The Entrapment of Remorse
Remorse lingers as a deeper psychic attachment than guilt, regret or sorrow. It arises to agitate the conscience of the individual with alarming alacrity. The person repeatedly reflects on what they should or shouldn’t have done in their estimation that caused suffering to another. Over time, remorse becomes like a confidante; a constraint of mind that serves no purpose other than to reaffirm the connection to the pain and unhappiness of the past.
In the absence of any real knowledge as to the purpose of being in existence, the free-wheeling intelligence inherent within human beings struggles to make sense of the often contradictory nature of life on earth. Desperate to hold onto the connection to the people that shaped the life, human beings cling to the memorable impressions of the past. It’s irrelevant to the insatiable appetite of the emotional self whether it’s a positive or negative charge. The entrapment of remorse binds the person to many years of misery that frequently lasts a lifetime.
Remorse affects both man and woman but in different ways. In a woman remorse stems from self-doubt as a disconnection from her true nature of love. She can be confident and self-assured externally, but inwardly vulnerable to the forces of the world. Being the personification of love in existence, a woman endeavours to bring the divided parts of her life and those she loves into an harmonious whole wherever she can. She serves her children and family, often selflessly in her devotion, and yet fails to bring everything to a point of completion – in the same way that love is constant in its task. Subconsciously she takes this personally and feels remorse in not having given more than she possibly could at the time.
A man struggles with remorse when his true authority as the male principle in existence is reduced as a tangible presence within his being. He senses he has not succeeded in living up to what was expected of him. But this is normally the tip of the iceberg of what inwardly gnaws as insecurities and misgivings concerning his function and true purpose of his life. Until a man begins to serve something greater than himself, he will be dragged along by the current of the world of compromise and fear. Remorse poisons a man’s presence of nobility and weakens his capacity to serve those he professes to love in his life.
From a deeper perspective, remorse attracts other negative emotional energies that reinforce within an individual the global symptoms of unhappiness. For example, the need to perpetuate feelings of remorse attracts the forces of religious indoctrination. These are energies of past human experience that proclaim that suffering is beneficial in placating God’s judgment for the sins and transgressions of the past. Such insidious propaganda is so deep-rooted within the human psyche that it distorts the perception in ways that bind the person while alive to the very thing they hope and pray to be spared from after death – hell and eternal damnation. The unconscious fear of breaking the attachment to another is the mistaken notion that should they do so they will be unworthy of God’s love.
Remorse is resolved through love in the present. Love has the power to heal and resolve anything that is divided from its source. But such love is not distant or separate from this or any other moment. When a woman responds from her love, her actions are right and will serve to bring more love into the world. Similarly, when a man is able to rise above his self interests and distractions of his world he discovers the divine element within his being. Doubt then turns to certainty – the knowledge of being true to life and love, no longer divided from the integrity of the whole.