The theme for this morning is guilt and remorse. While remorse is not a word that is used in
the Course, I feel it's a helpful term, especially the way that I'll be describing it, that is
the counterpoint to the ego's guilt. So we'll spend this little talk talking about guilt
and remorse. When we think of guilt, it's obviously going hand-in-hand with sin. I believe
I have done something wrong and that makes me wrong and that's what the experience of
guilt is. In fact, we could define guilt as being the sum total of all the thoughts and
feelings of self-hate that we have...all the negative thoughts and feelings that we have
about ourselves: feelings of inadequacy, failure, being inferior, being sinful. And it's not
only that we are guilty over things we have done, the core of this guilt is that we are
inherently guilty, we are inherently sinful. And the problem with guilt is not only the
pain of the experience itself, but within guilt one finds the means for self-perpetuating
or perpetuating that guilt...the self-perpetuation of all these negative thoughts about ourselves.
Because guilt is so horrific and horrendous an experience that as the Course tells us,
it blinds us. Not only it blinds us and is blinding, it is blinding because we don't
see the truth and it blinds us because we don't realize ultimately that we even have
a mind that is the home of guilt. Guilt is so horrific, once again, that all we could
do is try to deny that it's there, what Freud referred to as repression. And once we repress
something or push it down in our minds, we inevitably and invariably must push it out
and that's what projection is. One cannot have projection without repression. One could
not have repression without projection. They go hand-in-hand, actually just like sin and
guilt do. That when we believe we are sinful and we feel guilt over that, the guilt is
something that is so intolerable for us and so painful because the ultimate meaning of
guilt is not only that I have destroyed love and innocence, but I will never get it back.
That's the horrendous thought of what guilt is. And so we can't deal with that guilt and
so what we do is we try to get rid of it and we put it out onto other people. But all that
does is reinforce the guilt, what we could think of as the guilt/attack cycle. I feel
guilty; I have to repress the guilt and then project it out. And when I project it out,
I am attacking which only makes me feel guiltier because on some level I realize that my attack
is unfounded and unjustified. And that just reinforces the guilt that I've just tried
to get rid of and we just go around and around this very vicious circle and so guilt is perpetuating.
Another way to look at guilt that it roots us in the past because guilt is predicated
on the belief that I have sinned, have sinned. I have sinned in the past. Remember, the ego
tells us that linear time is real and that there is a past, present, and future. In the
ego world, past being the home of sin. I have sinned in the past. Guilt being the awful,
terrible feelings I have right now in the present, or what I think of as the present,
that I then project into the future that tells me I will be punished. So sin, guilt, and
fear is past, present, and future, i.e., linear time and so guilt roots me in the past. And
the worst of all is that guilt ensures that I will continue to act out and sin which is
the very root of my guilt. Another way of understanding that vicious circle, guilt says
that I must get rid of the guilt and attack other people in this very maladaptive way
of escaping from it. But all that that does is reinforce the very guilt that roots me
in the past and ensures that I will continue and continue and continue to feel guilty and
project, and there is no way out of that very, very vicious circle. Enter remorse. When we
get finally thoroughly disgusted with our guilt and how we are living and we throw up
our hands and say there must be another way, there must be another teacher, there must
be another thought system, that's the invitation that Jesus has been waiting for and he enters...or
basically we enter into his right-minded space. And he then teaches us, yes, we have made
mistakes. He tells us in the Course, "Son of God, you have not sinned, but you have
been much mistaken." And when I look back on what I have done wrong, nobody is saying...in
the Course, Jesus certainly is not saying that we have not made mistakes that have really
hurt ourselves and hurt others. He tells us "frightened people can be vicious." He tells
us that figures in the dream could be hateful and vicious. So this is not saying that we
have not done things like that, but we don't call it sinful. We don't feel guilty. We recognize
we made a mistake and we recognize the pain that that mistake has caused us and others.
That is the basis of genuine remorse. I look at what I have done. I say I never want to
go back to that horrific place of darkness again. I want to let go of my past. I recognize
I made a mistake. I realize I did it out of fear, not because I'm inherently evil and
it's out of that recognition which is the heart of forgiveness. It's that gentle kindness
that Jesus is always offering to us as a different way of approaching ourselves and the world.
It's that true remorse that allows us to look at what we have done and say I don't ever
want to do that again. And that ensures that we won't do it again. It delivers us into
the holy instant in which there is no past. There is no guilt-driven present, and there
is no fear of the future. And it's in that holy instant that remorse has its birth and
gently gives way to true forgiveness that says I will never attack myself or anyone
else again. And that's when the peace that Jesus has been holding out to us in our mind
is allowed to be itself and to flower and to inform everything in our lives now and
in the future.