Remorse Notes - (3958)

Last night I gave a talk on this topic of remorse. Here are some notes from that talk.

It is a force within us. It is also a stage of the work in the elimination of the ego.

It leads us to elimination. Its basis is a deep comprehension. For there to be remorse there must be consciousness of what has been done.

Some people have a great capacity for remorse and others have a small capacity.

What helps remorse is the comprehension that the ego in question brings pain and difficulty.

Remorse is the result of contrast, when by virtue of our efforts of comprehension or by virtue of a spontaneous grace of inner vision, our essence glimpses the superior parts of its own Being and sees their perfection, their purity, their splendour, their strength and light and feels itself deeply in error, burdened and stained. This produces the tremendous yearning often accompanied by pangs of pain to want to be like those parts.

Real remorse goes to the consciousness to correct the cause of the error - the ego, so to clean those stains and drop those heavy burdens. It is not guilt or self-compassion or emotionalism which ends up in long periods of crying.

Real remorse happily pays the karma, even actively seeks it out to pay it and is merciless on the ego which was the cause. 

Elimination is the process of removing what has been discarded by us. We discard what no longer has any use. Like a banana peel. We've eaten the banana and we have no use for the peel. When the ego is like a banana peel it is ready to be eliminated

Remorse takes us to make the ego a banana peel. Remorse comprehends the damage the ego does and engages our essence to solve the equation the ego has been used to solve for hundreds of years. 

Remorse is the emotional force that delivers the ego to the Divine Mother for elimination.

We often don't use remorse. Though we really must so to be able to have it eliminated and to deepen our resolution, our will against the ego and to deepen our comprehension of it also.

End (3958).