How to Become Free of your Hang-Ups and Guilts

by Roland Trujillo

    A wise man once presented a lecture called “Diseases of Resentment.” This profound expression is worthy of paying attention to. We do not realize what resentment is, nor do we realize just how much good and power to do good we by-pass when we reach for resentment.

   In a prior article I called resentment the deadliest drug there is because of its effect on the mind and body. For sure, it is the deadliest attitude. It is so deadly that it isolates us from the truth, and keeps us from the good.

   Next time you indulge resentment, notice (if you can) how negative you become because you are unable to accept the good. When we are resentful, we hate other people, we hate ourselves, and we hate God. When we are resentful we are negative, morbid, morose, and angry.

   The resentful person rejects the good. A resentful person often refuses to be cheered up. When we are resentful, we balk at the attempts that good natured souls around us make to try to pull us out of the doldrums. When our friends see us depressed or morbid, they try to cheer us up. But we refuse, which is proof that resentment is not only connected to the will but gets a grip on the will.

   Resentment is a sickness of the will that robs us of love and even the ability to love. It is a sickness that we “choose” when we are willful, but after having chosen it, we can only hate and want. Resentment is a good barometer of the state of your soul. Resentment means that you are still willful, still wanting to play God, still hating others when they make you look bad, or when they make you see your faults. The resentful person wants and needs, but he is not free. The very emotion that he uses to support a pride is the emotion that robs him of true nobility. It renders him increasingly sensitive and small minded. It robs us so completely that we become an inferior nothing. Robbed of the ability to truly do good, the inferior selfish can only dream of and imagine greatness. Some resentful people live in the imagination. Those who do seek to make their compensatory delusions of grandeur a reality can only do so by degrading others.

   The otherwise decent person who has fallen to a great resentment (or an accumulation of small ones) can only go through the motions of doing good.  

   Depression and morbidity are symptoms of resentment. Refusing the good, we sit and brood. When we are young and have lots of friends, they try to cheer us up. When we get older, others tend to leave us alone.

   Alone we sit with our hateful self. We get lost in negative thinking. It is my opinion that schizophrenia often begins with deep resentments. I am also of the opinion that promiscuity, drug use, attempted suicide, and other dangerous, self destructive practices often have their origin in a huge resentment.

   An otherwise happy-go-lucky, well-adjusted kid will do self destructive things after a big resentment from which they could not recover. Typically, the resentment is against parents—parents who fight, parents who divorce, and parents who pressure or nag. I also think that resentment lies behind most weight and alcohol problems. This is because the resentful self craves comfort. Because of the negative inferiority associated with resentment, the comfort often has a self-destructive edge (if it were healthy or good it would make the resentful person feel bad).

   Before elaborating, let me just get the basic facts out, so that you might have them as a backdrop as you read on. Our mind was never meant to be lost in thinking and fantasy.  The person lost in thought is self-absorbed. And self-absorption is by its very nature selfish. The self-absorbed person is worrying about personal problems. Any form of self absorption is usually evidence of being under hypnotic control. The zealous student, the worrier, the schemer, and the hypochondriac are all struggling with some trip laid on them. The student is under the control of the teacher or the spirit of the teacher. The worrier is under the spell of someone or something that made him doubt and lack faith. The hypochondriac is obsessed with self suggestions about his health.  

  The student has lost faith in intuition and God’s Light of Truth. He transferred his allegiance and faith to the educators. This transference of allegiance to the authority of the educators effectively bypasses intuitive guidance and puts the educators in charge or the student’s imagination and emotions, which is where they communicate and control.

  The worrier long ago transferred her allegiance to external authorities, such as educators, who told her to look to thinking for answers. The worrier ends up alone with her imagination. Sooner or later someone or something will exert its influence through the imagination, and she will follow, thinking it is her very own thinking.

   The hypochondriac is guilty for obsessing with self. The guiltier he becomes the more the guilt becomes mixes with negative thoughts about self.

