"Thou shalt have no other Guilt before me". English version 2021.

Sparse reflections on the first commandment. I.e. on how “Guilt” has been deeply embedded in all aspects of human perception. As well as having justified the birth of religion, in power, it has connotated gender violence. It has also contaminated some New Age trends, those which are claiming to be creating a new spirituality! Paradoxical. Guilt is so deep at the very roots of the Western thought that I was musing on when and where it all actually started. Guilt was basically gradually substituted to the concept of divinity, arriving at the point that rather than teaching how to expand individual consciousness, these religious doctrines teach an inner “coiling up” on Guilt, justified by the inherent inadequacy of the human being, as if it was a good thing to stay isolated and cradle this inner sorrow with liturgies and rituals, confirming the separation from all. As if religion, to satisfy the inner sacred feeling within every human being, needs just to daily water the inner mourning, and, looking closely, at the same time is fortifying its superstructures (material dimension included). Unfortunately, not only in the West. It is as if what needs to be nurtured is not the ineffable feeling of Union among the Human, Nature and the Divine, but a voluntary perversion which has its root and nourishment in Guilt for all sentient beings, which are thus made slave, impotent, devoid of free will. Finally, totally incapable of acting spiritually in the material world. It is a chemical castration of the Spirit.

It is obvious, I am speaking about “Guilt”, and not of “Sin”. Because the concept of Sin is a consequence of Guilt. “Sin” cannot exist without the concept of an external, judging God, but Guilt precedes this, it is innate in the human being (in a gender-biased vision). Really illuminating, in this sense, “The Fall” biblical tale, in a causal sense. I allow to repeat myself: in a caUsal sense.

But this Guilt, which has been taken advantage of at all levels to hold the consciousnesses in chains and inhibit any free action, has magically translated* during the centuries in an inner torment which is currently affecting the field of emotions and contaminates human relationships. Even if we do not believe in any religion, there it is, like a cyst in the intellect: Guilt, at the root of daily actions, acted every day and used as a perfect excuse for whatever wretchedness. It has been interiorized. It is considered to be part of the “natural” (some insist in using the term “spontaneous”) way of acting and justifying our actions.

It is the ultimate justification, the one that allows us to get rid of all responsibilities for all our actions in the world. “Well, you know, I am just a miser mortal tainted with Guilt, and I need to pay for it as everyone else. And so should you”. A well packaged judgment, for individual use, so useful to get away with our daily disaster actions, both towards our Planet and our neighbour. And promptly called to act to judge others as well, in a shameful “a priori”.

This is stale and does not really represent the world as Cosmos. All the contrary, it indicates very clearly how social pathologies are transforming reality into Chaos.

“As stale and selfish as a sick dog”, the Cure sang in the eighties.

Now it is time to get over with this “guilt”. No one will be held culpable of their own nature. They will accept themselves for what they are and will never finish discovering themselves in the infinite Logos of every Soul. Oh, isn’t it comfortable to feel there is an original guilt at the base of our disgraces? Oh, how easy to convince others that they are guilty because of their very nature, so to relieve them forever from the responsibility of their choices and punish them for our own material gain! How pleasant to interiorize this reasoning in order to enact Evil without having to answer for it, while cradling in our own ineptitude! So convenient to share the hearsay about the Guilt of the Feminine in order to perpetuate abuse! How cute those women who really believe they are inferior! How easy to manipulate them! Just as the believers in whatever religion, how easy it is to make them believe that they are dirty, to convince them that they deserve punishment! Or that others deserve punishment! I fear those who, despite this ideology has possessed their mind, sin and abuse others in full consciousness, confiding in God’s eternal forgiveness. I feel a deep disgust, and an inner nausea hits me. Not because of the perversity itself, rather because of the awareness which accompanies this mental degradation without acknowledging its abjection. It is like mandating the consequences of our actions to an abstract concept.

Cogito, ergo? Proxy? I.e., I think and therefore… I mandate? Do I mandate the responsibility of my own actions to an abstract concept, external from me, even if it is me acting?

You need to be sure that you acted in full freedom of choice: this is the pre-supposition of Real Free Will.

Guilt, then, intended as the full awareness of having acted in a way which does not correspond to our own nature (that is not inherently impure, but constantly evolving, always, and this is the greater gift of Life), or that damaged our neighbour, can be experienced only after having recognized ourselves, in ourselves, and consequently acted. In this case, though, and it is useful to underline it, it won’t be the Guilt as traditionally intended, i.e. as inherent in us even before our coming to life and based on whatever metaphysical motivation externally imposed on ourselves or acquired during life without our present responsibility (call it as you wish: original sin, karma, belonging to an “inferior genre”, having had difficult childhood – I am just quoting the most recurrent and abused concepts here), but as a MISTAKE in the path, a temporary detour, which does not in any case stop us from going back on our steps and get back to what is our real Path.

It is straightforward that without a toweringly high moral sense this reasoning is met with the most trivial misunderstandings which nullify its application. It is clear that to take responsibility of committing mistakes only on our own inner initiative without external justification is a painful journey of self-discovery. It would imply, this inner spiritual morality, a real confrontation with our actions, the recognition of real values, acted, not mandated to external time-worn superstructures, be them supernatural or belonging to the field of our personal past. It would entail the Observer to be awaken and attentive. It would entail an Ego tamed with Love.

Originally published in the Italian language on 13th January 2017

*term used in a geometrical, spatial sense.