True Repentance

 

“True repentance happens when your Inner Self & consciousness see how dirty your Outer ego self is or even better, when the Outer Ego meets the Inner Self and realise wow what Inner Beauty and Truth it really actually is ! Or when your limited outer self realises the tremendous infinite potential it actually has and is !!

Page 73 Indian Summer by Alex Tunzelmann. There are many stories but I just came across this one that illustrate the meaning of repentance. True repentance. As compare to mouthing the sinners prayer that the church promulgate. In True repentance you are deeply sorry for the wrongness that you have been whatever that is and you realise that deep within your soul. 

“Since the days of being ‘a bit of a prig’, Jawahar had undergone a political epiphany. A group of peasants had come to Allahabad to beg the leaders of the freedom movement to take up their case against cruel and oppressive landlords. Jawahar agreed to visit their village and discuss their concerns. This three-day trip had transformed him from a shy and cosseted lawyer – who, by his own admission, was ‘totally ignorant’ of the conditions in which the great majority of Indians worked and lived – into a revolutionary. ‘Looking at them and their misery and overflowing gratitude, I was filled with shame and sorrow,’ he wrote; ‘shame at my own easygoing and comfortable life and our petty politics of the city which ignored this vast multitude of semi-naked sons and daughters of India, sorrow at the degradation and overwhelming poverty.’

By the time of the Prince of Wales’s tour, Jawahar had been confirmed as a rising star of the freedom movement, and one more radical than his august father. Motilal had been opposed to satyagraha in the first instance, and argued that the sending of a few individuals to prison would make little difference. In particular, he was unhappy with the thought of Jawahar ending up there. A doting father does not send his only beloved son to Harrow and Cambridge in the expectation that he will end up in a jailhouse. Yet Jawahar was determined to pursue satyagraha. Though even Gandhi advised him to do nothing that would upset Motilal, he could not be dissuaded. Father and son argued for several days. Jawahar pointedly began to eat bread and milk in the evenings from a steel bowl, amid the rest of the family’s crystal and Dresden china. Before one dinner he was fiddling with a piece of twine from a parcel, and commented: ‘I wonder what it feels like to have a noose round one’s neck?’ Swarup Rani nearly fainted; Motilal walked out and slammed the door. ‘Has this family no sense of humour left?’ asked Jawahar, crossly.36 That night, Motilal secretly tried sleeping on the floor, wanting to understand the hardship his son would suffer in prison.37

True repentance is a spiritual moment and brings about a personal epiphany. Due to a moment of revelation and insight into one’s life and life at large. One is then filled with compassion and a vision for the future for some sort or want some sort of change if only by degree varying from one to another. One transcended to a higher consciousness of life. The Self then turns outward and have a greater awareness to his own and the life at large and sees it with new eyes. He cannot be the same again !

(Saying and repeating the so called Christian sinner’s prayer may lead to that True Repentance but mostly it is just mental assent albeit with the best of intention it doesn’t mean a thing; if there is no revelation or insights that leads one to view himself or the world from a higher consciousness which will commonly have  a degree of “Sorriness” for the state of affairs before the enlightenment. 

Secondly after the enlighten & “sorriness” moment there is a personal epiphany to lead a different life more commensurate to the new vision of life.

Kingdom of God is that state of consciousness that is whole, full, complete, integral, harmonious, virtuous, compassionate & truth)

True repentance brings about a state of Sorriness that is felt deep from inside the soul. Like Jawahal he saw the Truth and something inside of him awakened and he changed. He saw things differently. His life perspective changed. He was saved from his previous self, previous unawakened self and he changed and operate from a higher consciousness. That’s Salvation ! He experienced the Kingdom of God and sought to bring about the Kingdom of God on Earth. Incidentally it’s from within to without not from above to below. Jawahal, we can then say got in touch with the Truth and Truth set him Free !! That in a nutshell is the Gospel !! 

Going forward then to maintain within the state of higher consciousness we must then be sensitive and follow the leading of the Spirit. If we do that I believe is to return back to God. Return back to the Origin and become the “image of God”.

*

Actually I think Repentance is if seen from the perspective of higher self, is the Outer Self finally coming in touch with the Beauty and Truth of its Inner Self that it is rudely awakened to its worn & jaded state.Once it comes in touch with its higher self and consciousness it can not go back to its lower baser self again. The True self abhors the impostor self that’s been trying to make domon its own. 

Jawahal in this story met his inner higher self and consciousness in the journey into the rural village. He saw his own beauty and in comparison  to his ego and worldly self is like comparing a brand new car to a muddied used and worn car. He saw his own real potential in light of divine consciousness.

“The mark of true repentance is softness and a state of sorriness. Blessed are those with a broken spirit, they shall see God.”

It should be stated in reverse, when one encounters God, he sees his wretched state compared to his potential and inner beauty, one repents. And become contrite & lowly of heart.