The past is in the past and cannot be changed, yet the trauma, attachments and learnings created in the past stay with us in present and can be delt with.

The question is how can you deal with these things that are buried inside you, some of which are out of sight of the conscious mind. (Your subconscious protects you from some of these things.)

It has been my experience that over time, these will slowly work themselves out if you are in a safe situation in life. However this can take a while, depending how repressed the root memory is, or how "big" the event was.

You can release these more actively, if you learn to pay attention to yourself. For me these used to manifest themselves physically as knots in my muscles. "Releasing" these knots would bring the emotions to the surface and then it is just a matter of allowing yourself to experience the emotions, which can really suck sometimes.

You can also look for these things by scouring your memory. When I was working my 4th step in the 12 step program, I did this by creating a "searching and fearless moral inventory." Emotionally it was brutal, but I was able to work through a lot of emotional crap through a short period of time.

Anymore, I am so tuned to myself that I can feel when something is coming up from the past. I acknowledge it, experience the emotions and let it go.

It can be very hard going, but ultimately very worth it. These repressed emotions and blocked energies can make it hard to hold onto the enlightened state of mind. Journaling, bodywork and/or counseling can help a great deal.

To answer your specific question about the victims and torturers of Abu Ghraib, they should feel whatever it is they need to feel. I would hate to be either of them. A Buddhist may say they were just working out their own particular karmic debt.

From a psychological point of view, it is about dealing with repressed emotions and recognizing flawed "rules" of your world view.

Does this help?

-- Spur

Hi Spur,

Thanks for the comments.

To get to the point, I have suffered, have caused suffering in revenge, and have consequentially suffered guilt for that suffering I have caused. So, I fully recognize actions have consequences in this world. Some would say I was in a karmic cycle.

However, I am not generally happy with the concept of karma. I know Chris has written an article on it somewhere on the site, and I need to read it. I don't really like the idea of an "authority" somewhere with a Kosmic ledger of good and bad deeds, weighing us all in the scales and dispensing karmic justice according to the current balance in our karmic account.

Personally, I believe I have reached emotional resolution with those issues of suffering I referred to above. If I could rephrase my question, it might be "Why was (is) there so much suffering?" or "Was all that pain necessary?".

I think this is my personal top question at the present. But I emphasise it's an intellectual/spiritual question, not an emotional one. The emotions (thankfully) have been resolved (I believe).

For what purpose does suffering exist and why is it built into the unattained human experience? I have no idea.

I do know this: Before I was awake I suffered quite a bit and caused other people to suffer. After I awoke, I realized that my mental suffering was due to attachments and perceptions of low self worth. Physical suffering - pain, tiredness, fatigue, etc - were just physical sensation. When I am in the flow, those things don't bother me nearly as much as they used to. Now, I have never put my pain tolerance to the test and I would guess that if someone took a hacksaw to my leg, I would be in a great deal of pain.

I am sorry that you have suffered and that you caused suffering. Ultimately, though those are interesting philosophical questions, they are unimportant with regards to enlightenment. Ponder them as much as you need to, but my advice is to make sure you've learnt what lessons you needed and let it go.

I'm not sure if that helped.

-- Spur

Hi Liberation & Spur,

Thanks for this great thread - it has the potential to go really deep. I totally agree with your initial response spur. I also know that guilt causes tightness within the body - that's why the Openhand Meditation in Movement uses the martial arts principles of relaxation and contraction to release the tightness - "flow like water freeze like ice" as Bruce Lees used to say.

Here is my view on guilt:
Firstly we chose all the situations and interactions of our lives before we came here with one purpose - to self realise. There is no other game going on and we MUST experience release from our attachments - such as guilt over something - in order to experience the completeness, fullness and absolute freedom that we are. When we realise inwardly that this is the ONLY game going on, it becomes very difficult to hold guilt at all. I too have done some horrendous things in my past - I'm aware of many unpleasant actions both in this lifetime and others, many involved with war - however once I made the transition from being a personality to being pure awareness expressed through a personality, all guilt disappeared. Here is a wonderful little writing paraphrased from "The Little Soul and the Sun" which although simple, speaks volumes:

In 'heaven' one day a little soul goes to see god to find out his next 'mission'. Here is the discussion that takes place:
God: "well little soul, you will be incarnated again in human form - what would you like to experience this time?"
Little soul: "I should like to experience complete forgiveness"
God: Hmmm (thinks) - "that presents me with a real problem"
Little Soul: "Why so?"
God: "take a look around you at all these divinely beautiful souls. For you to experience forgiveness, one of them would have to do something unpleasant to you for you to forgive them. See my problem?"
Little soul: "Yes indeed. Then how am I ever going to experience forgiveness if there is no one to forgive?"
God: long pause
Another soul: "I can help"
Little soul: "You can help? Wonderful, how?"
Another soul: "By doing something really unpleasant to you"
Little soul: "You would do that for me? Lower your vibration enough to do something really unpleasant?"
Another soul: "Yes, I would do that"
Little soul: "But you are so beautiful and evolved - why would you do that?"
Another soul: "Because I love you. I want for you what I want for myself - to know myself as what I truly am. That is the absolute, beyond all of these experiences. But since the absolute is infinite potential before all experience arises, I can only know this potential by what it is not - experiences. All I ask is that when I do this horrible act to you, please try to remember who I am. Then you will be able to forgive me".

