РУС
The feeling of guilt is described in the most negative terms in modern literature. For example:
Fear and guilt are your only enemies.
– Neal Donald Walsh
In his book “Levels of Energy” Frederick Dodson places the feeling of guilt energetically below depression (which is strange, because complete depression is the total absence of light (energy), i.e., total darkness, and nothing can be darker than total darkness).
Interestingly, however, the same authors who view the feeling of guilt so negatively also value the presence of a conscience as a very positive thing. For instance, the following two quotes both belong to Marcus Tullius Cicero:
There is no great evil except guilt.
Great is the power of conscience.
The contradiction here is illogical – there is no difference between the feeling of guilt and the torments of one’s conscience. These two verbal constructions are denoting the same thing.
In fact, the feeling of guilt (which in reality is not a feeling, but rather a thought) is emotions which arise as the result of the wareness of guilt, and the awareness of guilt embedded in our psyche is the most important instrument for our development. The awareness of guilt compares us to our ideal, and shows us that we are still far from achieving it. At a low stage of development (and we all find ourselves there at some point in life, doing things that we later regret), the feeling of guilt is largely the fuel for our development.
The first condition of redemption is consciousness of one’s own guilt.
– Seneca
A sense of one’s guilt certainly causes anger towards oneself, but it is also a positive emotion. This anger pushes us to adjust our behavior.
But is it possible to achieve this without anger? Guilt awareness without emotions and feelings? Of course it is (in theory), but this is also very difficult at a low level of development. Purely the awareness of one’s guilt (wrong behavior) would be enough if one was at a higher level of development. But in order to reach it, it is necessary to experience the torments of one’s conscience. We need emotions exactly because thoughts are not strong enough to encourage us to act. We need remorse to set us in motion.
Victor Frankl put it very accurately:
It is a prerogative of being human, and a constituent of human existence, to be capable of shaping and reshaping oneself. In other words, it is a privilege of man to become guilty, and his responsibility to overcome guilt.
However, the main problem does not arise out of the presence of feelings of guilt as such. The problem exists when a feeling of guilt turns into a feeling of unworthiness, into the thought that one is not worthy of being happy. When this occurs, we either explicitly or unconsciously block the flow of the energy of love – and after some time in this state we deplete our internal resources and slip into the state of the absence of energy and so into depression / apathy.
