Guilt, it would seem, is an inherent part of the human condition. It is everywhere, infecting our thoughts like a disease, and fueling the belief in ourselves as undeserving, powerless, and inherently "bad." In fact, guilt is so effective at helping us to feel unworthy, that a number of religions have taken up the Guilt Banner, affirming our septic misconceptions so that we in turn surrender even more of our power to external authority figures. So what is guilt, and why do we allow ourselves to be enslaved by it?

Guilt is the belief that we have somehow offended God, or the "natural order" of things, by our thoughts, beliefs, actions, or even our very existence. If you believe in the Christian concept of Original Sin, you believe that you were born in guilt, live in guilt, and will die in guilt, and God will never forgive you for a betrayal that was never really yours in the first place. What's so damaging about this perspective is that there is no way out of guilt. There is no way you can ever "make it up to" God. You will never be worthy. And because of this belief, you will always be separate from God—and completely miserable.

So where does this get us? If we're convinced that something we've said or done is unforgiveable, and we have guilt, then what's the result?

Guilt, unfortunately, does not stay put. It spreads like a disease, because it is unbearable. Whatever reasons we find to feel guilty, we can't bear the burden, so we project it onto the people around us. Let's say we break a valuable statue. We feel guilty, because we performed the act of breaking it. But our friend put the statue where it could be easily broken, so we blame them for putting it there in the first place. Subconsciously, we think, "Yeah, I may guilty for doing that, but I won't take all of the blame. I have to share this guilt! My friend put it there. It's their fault, too." Your friend doesn't want the guilt, either, so they may find somewhere else to spread the guilt as well.

In the British series, "The Street," the first episode of season one, in particular, deals with the viral aspect of guilt. A man is having an affair with his neighbor's wife. One day, he accidentally hits his neighbor's daughter with his car. From this tragedy flows a veritable guilt-fest that touches every person living on the street, whether they had anything to do with the accident or not. The man who hit the girl feels guilty. The mother feels guilty for the affair. The father feels guilty for not watching his daughter closely. Guilt is spread to the neighbor who parked his car differently that day, obscuring the line of vision for the girl who was hit. There is no end to the ever-increasing river of guilt and misery.

Or is there? Are we doomed to feel guilty forever? To feel like we don't even deserve to breathe the air? To feel like we're "bad people?" No, we are not. But as with anything, it's a choice.

Your only calling here is to devote yourself, with active willingness, to the denial of guilt in ALL its forms.
—A Course in Miracles

While the decision to deny guilt is your first step in healing this, there are some other decisions that are necessary, as well. Primarily, you have to forgive yourself for faulty thinking:  believing that you were unworthy, bad, or guilty of whatever. And you have to be willing to let God, or the God consciousness (however you prefer to think of it), help you with this. As long as you believe you are separate from this energy, you will feel guilty. And you will, therefore, be unhappy.

Ironically, our guilt is our own invention, a handicap we chose in order to live in this world and play this game. Guilt has played an essential role in helping us to believe that we really are separate and powerless and basically undeserving of anything. So to ascend to the next level in the game, we have to heal this. But we won't do it alone. To remember who we really are, to recover our power, to lose our guilt, we have to connect with the larger being we're a part of.

The best analogy for this is the tale of the prodigal son. A wealthy man's much beloved son decides to go out into the world and experience what it has to offer, leaving behind his family, his duties, and his easy, abundant life. While out in the world, he experiences loss, lack, and difficult experiences of all kinds. He makes choices that he regrets. He thinks longingly of the home he left behind and yearns to return to it, yet he believes that his choices and experiences make him undeserving of that. He fears that his father will judge him when he returns home and stop loving him. He feels guilt. Nonetheless, after a period of time, the son does return home to his father, who greets him with arms opened wide. "Behold! My much loved son has returned to us!" The father slays the fatted calf and dresses his son in rich robes. Is all forgiven? Yes, because there was never anything to forgive. There is only joy in the homecoming. This is what unconditional love looks like. And this is what our true relationship with the God consciousness looks like.

We are all prodigal sons and daughters, living in the world, and making choices in the game of life. We have succeeded in forgetting who we are, which was one of the rules of the game. But even in that forgetting, we find that we can remember again. We can leave our guilt behind and return to the knowledge of who we really are. This is why it's so important to heal the guilt. Guilt will always prevent us from remembering. It gets in the way. It was meant to. But there is a way out. Will you trust it?

Related articles:

• Healing your inner child
• We are never alone
• When God is a toxic parent