   The person who wants something too much (even an object to buy) soon begins to have a fantasy relationship with the object, and it becomes a very personal relationship. The person who makes anything too important—even a television program—becomes absorbed in it to the exclusion of everything else. A rapport is established—a personal relationship between the person and the object of devotion. Others are viewed as intruders and their presence is resented.

   The resentful person has a negative rapport with someone or something. For example, suppose a person makes having a nice car too important. Next comes the imagining, the fantasy, the wanting to possess it, and then spending too much money on it. What often happens is that the morning after, the person begins to see all that is wrong with it. It’s not all he thought it would be, he discovers he paid too much, and he soon discovers he has to keep paying for its upkeep. Now resentment sets in--resentment of reality which burst his bubble. Resentment of himself. Resentment of those who seduced him. And resentment of the object itself.

   When the person was captivated by the object, intuition was by-passed and a rapport was established between his mind and the mind of the seducer who help up the object. The suggestion was made that the object would give the possessor something he lacks. Under the influence of the seducer, the person moves to possess the object.

    But after reality begins to dawn, the person may resent the object which now represents his folly—and this resentment maintains a negative rapport. It also maintains the hypnoidal state of mind, one under the control of the seducer/operator.

   If the seducer/operator is not present, then the resentful state of mind opens us up to similar influence.  

   Resentment renders you suggestible—never to conscience and intuition—to the same kind of influence that put you in the hypnotic state in the first place. Resentment also renders you sensitive—the kind of sensitivity that builds tension that cries out for relief. Seducers and tempters watch our reactions to words and things. They can tell what sets us off and makes us want relief. They are clever at associating the tension with some idea to which they offer a solution. Their solution is always that we give in to them and do what they want us to do.

   Every stimulus or irritation has the same goal in mind: that you give in. The more irritated you become, the more you will crave relief, and relief is offered when you give in. Giving in is obedience. And when you obey, you come under the authority of that person or spirit.

   It’s easy to see that catchy, sexy ads want you to give in to the suggestion and buy what they offer. Pressure monger teachers, preachers, salesmen and parents want you to give in to the pressure and do what they say. The cruelty and propaganda of the enemy wants to demoralize and lead to our capitulation. These are easy to see.

   It’s not so easy to see that becoming angry is also giving in. The irritation or injustice of another is a tease. When you start to become irritated, you are building the tension that eventually cries out for relief through fit or violence. Anger, especially of the resentful kind, is actually what the will behind the pressure wanted. Response (in this case, anger) is obedience. It builds the tension that cries out for relief, often in the acceptance of the tempter.

   Those of us who have indulged upset and resentment often reach a point where we are afraid of anger (because of how it makes us feel and because of what we have done). Sometimes, through a lifetime of over-reacting we have drained our batteries, and we don’t’ have the life-force to get angry anymore. Now we’re ready for the private horror of pure anxiety when the stimulation (tease) presents itself. 

   The one who is spared these horrors is the one who, through love, discipline, or wisdom, does not react in the first place or who learns to quickly notice the reaction and let go of resentment before it builds.

   Would you believe that our wild metabolic problems, tensions, and even cancer have something to do with our wild uncontrollable responses?

   You see, we have been miseducated. We are taught that it is normal to get upset. We’re taught that it is normal to get angry, to yell, to rant, and to come unglued. We’re taught to get emotional, to yell at football games, to cheer, to cry to get depressed when our team loses. Our sports stars are losing their dignity. Long ago it was John McEnroe throwing a fit, now it’s steroid crazed ballplayers, hockey brawls, and professional wrestling chaos. More and more, our music and entertainment exhort us to express our most base instincts and impulses.

   Remember, when you get upset, you are so because it is the will of another that you are. When you become upset, you bypass reason and enlightened intuition, and you fall under the spell of the intelligence behind the irritation.

   Resentment is particularly bad because it has a negative, inferior aspect to it. The resentful person has been intimidated or defeated, and he resorts to hatred and blame. The resentful person takes everything personally, as if others, fate, chance, or even God were against him. It’s egotism and megalomania of the most negative kind.

