Hello everyone! Today we continue to share the case for forgiveness and dissect one of the ego’s modus operandi.
I once had a beloved teapot that I bought from an art store when I was traveling. One day, my child asked me for the teapot and said she wanted to make tea in it too. I couldn’t resist so I gave her the teapot. However, given that the teapot is a work of art, it’s not very well insulated, so when my daughter took it to make tea, she accidentally got burned. Then bam, the teapot was shattered. When I saw the teapot break, the feeling of being stifled and the anger of thinking that my child had messed me up came at the same time.
I won’t share the example of how to forgive this time, I’ll just use it to dissect the workings of guilt.
Guilt generally operates in two major parts: first, the subconscious guilt will manifest into a specific event outside of my mind. The second is that while this guilt is manifesting into a specific event, it is also germinating within my mind into certain patterns of conviction and various negative emotions. These are the two main parts of how guilt operates. I will briefly explain them below with the current example.
First, the reason I experienced the incident of my child breaking the teapot is that the incident was simply the manifestation of some old guilt in my subconscious. So where did this guilt come from? In fact it could all go back to my past life, because I could have done something to break her beloved object in a past life. Or I must have done something with the same connotation in a previous life. That’s why I retained a subconscious copy of the guilt, so much so that this guilt manifested in my lifetime as the incident where she broke the teapot. That’s the first part of how guilt works.
Second, as this old guilt manifests itself as she breaks the teapot, this guilt germinates within my heart. And the manifestation of its germination is that the first thing I would do when I saw the teapot being broken was to convict myself. I would think, “What a life I have! What bad luck that I can’t even guard a beloved object. I’m really guilty of some kind of sin! Then I would experience the feeling of being stifled. But the feeling of congestion wouldn’t last long (maybe it was just a flash), and I would push the sin outside of me. Because I will think that I am in this situation solely because of my child’s carelessness. This is the instantaneous transfer of conviction to myself and into conviction to others. Then while I am so shifting the object of my conviction, all sorts of negative emotions, especially anger, will follow. For I will both be angry at myself for having sinned in some way, and I will be angry at myself for projecting that sin. This is the second part of the operation of guilt, namely that guilt will germinate in my mind in the form of a pattern of conviction and the production of various negative emotions.
Then if you take this germ of guilt one step further, it can actually all be extended to this: when I have a certain beloved object, I am in possession of heaven. So when that beloved object is broken, I feel a deep sense of loss. So much so that I come to hate myself while trying to find a scapegoat and project that hate. This can also be described as a cycle of the subconscious mind both hating itself and projecting the sin and forming the dream universe at the beginning of the projection of the universe.
The content of this sharing is only to make you understand the mode of operation of guilt, so that you may have a deeper understanding of the method of forgiveness. Because only the method of forgiveness allows us to “see” guilt as a manifestation of events that do not exist, so that we can dissolve the subconscious guilt and put an end to its germination.
Finally, let me share a little bit more about the important role of A Course in Miracles. Not only does A Course in Miracles teach us about the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, but it also serves another important purpose, which is that if you can manage to read the main text of a miracle or do the practice of a miracle lesson every day. Then on the day of your study, when you come across an issue in your life, it may be easier for you to wake up your ego and practice the law of forgiveness. This is one of the main things that A Course in Miracles does and what it is all about. I also hope that this experience will make your path of practice smoother.