Guilt and the awareness of conscience are issues that deserve deep reflection. It is important to say that the “alert or conflict of conscience” is not yet the installation of guilt, but an invitation to contrition in the face of mistakes. Such awareness compression is essential to harmonize the psychological maladjustment resulting from guilt.

Consciousness is the Divine in our existential reality; in it are written the Laws of the Creator. Guilt results from not listening to the “alert of conscience”, therefore it is pathological and generates a deep self-punishing psychological shock. Detail: it is impossible to lack the conscientious alert in the human psyche. We can pretend not to hear the "voice of conscience", and despite this, it will always alert, except in extreme cases of psychopathologies where the mentally ill does not feel the slightest regret or guilt.

Conscientious warning signals transgressions to the moral code of the law of conscience. In view of this, we become aware of and regret the error, seeking to repair it. On the other hand, guilt is a pathological process in which we worship error under the psychological movement of self-judgment, self-condemnation and self-punishment.

Self-punishment Impulse

Self-punishing behavior causes very serious emotional illnesses, notably depression. Depression is a colossal human drama today. “I don't deserve to be happy”, “I wasn't born to be loved”, “no one likes me” and so on. Here manifests itself a self-punishing behavior of complicated psychological and spiritual treatment. In this case “guilt” is punishing and imprisoning. The culprit is accommodated in the complaint and the lamentation (for the “guilt”). More mature psychologically could move forward on the path of self-forgiveness and enable you to open your heart more to life.

In depressive pathologies, there is often a lot of hatred stored in the heart. We often oscillate between acts that generate the trick of "excuses" and actions that determine "guilt". Depending on how we deal with such challenges, the "guilt" remains stronger, producing situations that embarrass the psychic and emotional state, which is why we cannot demand perfection, however, we must make continuous efforts for self-improvement, moving away from the "excuse" that it is nothing more than an escape door to escape from one's obligations.

The perception of “guilt” has been the object of investigations and influences in the wide thematic debate of the Doctrine of the Spirits and of the psychic sciences. It is known that the consequences of preserving “guilt” in our lives are endless and serious, and that it can reach indescribable emotional, psychological, behavioral and moral wreckage.

The famous “guilt” is embodied in a feeling of anguish acquired after re-evaluating an act considered reprehensible by ourselves, that is, when we transgress the norms of our moral conscience.

Guilt badges

Of the different characteristics of guilt, there is the one arising from the voluptuousness of “pleasure” when someone did not have fun as they would like to have (if feasted on a “nightclub”, for example). After the "binge" that someone feels guilty and blames himself for not having stayed longer at the party; for not having accomplished this and that and so on. Under this psychologically disturbing state, guilt emerges as a reflection of what was not done and would wish to have done, resulting in the movement of self-punishment.

From a religious point of view, the “guilt” comes from the transgression of something “forbidden” or of a norm of faith. The religious sanction is related to reprimand and punitive sentences. The sinister religious “guilt” means a psychological, existential and subjective state, which indicates the search for atonement for faults before the “sacred” as part of self-illumination as a sectarian experience. Religion often treats “guilt” as a feeling essential to the offender's contrition and personal improvement, as he only achieves change if he recognizes the committed act as “sinful”.

This religious interpretation is not compatible with the Spiritist proposals, even because “guilt” is one of the psychic perceptions that should not be nurtured, as it is a kind of sterile malaise, a useless intimate dissatisfaction. In fact, when we blame ourselves, we remove the full potential of safely manifesting ourselves in life.

All negative memories paralyze enthusiasm for good deeds, the only bearers of hope for freedom from guilt. When we enter the self-punishing process, we generate an impulse to distance ourselves from the reality of life and living itself. It is a great challenge to transform the challenging experience (pain/suffering) into a learning experience. For this, it is important to do GOOD (with capital letters) at the limit of our strength, starting with ourselves, allowing us to experience this GOOD in the heart and at the same time do GOOD to others, and thus free ourselves completely from the guilty nodule.

Excusing in the face of conscientious alert

The Law of Cause and Effect is one of the fundamental principles advocated by the Spiritist Doctrine to explain the vicissitudes linked to human life. In view of the Law of Causality, harvest derives from sowing, without any castrating or fatalistic expression for reparation. The “consciousness alert”, for example, well absorbed, becomes a responsible component. But if we ignore it, we break down in apology and reject accountability for the error. On the face of it, apology is a deeply irresponsible stance toward ourselves.

The negligent (excuser) pronounces that “to err is human”, but it is counterproductive to reason like this. It is a mistaken process that violates the Law of God. In truth, we do not need to blame ourselves (demand) when we make mistakes, much less apologize (negligence), however, it is important that we listen to the voice of conscience and learn from the mistakes in order to repair them.

Welfare as a poultice of guilt

About the different peculiarities of guilt, there is still the one that happens to those workers who eagerly immerse themselves in welfare. They are confreres with a “heavy” conscience who aspire to consolidate beneficence, aiming, rather, to anesthetize their own guilt. In reality, they are trying to bargain with God in order to get rid of mental anxiety. This is certainly a spontaneous but counterproductive practice.

However, in the M.E.B. - Brazilian Spiritist Movement has plenty of assistance services. The psychiatrist Alirio Cerqueira, coordinator of the “To Spiritize Project” of the Spiritist Federation of the State of Mato Grosso, argues that many carry out assistance activities without real awareness of the social needs of the underprivileged. In fact, they work "charitably" under the shackles of guilty conscience and risk disguising the automatic exercise of "altruism" for themselves. They act subconsciously like those with a very painful wound, and instead of treating it to heal, they keep putting anesthetic ointment on the wound (guilt) to soothe the pain.

Acting like this (in welfare) the guilt is momentarily “hidden”, but it does not disappear, because, when the anesthetic effects pass, the guilt returns and the person maintains the conflict of conscience. In this way, the “philanthropic” commitments are increasingly expanding; it becomes overloaded with “charitable” pacts; however, the guilt is preserved. Many spend their entire lives in this attitude of "DOING THINGS" without any conscious objective. Such “charitable ones” certainly help TEMPORARILY the needy, however, they cause for themselves, to a high degree, mental fatigue, stress and psychological saturation and they cannot HARMONIZE WITH THEMSELVES.

Faced with guilt, it is not the healthy who need doctors

In fact, the purpose of divine laws (based on consciousness) is to provide us with pure and eternal happiness. On the face of it, when we transgress them, we are anxious because we are moving away from happiness, so we feel extreme anxiety. In view of this, it is important to exercise self-forgiveness, which obviously will not extinguish the responsibility for the mistakes made, because self-forgiveness is not simply passing an eraser on the mistake, but making a balanced evaluation of the mistake to repair it.

At the extreme, there are people who harbor so much guilt that they feel unworthy to say a prayer and/or to do good. However, let us judge the following: prayer is not for pure Spirits. Jesus instructed that it is not the healthy who need doctors, but the sick. Now, waiting for our purification to pray and do good doesn't make any sense, even because we gradually improve, praying initially and in a special way, doing well within the limits of our strength.