   The resentful person feels isolated and his ego actually thinks he is being personally picked on. It’s the kind of megalomania that only a very prideful but inferior feeling person can experience.

   Resentment is just the type of mental and emotional matrix into which evil can enter and goad a person into conflict with anyone, even God. Certain drugs produce paranoia, withdrawal from certain drugs produces paranoia, and so does resentment.

   The resentful person secretly feels the grocery line is moving slow just because he is in it. He secretly thinks fate is against him or even God. And when another gets ahead of him, he resentfully expects it.

   The resentful person feels bad about himself or herself, and when he’s not blaming God or others, the resentful person blames and hates himself.

   Remember: resentment is inferior by its nature because it is a response of the most egotistical, selfish variety. Resentment is cowardly because the ego is even too prideful to admit its hatred or to slug it out and compete with others.

   Some people, such as sociopaths, are users. The user is vain and cares only for himself. But because he expresses himself in the world, he is the flip side of the coin of the resentful megalomaniac. The megalomaniac who is too timid and shy to express himself retreats into an inner world of the most narrow and selfish variety, where he is dominated on all sides by those he hates.

   Remember what we said: resentment is an inferior response, one that by passes enlightened reason, and one that locks you into that you are resenting.

   Thereafter, resentment always puts you into the lowered hypnotic state of mind where you are subject to external influence. It also renders you selfish in that only yourself is important, wallowing in self pity and negativity.

   Resentment plays a role in so many dysfunctional states and acts. It is probably the key response that leads to destructive and self-destructive behaviors.

  Resentment is under our control inasmuch as we become aware of just what it is. Once you know what it is, you can see that exercising your “right’ to indulge yourself is the act that puts you over the line and under the control of outside influence.

   Just before giving into the resentment, you have a little space in which you are free to choose a different response. Just before giving yourself over to the resentment you are close to the Source of truth and patience. This Source of truth and patience is also the Source of freedom.

    Therefore, meditate for mental distance. Then when you go out into the world, watch for resentment. When a situation arises where previously you would have been resentful, stand back, let a heartbeat go by and let the stimulus pass without giving in to resentment.

   This is very important. If you let the resentment pass, you will be free. The negative thoughts, the morbid doubts, the self loathing, the paranoia, the inferiority, and the depression are the result of falling into the hypnotic state of resentment.

   Once you fall into that hypnotic state, you are prone to the negative mental attacks and the emotional upset. If you don’t fall into the state, you will not know the negativity and the horror of that state.

   I cannot emphasize the importance of meditating properly for mental distance. In the meditative state, the soul is just beyond time and the soul can see just a fraction of a second into the future. With this proper state of mind, you can go into the world, and you will be pre-armed for the stimulations that will come your way. It won’t be long before you encounter someone or something that is the kind of stimulus to which you responded resentfully in the past. This time, stand back and let it pass.

   Just this side of the indulging of resentment is a world of good, joy, courage, hope, and love. Just the other side of indulging the resentment is the world of upset, hatred, hurt feelings, violence, fear, doubt and despair.

   Remember, resentment is not given up by making a decision, an affirmation or a New Year’s resolution.  You can’t make a decision to give it up this week or make a New Year’s resolution to give it up all year. Resentment is given up in the moment, one moment at a time. It is a daily commitment, assisted by proper meditation, to be patient with others. Each new moment is an opportunity to triumph by not indulging resentment.

   Resolutions and global statements do not work because without the assist of the grace available from walking in the Light, we do not have the power to change our own nature. We are prideful and thus willful. And when things don’t go our way, we are quick to resent and blame—which support pride. Without dreams and schemes, without fantasy, and without excitement and resentment, pride would begin to dissolve. And until we are ready to give up pride, we simply cannot bear a life without false hopes and resentments. When false hopes and false loves disappoint us and betray us, the only thing left to maintain our pride is resentment, judgment and blame. Therefore, until the special moment when we are willing to change (but humbly admit that we are powerless to change our nature) we go on as we were. Fortunately God does not deny us help in our fallen inherited situation. By honestly yearning for truth and by truly wanting to do right we snap out of imagination long enough to glimpse truth. We also can put aside our selfish indulgence for the good of another.

