Guilt

Matthew 8:5-13

— Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.

We are back in the desert. I tell Him about how the feeling of guilt torments me. How it gathers in my chest, how it presses, suffocates, hurts. He places His hand on my solar plexus. I press it to myself with my palms and speak, speak, speak.

How nauseated I am by feeling guilty for the states of other people, as if I am responsible for them. But that's not true! I am responsible for my own states, for my own emotions.

Where does guilt come from and why?

"By their fruits you will know them." If this feeling causes a crude pressure to do something, I think it is not from You.

Are guilt and approval connected?

Yes. Guilt for not receiving my own approval from that ideal imagined self, which lives only in my imagination. From the one who never experiences negative emotions and around whom no one is sad.

Why do I feel the emotions of other people so vividly? Why do they pass through me? How can I not succumb to them?

I have a connection with people. And this connection is two-sided. Emotions can be used to communicate. One emotion can be answered with another. A strong emotion can give a person strength, or it can take it away. All this is just a tool.

I renounce approval - both from others and from myself.

I renounce guilt.

All this is poison.

***

Our communication suddenly begins to take on a romantic hue, and our meetings resemble dates. He shows me very beautiful places, leads me by the hand, embraces me. We are silent, but words seem superfluous. Like pearls on a string, I sort through these precious memories from meditation to meditation.