Guilt and Judgement
If we look at the story of Adam and Eve, it seems that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil really is the Tree of Judgment, “Good” and “Evil” being judgments. It may be said that judgment preceded guilt. It was we who judged ourselves as having done something wrong, which caused us to feel guilt. To have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is to have entered into the consciousness that judges. It is a defense mechanism. To judge something as bad helps the judger to feel good, for they project their bad feeling onto another person and so feel relief from it. To judge something as good makes what is good a part of oneself, yet also infers that what is good one did not have. Either way, judgment of what is good or what is bad is not a reflection of one’s worth or who one really is.
The story of Adam and Eve explains why “God abandoned us.” But that was simply the story we created to make sense of feeling separate from God. Why would we create the story that God abandoned us rather than believe it was us who unintentionally left God? Adam was not punished by God, but believed he was to make sense of the difference he felt before having eaten the apple and after—before the thought of separation, and after. The path to awakening is to remember and to feel that the story is not true. It is a return to God's love and to the realization that God never abandoned us.
It is often our own emotional discomfort that we judge ourselves critically for and which cause us to harm ourselves and others. It is anxiety, stress, overwhelm, frustration, irritability. A belief we may unconsciously have is, “If I am feeling this way, I must have done something wrong.” We create a story to make sense of the uncomfortable feeling, but if we don't take responsibility for how we feel then we act in ways to deflect what we feel. It is these behaviors we further judge ourselves for and feel guilty about.
This is where the practice of mindfulness and non-judgement are needed. If we are able to simply be with the uncomfortable feeling without making a story about it (e.g., “I did something wrong”, “They did something wrong”), then we won’t need to engage in distractive and dissociative behaviors or blame others for what we’re feeling. “I have done nothing wrong for feeling what I am feeling” is a mantra that can help us interrupt this cycle of guilt. All that is needed is to return to ourselves, to this moment, no matter how uncomfortable it may feel. This is the Prodigal Son in our everyday lives: “I have done nothing wrong. God still loves me.” The guilt is absolved when we simply become present to what we feel.
A Course in Miracles describes the absolution of judgment as a critical step towards awakening. Many spiritual traditions acknowledge this. We give back the apple that we ate. We spit out the apple. We let go of judgment and learn to be with what is. And perhaps to embrace what is, is to call it good, so that all things are made good. Isn’t that what God said of everything God created? It is a goodness that is beyond duality, a reflection of Truth.
