On Monday we explored the issue of the word sin and what it means to each of us and how it becomes the property of the superego. It is interesting that the origin of the word sin is "missing the mark". Surely we are always missing the mark. Small and large missteps. But before we can sort out some response we are berated by the superego. And before we know it we have collapsed into shame, guilt, self hatred, damnation. In a nutshell we withdraw into denial; hide away in self hatred; spin into action to make everything better; go on the offensive; fill ourselves with recriminations and anxiety. And in the mean time whatever objective response to missing the mark, to the "sin" is lost. We cut off from living presence, from our maturity to respond.
So once again something precious is lost to the attack of the superego. There is the possibility of growing, of becoming responsible when we miss the mark. But this cannot happen if we are crushed by the superego. We know people who spend all their time apologizing, or people who persist in denying any responsibility. It takes courage to come into the moment, to feel into what has happened. Sometimes we hurt people, sometimes we make big mistakes. And to open to our limitations and mistakes, to our sins, actually takes courage, maturity and vulnerability. Remember the superego does not see you as an adult, it sees you as a bad child. You are either a good child or a bad one. If you sin you are a bad child for sure. Bad children are punished. God will punish you just like your superego!
I hope you are beginning to see how the superego prevents the possibility for our maturity and but also it cuts us from the healing balm of our presence: our compassion for ourselves, our humanity and for others. The superego is about some kind of perfection and since that is impossible we are dammed, we will inevitably fail. What is damned is the most vulnerable part of us, our woundedness. Perfecting ourselves in one way or another is not the path to inner or out healing. This is not the path to true strength and courage. The miracle of presence, of God, if you like, is that presence holds all our wounding, all our betrayals, all our "sins". It does not white wash us. It allows us to see beyond the black and white world of good and bad, not to find some kind of grey, but into the life as growing living presence. This emergence, some call it a rebirth, is gradual, sometimes painstaking slow, is a life lived from the maturity that we are and can become, bathed in the consciousness of presence. Bringing us out of the falseness of living under the domination of the superego as wounded children. We are evolving souls desiring for inner freedom, outer freedom. The freedom to be ourselves: human's of being!
Next time we are going to focus on presence.
I will post this and the playlist on practicing-presence.blogspot.com
Blessings to you all, Alison
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