Reality Unveiled

by Ziad Masri

“It’s OK.” What else could unconditional love say other than “It’s OK”? Indeed, it is OK. It’s always OK. You are simply learning. And even if you hurt another person, beating yourself up doesn’t change anything. In fact, it does nothing more than keep the guilt alive that then, as Freud showed us, gets unconsciously projected onto others and causes nothing more than the repetition of the same pattern over and over. 49 But when you find compassion for this human who you experience yourself to be, then the chain is broken. You no longer get stuck in guilt, and you no longer project that guilt onto others and find fault in them to keep the negative cycle alive. So as counterintuitive as it may be, forgiving yourself, even when you hurt others, does not condone the act or give you permission to do it again but rather releases the guilt that would keep the whole cycle intact, therefore truly moving you in the right direction. And what about those times when you do catch the emotion before you react unconsciously (which will happen more and more as you practice daily)? You realize that it is simply an emotion, it is valid, and has a right to be there. Even the most negative of emotions that you may judge to be bad because you think of yourself as a good and spiritual person are valid. They are simply arising in the moment and as such have validity. This doesn’t mean that you get sucked into the story they’re telling you. When we do that, we go from the direct experience of emot...