When I read this, I found it very simple but deeply moving. Synchronistically the universe then showed me (I guess because I was looking), through interactions with people just how this principle plays out. If you watch yourselves, you begin to read every experience with the deeper purpose behind it and it becomes difficult to hold guilt.

Take for example 9/11. The typical view in the West is that Osama Bin Laden is pure evil however, others would take the view he is a 'saint'. In these situations I always ask myself "where is the greater evil?". If an action which may be perceived as evil exposes a greater darkness and therefore brings a higher state of love, can you really continue to perceive the original act as evil? In my opinion no.

So if you consider 9/11, what was the impact? What did America do? It invaded Afganistan, then Iraq (and now possibly Syria or Iran) and for what? Supposedly to stamp out global terrorism and to bring democracy to these countries. Has it been successful? Absolutely not - Iraq is close to anarchy and many are still being killed in Afganistan. It could be said the brutality that we witnessed by American and British soldiers to their Iraqi prisoners was simply the physical manifestation of a system which judges others before it is prepared to acknowledge its own short comings, one that takes an 'us' and 'them' attitude. Because they are not 'democratic' (as if our countries are), they are less worthy than us. Where is the greater evil?

If you ask yourself where is the greater evil, it could be said it is the evil of ignorance that allows children to die at the rate of one every three seconds when there are enough resources and food to feed everyone. While these children are dying for the sake of a few dollars/pounds etc, people drive their gas guzzling cars, build their enormous houses, wear their designer clothes, destroy the environment with endless waste, air conditioning, pollution etc etc all santioned, inspired, encouraged and driven by our supposedly evolved system - one which is destroying the planet. Where is the greater evil?

We in the so called developed world perpetuate obesity, heart disease, cancer etc etc with chemicals that the governments allow the corporations to condition and addict us with because of the taxes (and hidden bribes) that they generate. Where is the greater evil?

Everytime you spend money on something, do you ask yourself "do I really need this or could I buy something cheaper?" and then give the excess to help feed starving children. If you don't do this, then it could be considered you are just as 'guilty' of killing people for we are all one. Afterall, we live in one system.

Please don't get me wrong, I would not condone 9/11 nor chastise the US and British administrations or people (let he who is without 'sin' cast the first stone). I am simply saying that if we look deeper into every situation, we will discover a multitude of different truths none of which is 'right' or 'wrong'. They are actions that our higher selves agreed to carry out to cause us to self realise and experience who we are being in relation to them.

With this view on life, ultimately it becomes impossible to hold guilt.

Chris

In continuation from the last post, what is karma and how do we clear it?

That would depend on what your view of karma is. Some people consider they hold 'good karma' or 'bad karma' based on the things they have done both in this lifetime and others. My view on this is that it is an illusion that people make real by their belief in it.

It can be said there is no such thing as a 'good' or 'bad' act (see the post above). Action arises from relativity in the phenomenal universe. Therefore everything is balanced. Positive is balanced by negative. If we conduct only 'good' acts (what some might perceive as 'good' - because this is just a judgement), then we consign others to conduct only 'bad' acts.

Instead the key to enlightenment is to hold internal harmony in all events. That means we could conduct what one might perceive as 'good' and 'bad' acts and yet loose no internal stillness as a result. When stillness is lost (because of guilt for example), then tightness arises and with that an identity around it which takes us out of the true self.

That is not to say we perform acts willy nilly with no concern for the outcome. The point is that when we have internal harmony with no guilt or self judgement, then we act according to the flow of unity consciousness through us and 'right action' happens which is at one with the universe. This is when we are being the true self.

Self judgement (what some might view as karma) can be released in many ways. Openhand uses a powerful process called 'Formless Form' (to read about it...click here). Rather than just concentrating on the obstacle (the karma), we focus on the path between the obstacles (the pull of the true self). We see that each bit of karma is actually a distortion of a true expression - a hidden gift. Guilt for example is a distortion of truthfulness and we find that as we follow the path of the true self, we encounter incidents that invite us to express the gift rather than the distortion. In this way, the distortion (karma) dissolves and we end up expressing only our gifts.

Personally I consider karma to be the events and experiences we chose before each lifetime according to the lessons we need to learn. Like many things, it is likely that its true meaning has been distorted over time. Consequently we encounter people who seem to want to hold onto their 'karma' - its almost like a prized possession, probably caused by their fear of releasing themselves from identity.

I don't normally support channelings - they generate intention inside to do something which again build identity around it - however here is one such channeling from Quan Yin about ditching karma which I think is particularly helpful...click here

We can hang onto our karma if you want to but it won't serve us to do so!

Best wishes

Chris