The Useful Guilt

SMALL STORY

(His Divine Holiness Bhagavan Sri Nithyananda Paramashivam has delivered almost 20,000 hours of recorded talks till date. As part of the talks, He shares simple small stories that give powerful A cognitive shifts to the listener. Following is one such story.)

There is a certain guilt that is useful for you, a guilt which if pursued intelligently can cause you to move forward in life. When you see that you have the potential to do something, when you feel that you have so much potential which you are not using at all, then if you are intelligent, guilt will happen in you. This guilt can spur you to start doing things that will actualize your entire potential.

Sometimes we see the state of things around us and we know in one corner of our mind that we can very well help turn the situation around. But either due to laziness or due to the fear of confrontation, or due to the fear of taking responsibility, we just keep quiet and watch. This typeof situation can cause deep guilt in us. This guilt is significant. If we take steps to correct the situation by doing what we really feel we should do, then the guilt will disappear and we will also move forward.

This type of guilt has the ability to drive you to do what needs to be done. Because of its very nature, you cannot harbor this guilt for long. You have to get over it. The way to get over it is by doing what needs to be done. Once it is done, the guilt also disappears. How long you wish to harbour this guilt without taking steps, for that long you suffer from it. This is the simple logic of this guilt.

Another manifestation of this guilt happens when you can feel your ego surfacing in certain situations and you are unable to help it. When you can smell your ego but you are unable to control it, this guilt arises in you. This guilt is also good since it is a sign of the deep awareness of your own ego. It facilitates you to sincerely work towards eliminating that ego.

Guilt can result in physical disease Guilt is the sure killer of intelligence. According to me, guilt is the worst killer of intelligence. It will never let you move in your life.

Once one of our devotees had a tumor at the base of her spinal cord. For twenty years she suffered with the tumor. She came to me complaining,

'Please help me, heal me. I am suffering with this tumor for so many years. After undergoing surgery, it has reappeared.' I started talking to her slowly to trace the origin of the problem. I asked her a few questions at the end of which she finally opened up and started weeping. I asked her, 'Do you have any guilt related to your sex energy?' She slowly opened up.

She said she was physically abused when she was very young. One of her close relatives had abused her for many years. That guilt stayed with her. She said, 'I started hating that part of my body. I started feeling that this part of the body should not exist in me. I felt that part of my body was not my being. My hatred towards that person turned towards my own body.'

Her hatred was so deep. I continued speaking to her. Slowly she opened up more and more. When she brought the guilt out, she came out of the guilt. She was psychologically healed.I gave her a small meditation technique to meditate on that area. I told her, 'Express your anger towards that man. Weep, shout, cry, hit. Close the doors, take a pillow, imagine that it is he and show your anger on it. After that sit silently and feel that part of your body also as your own. Feel love towardsthat part of the body.' You will be surprised that in just ten days, the tumor disappeared! It never recurred.

Most of our ailments are due to psychological disturbances where guilt plays a major role. Most of the time, our energy flow gets blocked because of guilt. If you look deep, wherever you are not able to move, wherever you are not able to take decisions, wherever you have fear, there will be some guilt lurking.

Acceptance – the beautiful way out

Acceptance is a wonderful tool to relieve yourself of the pull and push between the past and future. With acceptance you fall into the present straightaway. The first thing is to accept all the happenings of the outer world and all the happenings of the inner world. Whatever problems you have in the outer world and whatever problems you have in the inner world, just accept them in their entirety. Summarize all that you experience as problems and accept them in totality. Accept all guilt, all mistakes and all failures. Even if you cannot accept, accept that you cannot accept. You will then relax and guilt will drop from your mind. Just try this small experiment: Just relax for three days with complete acceptance. If you relax for three days without the pull and push in the inner and outer worlds, are you going to lose all your wealth? Surely not! So there is no problem. In three days you are not going to lose anything. Why don't you give it a try? Just for three days, sincerely, utterly, accept everything in your life one hundred percent.

If you are not able to accept one hundred percent, then accept that you are not able to accept one hundred percent. Even the acceptance of 'I am not able to accept myself in the inner world and outer world' will make you drop from the pull and push between the past and future. The moment you understand, 'I am unable to free myself from the pull and push of desires and fears, I am not able to accept my reality,' that very understanding will start doing its job. If you can fall into the present moment, relaxing from the outer world and inner world things, in three days you will have a glimpse: What is life? What does it mean to live in the present moment? If this happens to you, you will experience such ecstasy, such a different space, such a different life that you have never experienced before You have lived based on your philosophy for maybe the last thirty years. Just for three days, don't try to alter anybody in the outer world. You will see that when you experiment with such great techniques, they work miracles in your being. They start a great alchemy process in your being. If you are not able to be sincere, accept that you are not able to be sincere. Even that sincerity is enough. You will start seeing a different space in you.