16. Guilt created by society

From seven to fourteen, society creates guilt in you through its rules. The guilt based on fear is created by social laws. Till the age of

Guilt is the greatest sin. Guilt will punish you when you are alive.

fourteen, family and society create guilt for you. An important guilt in this is the guilt of sex. Parents or family never open out the topic of sex. When there is a chemical change happening in you, you feel your body is new. A lot of questions arise and clarity is needed, but no one is prepared to give it.

And to add to the confusion and desire, the media around you constantly bombards you with fantasies in that vulnerable age of change.

To add to it, society instills in you the feeling that you are not enough unto yourself. It makes you feel guilty of what you are, what you do. Once it convinces you that you are a sinner, you are caught in its grips. Then you cannot enjoy the joy of life any more.

According to me, guilt is the greatest sin. At least other sins will punish you after your death. Guilt will punish you when you are alive.

The Tibetan poet-saint Milarepa* sang, 'My religion is to live and die without regret.'

You are called a saint or a sinner only by society. As long as society labels you a

Milarepa - Tibetan Yogi and disciple of Tibetan Buddhist teacher Marpa.

saint, you are a saint. The moment society labels you a sinner, you are a sinner. If you kill someone in society, you will be called a murderer, you will be punished. But if you kill someone on the battlefield you will be called a hero, you will be given a big award! So there is no absolute scale to decide what is right and what is wrong. It is society's own logic.

The means to exploit

People who create rules and regulations in order to create guilt in you hide their personal lives because it would be completely opposite to the rules set up by them. But they set up the rules so they can exploit you through guilt. Once you have the idea of guilt sown in you, you can be exploited easily by society. That is why guilt is the first thing that society sows in you.

A guilty person can never be at ease with himself. He will always lack selfconfidence. He will always look for a leader for guidance. This is where society steps in and exploits him.

Society functions on your guilt. The more you feel guilty, the more society becomes powerful. It attracts you with the keys to get you out of the guilt it put inside you in the first place. First it creates the disease, then it sells the medicine.

Another important thing is that only people who don't practice or can't practice teachings give teachings to others continuously, they give them more and more words. When you yourself overflow with words and find you are not able to practice them, you catch others and start teaching the same words! Actually it is a nice way of escaping from guilt. By making others feel guilty, you don't feel the guilt. It is just a chain process.

A small story:

Once four monks sat around a candle and decided to meditate in absolute silence for the next five days looking at the wick of the candle. At the end of the first day, suddenly the candle started to flicker.

One monk blurted out, 'Oh no, the candle is about to go out.'

The second monk told the first, 'Remember, we were not supposed to talk.'

The third monk blurted out, 'Why do you both keep talking?'

Finally the fourth monk exclaimed, 'I am the only one who did not talk!'

When we point out other people's mistakes, we don't realize we may be guilty of exactly the same thing. If we look in, we will find that in many situations where we correct others, we are also guilty of the same mistake, but because we are in a socalled higher position, we escape the guilt.

The dilemma

Guilt means you have done something which others don't want you to do. If you don't listen to society and listen to your natural intelligence, you feel guilty of doing something wrong. You are afraid and start defending yourself. You even pretend that you have not done it. You are in constant tension with life. Instead if you do something that others approve, you are not happy doing it because it is most often not what you naturally feel like doing. This is the dilemma you are caught in.

Guilt creates a dual personality, a schizophrenia in you – to the outside world you are one person and deep down inside yourself you are another. Guilt is a wedge inserted into your inner space which makes you take on double standards.

Heaven and hell

A very subtle and cunning way of sowing guilt today is through the idea of heaven and hell. People exploit your fear and greed by showing you ideas of hell and heaven. They create in you greed for heaven and fear for hell. They create so many concepts of hell and heaven and sell them to you. They say, 'If you practice these types of things, you will be

Guilt is a wedge inserted into your inner space which makes you take on double standards.

rewarded with heaven. If you practice otherwise, you will be punished with hell.' When you are given rules based on greed and fear, you automatically start creating deep guilt in you.

A small story:

Once a military general asked a Zen master, 'Master, what are heaven and hell?'

The master asked, 'What do you do for a living?'

The general replied, 'I am a general.'

The master just laughed, 'Which idiot asked you to be a general? You look more like a butcher!'

The general was furious and took out his sword shouting, 'I will cut you to pieces.'

The master just raised his hand and said, 'These are the gates of hell.'

The general realized his folly and bowed down deeply to the master for forgiveness.

The master continued, 'These are the gates of heaven.'

Heaven and hell are not physical locations. They are psychological states of your mind.

Be very clear, heaven and hell are not physical locations. They are

psychological states of your mind. One instant the mind may be in hell and the next it may be in heaven. The gates to heaven and hell open and close at any time alternately.