"A man or a woman does something bad and feels bad about it.
We're going to talk about the topic of being bad, saying wrong
things, feeling gloomy, but the main word at the head of the
list for tonight is the word "badness." Anyone acquainted with
the topic? You know how it goes. You blurt something, think
something, get yourself in a jam because you did something false,
something that was unrighteous, and the feeling you have after
doing something bad is a feeling of badness.
Now the mistake you make after going off wrong is your sub-
mission to the feeling of badness, a submission that is so
overwhelming because of your lack of understanding, a feeling
of shame and guilt that is so powerful that you feel that the
only thing you can do to a feeling of badness after being bad
is to submit to it. To allow that humiliation, shame, regret
to take you over endlessly throughout the day to the point -
now, you listen to this - where you are actually worshipping
your own suffering over having done something wrong."
from a talk given 12/30/1988
Vernon Howard's Higher World - MP3 CD Volume 25, talk 610, track 6
