Guilt

” If you want to transform
Your life radically
Then immediately give up
Your false sense of teeming guilt. “

From Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, Part 40 by Sri Chinmoy

When we do something wrong it is tempting to feel very guilty in the hope that by making ourselves suffer we can make everything OK. It is also possible by feeling guilty we in some respects try to draw sympathy or even pass on our guilt to someone else.

Quite often it is difficult to give up our sense of guilt, our mind likes to judge people and ourselves. The mind can be also liable to dwell on the negative side of things. If we identify ourselves only with our mind and thoughts guilt is likely to remain.

Sri Chinmoy suggests however that by feeling bad and feeling guilty we do not help ourselves. The most effective way to give up a feeling of guilt is to concentrate on the positive side. If we have done something wrong we should endeavour to do the right thing. As Sri Chinmoy says:

 ” I always say the past is dust. By thinking of it and brooding over it we cannot change the past or free ourselves from guilt. If we have done something wrong, it is past. Let us think of the immediate future and allow it to grow into the immediacy of today. “

– Excerpt from The Hunger Of Darkness And The Feast Of Light, Part 1 by Sri Chinmoy

These are a selection of poems and aphorisms about guilt.

Poems about Guilt

No matter how undivine you are,
God wants you to look
Straight into His Eyes
So that His Compassion
can enter into you
And transform your guilt-loaded life.

Excerpt from Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, Part 136 by Sri Chinmoy.

~

You will not be devoured
By shame and guilt
If you just kindle the flames
Of your aspiration-heart
With God’s smiling Compassion-Eye.

 Excerpt from Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, Part 204 by Sri Chinmoy.

~

Why don’t you listen to God?
He has asked your
guilt-harbouring mind
So many times
To forgive and forget,
And proceed onward.

Excerpt from Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, Part 140 by Sri Chinmoy.

~

If you read every day
Your mind’s guilt-record,
How will you ever think
Of pleasing your Lord?

Excerpt from Silence Speaks, Part 8 by Sri Chinmoy.