death

The Price of Guilt

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 Some religious concepts promote the experience of guilt that lead to emotional and cognitive suffering. The ideal of sacrificing yourself in order to save someone else is widely accepted for instance in Christianity. However, what good does this really do for us, especially if we are raising a sensitive, young mind, hungry for answers and guidance?

What can a youthful, receptive and curious individual take from the Example of the death of Christ? You may say – this is an example of unselfishness, the best way to teach altruism. Achieving freedom trough sacrifice, suffering and death – there are many examples of Saints and “Holy individuals” –  strengthens the believe and create the hope, that it is possible for  someone to “save” his family or loved ones by taking responsibility from them, for them. The child or adult may be convinced that he is able to “accept” the death, disease or any other misfortune from his family and die, suffer instead of them. The believe that you can “pay” God for something that you believe is sin, which also belongs to someone else by being sick, unhappy and dying is still common today. Nevertheless, we have to realize that this prejudice does not serve us; it can only harm the people we love and care about. The fact that we think it is enough to suffer and get sick and die in order to save someone may be seen as a lack of respect and confidence in the other’s person ability to take responsibility and restore the harmony. It can also be escape from the current situation or dynamic, which we do not know how to deal with.

 

This redemption is actually showing our natural predisposition to balance and harmony. It is unconscious. It can take the joy from your life; it can freeze you, living you passive and angry. Often a woman who loses her child, in any circumstances, is trying to “punish” herself by developing a deadly disease or by ending the relationship with the father, her partner or avoid any future relationships. Another example of “paying for the sins of others” is the following, which unfortunately is not so rare. A woman puts her mother in an institution instead of taking care of her. After a few days, one of her daughters develops anorexia and starts to volunteer in those same types of institutions, taking care of seniors. What is interesting is that nobody in the family, including the daughter saw a connection between the two events. One of the siblings is born with serious facial deformations and living her life joyfully, happily married with kids. The other sibling ca not escape the guilt of “being normal”, going trough life, destroying marriage after marriage, afraid to be parent, trying to “fill the gap” with pills and alcohol. Rejecting your own parents, not knowing how to forgive, opens the way to serous diseases, painful addictions and self-distraction.

There are countless examples of how our bodies and family systems react to everyday events and give us signs of our imbalanced living.

The only way to restore the harmony is realizing the gift of life. Appreciating and accepting the miracle of existence.  The guilt is not in the now. It is associated with the past. It is an illusion. It cannot live without your energy and constant attention. Nobody is perfect. We learn trough our mistakes, we evolve by doing better, when we know better.  Forgiveness is the best gift you can give yourself. A blissful You is your best gift to the world.

 

THE ultimate GOAL/CHOICE

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We are growing, evolving and realizing the awesome responsibility we have, that leads us to experience this symptoms of tension, unsettledness, and unsatisfaction- often diagnosed as depression, anxiety or similar. What exactly are we feeling?

On a deep level, we are aware that we are mortal and there is no other purpose to our existence but the one we create for ourselves. Is that freedom? How do we respond to this understanding of our responsibility/freedom to make a life worth living without any external standard, which can define for us what this worthwhile living should be?

Some find the guidance in the organized system of a religion.  This is comforting until the moment you face the truth that this system is created by people, and used from different people for different purposes.

More and more people realize that this situation of discomfort is a sign of awareness, rather than a symptom. This uneasiness signals that you begin to process and accept responsibility for your life. Here are some wise words from Mr Frankl “What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him”.

Making the choice – what direction you want your life to go, requires increasing self-awareness. Keeping the chosen course asks for established values or discipline. Reaching the destination is possible when you accept that the desired outcome is not a guarantee. So we come to the beginning again – what goal is worth living for, taking the effort and investing your time in, without having the assurance of accomplishing it?

Do we really have a choice? Yes – we do have the choice of happy and fulfilling life. We make it when we understand fear and discover courage. Courage enables us to move toward our actualization, allows us to incorporate/understand fear. If we ignore the tension and try to put fear to sleep, we stop our own growth, impede our potential. So how do we keep blindly and courageously move forward? Faith is our only response to the finiteness nature of life and our awareness of death. Faith, not in any religious sense, but simple trust, knowing that:” This is the way it is. Now I will live my life.”

The alternative? The “modern slavery” – the loss of your individuality, your true identity, your self. In this state, you are influenced by public opinions, by the world outside. You take the values and beliefs of others, becoming absorbed by the every day superficial relationships, your interactions seem ordinary and meaningless. With or without pills the anxiety created by your true self, trying to find the way out and express the true self will produce symptoms, which ignored will lead to a possible disease. At times we want somebody else to heal us or with the help of a special device that will magically take away all our problems. We avoid occasionally looking for our own fault, staying away from seeing our mistakes, which lead us to the illness in the first place. However, you are able to understand and forgive.

There is an ancient saying: If you got sick, change your life style. If this does not help, change the way you eat. If this does not help, then look for a healer and remedies.

It seems like we need a reminder what to do with ourselves. We easily give the responsibility and freedom to make choices for our lives to somebody else. We forget now and then to trust ourselves. The history is full with examples how far human beings can go placing their reliance and life in the hands of one person that has the ambition to lead. It is mesmerizing the size of a crime one man’s ideas can lead to.  Be cautious of leaders that claim to know the secret to life, leaders who tell you they know you better than you know yourself. No one can take your responsibility – to know yourself.

When asked, “What thing about humanity surprises you the most?” Dalai Lama answered:” Man….Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

………..

“I see and hear, how in the silence, every hour “the heavenly bells” ring, and how everything alive is subject to this rhythm…. How do the roosters and all birds know when to sing? How does the flower know when to wake up and blossom? All is subject to this voice. “

Turn of the TV, and you will hear it too…