Understanding Guilt for True Self-Improvement

Acharya Prashant: What does guilt say? Let’s first of all look at it. Guilt says, “I am better than how and what I did”, right? Guilt says, “I am better than my actions”, or “I am better than my thoughts. I am better than the account I gave of myself on a particular occasion or on multiple occasions”, that’s what guilt says.

So, guilt says, “I am a resident of the 10th floor, but unfortunately and accidentally, I dropped down to the 2nd floor.” That you are operating from the 2nd floor is a fact, there need not be any imagination in this, but that you belong to the 10th floor is a presumption, is a declaration that only you have certified to yourself.

What is the fact of one’s life? – That one is operating from the 1st floor or 2nd floor; but what does one think about himself? “I belong to the 10th floor”, and this is guilt. “I am actually better, but I am not living as per my sublime self”, this is guilt. Now, this can work both ways, it can encourage you to really move upstairs or it can console you and comfort you into remaining where you are. You could say, “What a shame that a resident of the 10th floor is found rolling on the 2nd floor”, or you could say, “Oh, when I actually do already belong to the 10th floor, it’s alright if accidentally I happen to be spotted on the 2nd floor. These are minor accidents, they don’t count. My real place is anyway on the 10th floor, that’s my home.”

Guilt can be a great alibi against improvement. “I don’t need to improve because the faults, the foibles, the shortcomings, the lapses that I am displaying are just accidental; they are not me. They are happening despite me, they are not me. I’m far better than my performance. This performance is temporary. Very soon I’ll return to my standard elevation,” guilt could say that. Or, if one is honest, one would ask himself, “If I am so consistently being seen at and operating from the 2nd floor, do I really belong to the 10th? Or is the 10th merely an escape, a thought, an idea to help me stay comfortably on the second, and yet feel as if I am on the tenth?”

Guilt can act both ways, it depends on your love for height. If you really love heights, then guilt would assist you; but if you are comfortable with being thrown down from the heights, then guilt would provide you a lot of consolation and secure your place on the second floor. For most people, it is very important to accept that they are not accidentally making mistakes, that what they call as mistakes are not mistakes at all; they are their standard state of being. A mistake is a deviation; a mistake is a rarity, is it not? A mistake is something that should not have happened and yet has happened. A mistake cannot be a regularity; a mistake cannot be the default mode of function.

One has to ask, “If I am so frequently mistaken, are these mistakes? Or are these what I really am?” If a vehicle is always found with two tires - and always is always - would you call it a car or a scooter? Or would you say that it is a car that is mistakenly missing two of its tires? That’s how most of us want to believe.

All our life, we are found with two tires, but we do not say, “We have two tires”, we say, “We have two tires missing, we are actually a car.” Are we a car at all? And when somebody points it out to the scooter, the scooter feels guilty. The scooter says, “You know, had I been carrying those two missing ones, this fellow wouldn’t have dared to open his mouth. Just because today I am not carrying those two tires, so he addressed me as scooty.” When was the last time you moved on all four? When was the last time you were not mistaken?

If 90% of the time you are mistaken, then what is a mistake – 90% of the occurrences or the 10% of the remaining ones?

So, then you should say, “By mistake, sometimes I perform better. Usually, I am on the 2nd floor, by mistake, accidentally, sometimes I am found on the 10th.” But, that we don’t say because that hurts. We remember the one odd occasion when we were located on the 10th floor. We photograph ourselves on the 10th floor so that the fact becomes indisputable and a huge picture is then mounted on the wall to prove that we really belong to the 10th floor.

Had you really belonged to the 10th floor, would you have needed to commemorate the odd occasion when you were on the 10th? Then you would have said, “Oh, it’s a regular thing, it’s a daily thing. I belong to the 10th, why do I need to click a pic?” But, do you see when we encounter joy, we want to click a pic? What does that mean? And what does it mean that most people are seen smiling in their pics? You want to capture that moment when you were somehow, rarely, even artificially found smiling. When we get ourselves photographed, do we display in the photograph that we have five fingers? “You see, today I have five” – do we do that? Because that’s not a rarity, that’s a given; but if there is someone who has five fingers only once a fortnight for two hours, then the moment he finds that today he has all five, he would quickly get a video made.

Far better than guilt is the realization of one’s actual state; and once you realize where you actually stand, where your choices and decisions have brought you to, then there is a certain sublimation. When you honestly appraise yourself, then it arises from within that you are not what you have made yourself to be. Is that guilt? – Probably yes, probably no; but whatever that is, that is quite beneficial. That honest realization does not shout too loudly but nevertheless has great power. For that power to arise, you have to, first of all, acknowledge where you really are.

Self-improvement cannot happen along with self-deception.

If you don’t even admit to yourself that you are in the dumps, how would any improvement happen? You don’t really need to announce it to the world, to yourself you must know where you really stand, no? And that silent realization, I assure you, is highly transforming. You don’t even have to then try for transformation.

Full article link: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/if-guilt-troubles-you-1_85d329d

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