While meditating, guilt or shame may arise in your awareness. If shame or guilt is not 'your thing', substitute any other negative emotion for the purposes of this discussion as this post is not about shame or guilt per se. It is about the negativity that can arise during a meditation session.
Because feelings or thoughts of shame or guilt come and go during your meditation session, means that they are not real. That which is real does not come and go. So ... given that they are not real, there is no need to do anything about them ... we need neither engage them nor push them away. Just notice that all negativity is transient even the thought that this feeling will never go away.
I have been sitting in Silence for a long time and I have realized something that I want to share with you if you have missed it ... It's good news.
You are NOT GUILTY of anything; you are completely FORGIVEN. The separation from Life that you imagine never happened. You are WHOLE and always have been. You only imagine otherwise.
This week, while you meditate, I invite you to join me in the certain knowledge that you need do nothing; that you are totally FORGIVEN. When thoughts that indicate otherwise arise ...just notice that they disappear by themselves leaving you without thought and COMPLETE right here right now.
Can you see this?
bob
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How you make "this" regularly refreshing is inspiring in and of itself.. thank you!
ReplyDeleteOn wednesday night you mentioned that when we project guilt/blame on to other people we are really just stabbing ourselves.
ReplyDeleteWell, I've noticed over the past couple days that ALL of my negative judgments of the world and myself are incredibly convincing! So much so, that they basically just go unnoticed. I habitually just take them to be justifiable truth, and I make a big guilty world out of them.
For example, this morning I was having difficulty pulling two coffee filters apart. This happens just about every morning when I make coffee, and every time, I subtly think “this is stupid, this shouldn’t be happening.” In a very absurd way, I place blame and guilt onto inanimate coffee filters. Well this morning, I realized what was happening. I forgave myself and I forgave the coffee filters.
I was instantly at peace, because I realized that the entire situation was actually about me.
This is obviously a small example, but the truth of it seems to hold true on a much larger scale. What if all the crap in the world is really just a mirror of how I see myself? And what happens when I forgive it all?
What does happen when one forgives it all, and is this even possible? Is it a moment by moment occurence?
ReplyDeleteWhen all is forgiven the purpose of the world is fulfilled, time ends, and separation and the world are seen for what they always were ... a dream.
ReplyDeletebob
In discussions with some of my friends, I've realized that forgiveness means different things to different people ... Here's a couple of thoughts on the idea of "true forgiveness".
ReplyDeleteWhat is true forgiveness? What most of us have been conditioned to think about forgiveness is not really forgiveness. Consider: "I forgive him/her because I would have done the same thing in similar circumstances" is not forgiveness. Can you see that such statements are just condemnation in disguise?
True forgiveness comes when we realize that the 'event' never happened. That it was imaginary, only made up in our mind usually to justify our own sense of guilt.
How do we know we have forgiven? When we can't remember the 'event'.
bob
Forgiveness... giving up my idea of what's going on in any given moment. Boy, that had been a stick in the mud lesson in my life, but when the stick was pulled, I sure fell back on my butt to realize that what was in my hands was nothing but a thought. I let that one go, too. And that one...
ReplyDeleteBob,
ReplyDeleteYou once mentioned that whenever people come into meditation stuck on a certain position (Christianity, Buddhism, Thisism, Thatism), you blast them with another lineage. I trust that it's because getting stuck is "idolitry" and/or separation, but tell me more about exactly why you do this "blasting"? :)
Thanks,
April
Yes, April, you've got it. The goal of spiritual practice is to see that our conditioning (which comes from the past) is only a presently arising thought and not true (right here, right now). When we see this we are flung into the mystery of the present where the Divine is alive and well.
ReplyDeleteWhen we get stuck on some particular theology we are just stuck on past conditioning. I suggest other religious points of view to loosen up a "student's" death-grip on the past. All religions (and spiritual practices) are merely pointers to the truth; they are all useful but in the end all of them have to be surrendered.
bob