Ironic, Isn’t It?

Continued from yesterday…

Guilt cannot coexist with unconditional love. In my situation, guilt pushed me further away from awareness of the eternal love-union that is the ultimate truth. I was spiritually a failure and for days and sometimes weeks, I would slip further and further into a spiral of self-hatred, manifesting as unhappiness and even depression.

The guilt didn’t just impact the feelings I had about myself, but it strengthened the ego’s need to compare me to others. “If I can find others worse than me,” I subconsciously thought, “then my own guilt can be alleviated.”

Which explains why religious folks are at times judgmental of others. The ego needs to condemn others to relieve its own insecurity and guilty conscience. When we are unaware of love, we attack others, especially other groups of people—whether people of different religions, political parties, races, nations, or sexual orientations.

Ironic, isn’t it? Religious people, who profess to seek God, are often the furthest away from God, because their internal operating system is based on the dualistic fallacy of good versus evil.

In one of the last books of the Bible, John alludes to this irony when he says, “Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love.” Talking about God, but not unconditionally loving people, was nothing more than cheap platitude.

To be continued tomorrow…

Adapted from section 2 of Awakening To I Am Love by David Youngren