   At a certain point in our later life, living rightly becomes does become an either or proposition. But during the first part of our life—where we must grow egotistically, taste of the world, and discover just how far our natural talent and courage will take us—we have the option of being either more human or less human. To the extent that our love for our parent. child, our spouse or our neighbor awakens us to seek to do the right thing by them, we can snap out of our selfish revelry long enough to be at least temporarily rehumanized. To the extent that we check with our conscience, count to ten before we get angry, set aside selfish indulgence for the sake of another, refrain from use out of compassion, and refrain from wrong out of a sense of decency, we can be more human.

  The little space—just before we slip into thought and just before we indulge the resentment or pleasurable escape—is where we connect to our Parent Spirit and are human. It is that little space through which come love, understanding, kindness, patience, selflessness, goodwill, forbearance and longsuffering.

    However, if we make a habit of bypassing that little space, we enter a world of fantasy, delusion, deceit, hatred, blame, unbridled ambition and revenge, through which we become progressively dehumanized until we become beasts, human in form only.

   A lifetime of bypassing the little space that gives us restraint and patience, leads to becoming a slave of judging and resenting, a slave of pleasure seeking and emotion. With each reaction, the person has less and less power to say “no” to the hypnotic delusion and the call of emotion. The day comes when the person needs to be calm, needs restraint, needs wisdom, and needs courage; but finds that he has none. He or she is a caldron of uncontrollable anger, a slave of lust, an anxiety-ridden basket case, or a quivering mass of confusion.

   Therefore, do not wait until you are perfect to begin the habit of standing back and refraining from responding immediately. Begin now with little things. Practice saying “no” instead of yes. Practice stopping just short of being full. Say “no” to the extra chocolate or the unneeded clothing item. However, do not force yourself to give up things. Simply practice standing back and observing. If you have a habit that needs changing, don’t make up your mind to do so or angrily struggle with your habit. That would simply be your ego, and the struggle itself will only give more power to the habit. Instead, observe gently. If need be, continue to observe yourself failing. Observe your helplessness to change yourself. Wish to be different, but see that you can’t change yourself. This attitude permits the Light to operate and one day your bad habit will give you up.

   For Heaven’s sakes don’t try to be a saint. This attitude only serves pride, leads to frustration, and eventually to despair and a tendency to throw in the towel. Instead, see your faults. Do what you can. Be content to be a regular person.

   Perhaps the most important thing I can leave you with is this: remain aware and watch for opportunities to overlook. Remain aware of the fact that there is a space between the stimulus and the response wherein lies freedom and the power to be patient. Just before you indulge resentment, there is a space in which you could let the irritation go. Just before you reach for the drug or familiar method of escape from boring or painful reality, there is a space in which you could remain aware. Just before giving way to anger, there is a space in which you could instead exercise restraint.

   The more you watch for that little space and let it have its way with you, the more you will remain human, the more freedom and dignity you will have, and the closer you remain to God Whom you will have to call upon in your hour of need.

   When we fail to be watchful, the stimulus catches us off guard and we respond and fail before we even knew what happened. Then we spend our time trying to deal with the symptoms of the fall. Your errors, your food problems, your drug addiction and your sexual hang ups are mostly the result of degrading influences that we come under in our hypnotic, emotional state that we fall into when we have responded to the tease.

   Instead, meditate and then go out into the world prepared to face the trials, temptations and vicissitudes. Watch for the occasion where you can now overlook instead of resenting. By being patient, you remain free. The choice to begin a different life is in the holy space. By not resenting you remain close to the power that permits you to observe and be patient.  

   To overlook means to observe without censure. It does not mean to pretend you don’t see error. It means to discern—to see error clearly but without judgment.