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I was reflecting on this the other day. When I make mistakes (like getting angry, or raising my voice) I often feel a withdrawal of my peace, usually in my chest. It’s a definite spiritual distance, which LDS would say is a loss of the Spirit. It’s similar to feelings of depression, but without the inability to function. But it triggers feelings of regret about whatever I did to prompt the darkness I feel. It also subsides as I make the mental decision not to continue in whatever behavior led to the sensation. After a few days, the feeling goes away and I feel at peace again, provided I don’t repeat the behavior. It’s very predictable and has been with me since a few years after I was baptized. I’m curious, do you experience this too? If not, how do you know when you’ve done something that is offensive to the Spirit?
Depends which sin. Some are horrible to commit, some are indifferent, some are driven by anger and some are pleasurable (at least temporarily). Sin. What a subject. When I sin inwardly (or think or entertain in a way unhelpful to happiness) I feel impatient, irritable, angry, and a general low level dissatisfaction with life and the world. And all of that generally comes out as scolding, griping, avoiding, and inordinate performing, or sinning outwardly.
On the other hand, when I face the Way, the Truth, and the Life, I am jovial, easy going, generous, trusting, courteous, and happy. In a word, you might say I then have a Santa Claus sized spirit.
SilentDawning wrote:I was reflecting on this the other day. When I make mistakes (like getting angry, or raising my voice) I often feel a withdrawal of my peace, usually in my chest.
It’s a definite spiritual distance, which LDS would say is a loss of the Spirit.It’s similar to feelings of depression, but without the inability to function. But it triggers feelings of regret about whatever I did to prompt the darkness I feel.It also subsides as I make the mental decision not to continue in whatever behavior led to the sensation. After a few days, the feeling goes away and I feel at peace again, provided I don’t repeat the behavior. It’s very predictable and has been with me since a few years after I was baptized…I’m curious, do you experience this too?If not, how do you know when you’ve done something that is offensive to the Spirit? The fact that I didn’t really feel much remorse about the supposedly terrible sins of not paying tithing, drinking binges, and pre-marital sex with a few different girlfriends is one of the things that really damaged my faith in the Church as much as anything else I can think of. In Mormon lore I was supposed to be right up there with the murderers when it comes to awful wickedness (Alma 39:5) and according to the Church I should have been really ashamed of myself. Instead, I felt like God would understand that I didn’t mean any harm and that I wasn’t really a bad guy. After I stopped feeling as guilty as I used to about many things the Church harps on so much I started to wonder where much of the guilt really came from, God or the Church.
The more I thought about it, the more I started to feel like the Church was trying to give people all kinds of exaggerated or unnecessary guilt-trips about things that really weren’t that important. In fact, some of these guilt-trips are a big part of why I became completely inactive to begin with when I went to college after my mission because even though I still believed in the Church more than ever I felt like I wouldn’t be able to make it to the Celestial kingdom anyway so there was no point in even bothering to try anymore. More recently I have felt what I would have called the spirit during my mission many times when I should have supposedly been “unworthy” due to not paying tithing, drinking coffee, etc. That’s why I think this idea of losing the spirit is mostly just the Church manipulating peoples’ emotions. Don’t get me wrong, I think people generally have a real natural conscience and feel genuine regrets in a way that is generally healthy and worthwhile but I also think the Church invents many unnecessary “sins” and exaggerates the seriousness of things that don’t really need to be that big of a deal.
DA I couln’t agree more! That is why I reciently posted my observations regarding guilt on “the M word” post. JW’s feel terrible guilt about recieving blood to save their life. For the rest of us, guilt is never a consideration! We are just glad to be alive!
For the Seventh-day Adventist bowling on Saturday is a guilt trip in the making. For the rest of us, felling guilty about bowling, or horse riding, or hunting etc on Saturday would be absurd. But come Sunday, and the table does a 180 degree turn.
What about my Jewish friend at work, one piece of bacon and he feels like he had offended God? The rest of us (non vegitarians) eat bacon, ham and pork chops with nothing but a fork and a smile! yum, yum
My conclusion is that we feel bad when ever we don’t act as we have taught ourselfs to act. Without regard to whether or not our beliefs are true. It may be that simple and have nothing to do with the spirit, or the HG. Perhaps we all feel bad when we disobey Gods commandments. But as far as the commandments of men are concerned, that may be where some of us feel bad and others do not?
f4h1
f4h1
I think maybe what you all are talking about is fear and shame. In our culture, we use the word guilt to mean not only legal guilt, but shame. There is a lot of shame and fear that we feel when we go against the taboos of our childhood. On the other hand, there is real suffering that comes from misdirected living. In the words of Eckhart Tolle:
Eckhart Tolle wrote:Finding and living in alignment with the inner purpose is the foundation for fulfilling your outer purpose. It is the basis for true success. Without that alignment, you can still achieve certain things through effort, struggle, determination, and sheer hard work or cunning. But there is no joy in such endeavor, and it invariably ends in some form of suffering.
