. But when there is something to work with, it is work in consciousness that is extremely central to spiritual evolution. For it is to the higher polarized entity that opportunities will come to give of the self gladly, to give not because of the cultural expectation, or because of the nature of the personality, but because the entity has come to be consciously aware of the way that polarity works, to become aware of the way that the schoolroom of Earth works, and such a student shall always excel over most other students. For if there is a motivation to work, the work goes quickly, and more easily, and with a sense of satisfaction when the test is over.
The illusion which this instrument calls Earth is designed as a sea of confusion. It is designed in such a way as to greatly discourage entities from being able to cope, from the standpoint of the intellect. It is designed to toss people out of their intellects on their ear, to bring them to their knees, and to place them in the sanctum of the heart, humbled, tired, and ready to learn. Know this: just as love casts out fear, love casts out guilt To remove guilt from one’s self, it is not enough to do all that one can. It helps to do all that one can, for that surely is enough, but emotionally speaking, enough is never enough. There is always more that one might be able to do: one more cheek that can be turned; one more mile that can be walked in another’s shoes; one more activity that can be helpful; or the refraining from one more activity that might be helpful. There is no logical end to guilt. It is not subject to logic. It is, instead, a tone in the music of the emotional body.
However, this tone can be worked with musically just as the instrument tuned itself for this contact: by prayer, silence, singing and praise. So the seeker can tune the purity of that emotion called guilt, combing from it the less beautiful qualities of fear and self-condemnation, and bringing more and more into focus by using an increasing array of verniers that tune ever more finely until that feeling of guilt is as a beautiful tone, a beautiful and true emotion. For indeed that feeling that one cannot do enough is permanent within your illusion. It will recur for the reason that one cannot achieve the perfect behavior in one’s own eyes. One cannot ever fully be satisfied that enough is enough. And so one is left with the awareness that one has this tone or chord of tones within one, but that it too has its place in the universal personality that is the self. And then one is capable of comforting the self, after all that has been done is done with the pain that remains. One can forgive one’s self for being human. One can forgive one’s self for not being able to sacrifice the self to the point of death. One can acknowledge, when faced with this catalyst, that the best one could do is not the best, but that is all right. That is as it should be. That is part of the perfection that is hidden within this sea of confusion.
We honor the one known as Jesus the Christ and indeed honor that vibration which is the Christ as being the highest vibration of love that is achievable so far within the infinite creation. We indeed bow to that, and come in the name of that, and hope to be able to serve to the point of that rude wood cross: the nailed hands, the pierced side. Yet we, in our present situation, do not have that physical sacrifice to make. We do not have the capacity for the kind of guilt that you feel within your illusion. We do not have the ability to be confused and in that confusion to call upon faith. Nor have we the ability to be angry with ourselves and then to forgive ourselves. For as we are able to see into the roots of mind, we can see that in each system of illusions there are limitations which are set for a reason, and that reason is condign, helpful, and enlightening. Upon the Earth plane you have the capacity to be utterly dashed, completely confused, thrown to your knees by life, and you have the capacity to tune your responses to that catalyst which brings you down, which makes you feel into the dark side of your personality.
Do not be beaten about by your own feelings of guilt. But, rather, see them as opportunities to do work in consciousness, to forgive the self for being human, to analyze the situation to see whether or not the guilt is productive, to work upon releasing that guilt if it has not been productive, to work upon using that guilt in the highest and best way if there still is something that one can see to be done. Above all these considerations, above all manifestation and illusion, the reality, as far as we know, is the outworking of perfection: love reflected in love, moving through each instrument that is a soul of a person, and then out into the world. As you receive your catalyst, bless it and break yourself open to receive it with the most love of which you are capable in a stable manner. Do not move yourself beyond that which you can do without damage to yourself. Do not ask that which you are not ready for of yourself, but rather be sensitive to the opportunities that these feelings of guilt give rise to.
And you, as is right within your school room, shall follow in the steps of the cross. You shall have the chance to break yourself open and to pour out your energy, your time, and your attention. When you choose to do this, be aware that it is a sacrament, that you are on holy ground, and that you need to be fastidious in your orientation to the light, not condemning the self in any way for that which has not been done, or that which has been done awry. But without heat and in perfect peace, move back into the situation in your mind; find the balanced and appropriate response; then choose the most generous level of service of which you are capable. This is part and parcel of the teaching of third density. This is one way to move the entity from head to heart, and for you to experience it is proper and desirable and aids the acceleration of spiritual evolution. In all things, find the love, and find within the self the response to that love which most truly expresses your self.
As in many things it is not so much what you do in the manifested world but how you do it, with what love you do it, with what gentleness and compassion for the self, and for the other self, and for the entire suffering Earth plane. In the awareness of the suffering of the world, one can feel guilty for those who do not eat. Saints can feel guilty because they have not beaten themselves twice a day with chains but only once. You cannot remove this type of lesson from the life experience, so we ask that you see it as a course of study, and like many such a course, one which is helpful although the tests are frequently difficult. Above all, we encourage that you laugh, that you take these things, to some extent lightly, so that you are able to lift yourself from such considerations and move into the awareness of the beauty of the present moment. For this is the center of things. This is the less confused place from which to cast one’s eye upon the situation at hand. Laughter and merriment are most helpful spiritual disciplines and we encourage their use, especially for those who are serious students and who can become heavy with their concerns for doing things well.
We are those of Q’uo and would at this time express our appreciation to each here for inviting our presence in your circle of seeking this day. It is a great honor to be able to do so. At this time we shall take our leave of this instrument and this group, leaving each in the love and in the light of the One Infinite Creator. We are know to you as those of Q’uo.
Adonai, my friends. Adonai.
¶NOTES TO OUR READERS
(There were no Notes in Light/Lines Number 70.)