Guilt

Tomas: I would like to discuss with you this evening the burden of guilt. So many of you carry around a burden of guilt and this self-righteous burden is a heavy weight that disallows your full freedom in sonship. Guilt is something you have assumed. You have taken it upon yourself. You have consciously allowed yourself to be less than you can be. Why is that? It is because of expectations. And ideals. And your inability to live up to your own ideals. And so you have guilt, and you carry this burden of guilt as if it were a cross to bear, heavy beams that are truly no more than a mote in your eye of perception.

Understand that you are accustomed to feeling guilt. It is a part of your culture. It is a deep part of your religious heritage. And your parental influence and social influence. Even in your relationships with your peers today. It will require enlightened honesty to get past guilt. 

If you have had (and who of you has not?) an opportunity to say of another who has wronged you or who has been accused of a wrong, "Father, forgive him, he knows not what he does." And understanding the true depth of that peception, can you not also turn that view toward yourself and say, "Father, forgive me, I know not what I do"? For if you knew, if you truly knew, you would be prompted to act upon your light of truth.

Something then is blocking you from the sunlight of the spirit. A belief, perhaps, that you could be perfect or more perfect if you were just to try harder, and in your trying harder to please Him, in yearning for His 
approval, you pile expectations upon yourself beyond your capacity.  

A pint cannot hold a quart. It is for this reason you are referenced as tadpoles. With each new cycle of growth, the egg gives rise to the tadpole, gives rise to the frog, gives rise to the egg, and always do you come around to the realization of your appropriate sense of smallness. In this humble place you know that you are loved by God not by what you have accomplished, but because you are. You are His.

In this loving acknowledgement of the mercy of the Father of all, we turn in gratitude, in praise, and seek to become a frog, to grow up, to be able to do great works, make great noises on behalf of our Creator, sing anthems of glory. Praise God! Release guilt, that you carry for yourself and release it from the shoulders of your brethren. It is no longer necessary that you shelter one another beneath that yoke. It has been lifted by the Light. Rejoice in the Light.

And again, it is, except for its cultural reinforcement, an attitude you bring on yourself by accepting guilt as your rightful inheritance. This is deplorable to the dignity of a faith son. Thus, shed the dead skin of useless guilt and see the coat of many colors revealed in your personality and in the personalities of your fellows.  

It does not take a genious to discover that ego will cloak itself with guilt in order that it may hide under self-righteous justification for not facing up to its own potential.

Guilt thrives on keeping after you so that you have no rest, so that you cannot seek and attain serenity, so that you only find peace of mind when you are in Stillness and at once upon leaving Stillness you again begin to chase your tail.  

It is the insidious nature of guilt to keep you stirred up; and it is a form of anxiety that must be abandoned. It is indeed self-judgment, and who gave you the authority to determine your value? Your worth? Who planted those seeds of expectation within you that tells you that no matter how hard you try, you will never measure up? Who has the right to take that away from Our Parent who loves you as you are?

It is some one, some thing, other than Love, other than Truth, Beauty or Goodness. It ought not be mistaken here that I am encouraging you — any or all of you — to become complacent and nonchalant about your reality, your relationship with divinity, your relationship with yourself, or your many relationships with the world at large. But rather to help you see how your mind works, in order that you may better know yourself and live to greater purpose, yielding for yourself more geniune happiness and manifesting more genuine reality.

Reality is not a burden nor a curse. It is an acquirement, as a result of your decisions and your growth.  

Until you know everything, you know not. "Father, forgive me. I know not what I do. Show me the way. Teach me. Help me. Stand beside me. Encourage me. Strengthen me. Enlighten me. Enjoy me. And love me. As I know you always have and always will."  

It is guilt that disallows you from knowing this feeling of affinity with Our Father.