Also:
Eckhart Tolle wrote:No matter how active we are, how much effort we make, our state of consciousness creates our world, and if there is no change on that inner lever, no amount of action will make any difference. We would only re-create modified versions of the same world over and over again, a world that is an external reflection of the ego.
To me, that is how we feel when we sin (live misdirected) until we repent (align ourselves with reality).
Fatherof4husbandof1 wrote:DA I couln’t agree more! That is why I reciently posted my observations regarding guilt on “the M word” post.
JW’s feel terrible guilt about recieving blood to save their life. For the rest of us, guilt is never a consideration! We are just glad to be alive!
For the Seventh-day Adventist bowling on Saturday is a guilt trip in the making. For the rest of us, felling guilty about bowling, or horse riding, or hunting etc on Saturday would be absurd. But come Sunday, and the table does a 180 degree turn.
What about my Jewish friend at work, one piece of bacon and he feels like he had offended God? The rest of us (non vegitarians) eat bacon, ham and pork chops with nothing but a fork and a smile! yum, yum
My conclusion is that
we feel bad when ever we don’t act as we have taught ourselfs to act. Without regard to whether or not our beliefs are true. It may be that simpleand have nothing to do with the spirit, or the HG. Perhaps we all feel bad when we disobey Gods commandments. But as far as the commandments of men are concerned, that may be where some of us feel bad and others do not?
This reminds me of a point SilentDawning made on another thread about how Ben Franklin accused some preacher(s) of being more concerned with trying to make people into good Presbyterians more than good citizens. That definitely looks like what the Church is doing now with all the emphasis on tithing, callings, missionary work, the WoW, and temple marriage which are more about being good Mormons by serving the Church and being “in the world but not of the world.” The way I see it, real sins typically involve doing real harm to others (stealing, adultery, murder, etc.) or doing things that would offend God and it’s hard to believe that this is really the case with many things the Church likes to pretend are sins worthy of eternal condemnation. That’s why I have a hard time feeling bad about many things the Church says I should anymore.
For a long time I’ve noticed that “sins” I committed didn’t necessarily relate directly to any loss of spiritual feelings, promptings, or spiritual abilities. However, like Tom suggested, I have felt completely out of balance spiritually when I’m angry, stressed, or anxious. I’ve come to view spirituality as not being nearly as dependent on righteous living as I’d assumed when I was younger. Of course, if you’re incredibly guilty about misdeeds, you may feel out of balance and out of tune. Guilt seems like a double-edged sword. It can be helpful if it prompts us to improve our behaviors and ourselves, but it can be terrible if it tears us down and weakens our spirit and capacity. I think most of the guilt we feel as mormons is probably of the latter variety. Empty Cloudier than normal
Less discerning
“Out-of-balance” is a good description.
Truman Madsen, my first mission president said, “Be slovenly with the Lord and you will be tired, bored, easily irritable, and anxious to lay down your head and lose consciousness of your uneasy, gnawing conscience. That is what wears a man out.”
For me that’s pretty much been the case.
I think there is a lot to what DA said. It is more about the cultural aspect of what the sin is. For example, when I spoke with a friend of mine about some of the struggles I was having with my testimony she asked if there was a change of spirit for me when I was reading the things that I was reading that would give me cause to question. I told her there really wasn’t for me because I felt that since I was looking to read articles and such that were from an unbiased source (university studies) I felt it to be OK. She didn’t feel the same way. She felt anything that didn’t support the church was against it and so I must have lost the spirit when I read these things.
Maybe I did, but I didn’t feel very different. Or maybe because of the “stupor of thought” as I read things contrary to my belief for so long was the loss of spirit. I felt it was more of reading something that went against what I was brought up with was causing more of the conflict than losing the spirit.
But when I do “sin” (lose my temper) I find myself agitated until I make it right with that person whom I lost it with.
This is really interesting — all these years I thought this was the Holy Ghost acting on me, but no one seems to be reporting similar feelings. Perhaps it IS the holy ghost, but acting on me in a personalized way. The heaviness in my chest is ALWAYS present when I lose my temper or get angry, or otherwise sin against my conscience, and abstinance from the sin seems to restore peace in degrees. I guess we are all different, aren’t we? There is also a bit of tingling in my throat and the roof of my mouth when peace returns. Sounds strange, but it’s true!!! I’m finding your responses very interesting.
Quote:Perhaps it IS the holy ghost, but acting on me in a personalized way.
I preach that general idea regularly in my talks – that we live individual lives, and “God” interacts with us individually.
I’m amazed no one picked up on my original point. It depends what the sin is. Do people really have a uniform feeling about every single sin? SamBee wrote:I’m amazed no one picked up on my original point. It depends what the sin is. Do people really have a uniform feeling about every single sin?
YES! I did pick up on your point. Check out the thread “what is sin.”
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