When will you stop feeling guilty?

In my articles I try to look from different angels at some main topics of A Course in Miracles and make them accessible in a modern way.

Guilt is the most prominent of these topics, not because there is a real need to feel guilty for breaking some (divine) rules, like most religions want to make us believe, but because this feeling hides in many different forms and is always untrue. We are often not even aware, that guilt is behind our negative emotions and problems in the world. In fact the course tells us:

OF ONE THING YOU WERE SURE: OF ALL THE MANY CAUSES YOU PERCEIVED AS BRINGING PAIN AND SUFFERING TO YOU, YOUR GUILT WAS NOT AMONG THEM.
T 27. VII

We have huge resistances against looking for guilt as the main cause of suffering. We would rather admit, that fear, uncertainty and doubt are the cause of it and project it on situations and others, before seeing it in ourselves. Not looking at it, guarantees its survival and it seems to work very well.

Meet Guilt’s children: FUD & Fomo

Two modern ways guilt shows up, are called FUD & FOMO. These are spreading like wildfire – thanks to the internet – to split minds all over our illusionary world.

FUD is short for fear, uncertainty and doubt and as the word suggests, they often show up as one emotion: the fear of an uncertain future and the doubt, that in this future, things will work out in a positive way. FUD plays perfect into the ego’s story, that I (or someone else) have done something wrong and will therefor be punished in the near future.
It is literally nothing else but this belief in punishment for „being wrong“ that is fueling it.

Be aware, that FUD is not the problem – it’s just a very welcome expression of the belief in guilt. In other words: FUD doesn’t cause guilt, but our belief in guilt, makes FUD even possible! We search for it, to prove its reality and this costs us enormous amounts of energy.

The other „new“ emotion that we experience is guilt projected into time (past and/or future) and is very similar in its essence. The basic belief here is: „I have done something wrong in the past, and I should have known better!“ and we set this in relation to others, who have mysteriously „done it right“.

The Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is exactly this. We see a world full of people doing „the right thing“ and we think, we are missing out on the many opportunities. We feel guilty for missing out. This enhances our feelings of lack.

The funny thing here is, that „the others“ also feel this way. So we are basically in good company with many people feeling all the same.
The question then becomes: Who are „the others“ that are doing it right, when everyone is feeling guilty for missing out?

It’s hilarious to see, how fast FUD and FOMO can replace each other in a matter of seconds. The reason for this is, that they are based on the same feeling of guilt.

The real reason for guilt: The secret dream

Again, it’s important to realize, that FUD and FOMO are only the ego’s welcome guests, that make guilt real to us. Behind this dream (or better: nightmare) is, what ACIM calls „the secret dream“. Therein lies the true reason, why we are looking for proof of guilt’s existence in the world of form.

„The secret dream“ is, that we have separated from God and that we now have an independent existence. We are suddenly on our own, with an individual will and all the consequences thereof.

We feel guilty for having seemingly done the impossible and we will face a certain punishment from some higher power. This is the story that is the basis of the ego and its world of form. Everything there seems to play into it and it’s a 100% fool-proof system. Only it’s not true. It’s all made up.

To get in touch with this primordial guilt we can trace its expressions in form (like FUD & FOMO) or look for a generalized feeling of doom and punishment in us. Every time something good happens in our life, look for one (or more) of these feelings:

• I don’t deserve it
• It will be taken away from me soon
• Something bad is going to happen to counter/balance it (like some karmic equilibrium thing…)
• Something’s wrong, because normally good things don’t happen to me (= the cosmic victim role)

These are all variations of the same topic of guilt and our underlying belief, that we deserve to be punished because we are wrong.

This is not so much the belief, that we have done something wrong (which we would be able to correct), but much more the feeling that we are wrong at our core. This feeling of core wrongness is the automatic result of the belief in separation and that we are a physical body in form.

In other words: If you think, that you are a human body, living in the world of form, you are automatically feeling guilty. This is the underlying „secret dream“ the Course speaks of.

We have to get in touch with this core guilt through the practice the Course calls „looking“. This means, to just be aware of what I have described above without judging it as bad or wrong.

We are all the same. We all have this belief in a body and in the reality of separation, that is enforced through judging and projection, the main practices of our ego. „Looking“ therefore means, to look at something without judgment and projection – in this case, all the ways we make guilt real for us.

These are the first steps in becoming awake. We practice this our whole life and as long as we think that we are humans in a physical body. It’s not much that is asked from us, but it needs continuous vigilance for the topic of guilt in its endless forms.

Much Love and Blessings,

Atmos 🕊

Posted from my blog https://atmos.black/when-will-you-stop-feeling-guilty/