Many of us do not walk away sporting like the fox in Aesop’s fables, saying mockingly, “Who wants those sour grapes after all?”
A few of us, when disappointment make us unhappy at not getting our heart’s desire, we sail in the same boat as the Biblical Cain who killed his brother Abel; and also like the eleven, brothers of Joseph, who waited for an opportunity to finish him.
When one commits a crime killing someone in the darkest night in darksome room with the thought: “No one will know.” The walls stand as quiet witnesses and the crime shouts from the roof tops. If the crime is in the open airing at night, the trees stand as silence spectators. The sky above looks down upon the criminal and the rising sun spotlights the evidence for people’s eyes to see; for tongues of lawyers to speak and for hands of police to arrest the criminal.
Guilt and fear entered into the world for the first time with the first sin of Adam. Who hid himself, and when God questioned, “Where are you?”Adam answered, “I hid myself because I was afraid.”
Although we may try to crush, hide and suppress the guilt of our crime in the unconscious mind, it never dies. It mortifies, it shames and humiliates by popping up in our conscious mind. Shakespeare gave us an example of this in Lady Macbeth who tried to calm her conscience by denying and suppressing her guilt; by washing her hands because she imagined she saw spots of blood upon her hands and cried out in despair, “Out, damned spot … Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! Oh! Oh!” Unhealthy guilt remains with the sinner all his life to torture him. His life becomes miserable, darkly coloured by such guilt.
We feel guilty whenever we think we should have done something but did not do it; or whenever we reason we should not have done something like a plan of evil designs for others’ downfall but went ahead and did just that. Guilt is a kind of self-punishment which we have in our jealous heart. It is the sounding of conscience, which seems to be the echo of a godly voice.
A superb story shows the shudder of shame splendidly: “A famous mason and his son were building a castle wall. One day they ran out of mortar for the foundation stone. The son was asked to prepare it. He objected, saying that there is left over mortar here we shall use a thin layer of it so that it spreads everywhere. His father pointed out that it would not be strong enough. The son said, “Let us cheat the owner. No one will know.” The father said, “Two will know and it will haunt them — you and me.”
If you are having a nagging guilt; guilt bouts; guilt onslaughts then chances are that it may consume you, by corroding your peace and happiness and causing irrevocable damages for lifetime.
