Let’s consider personal transformation without guilt and the dream of bodily form that has formed our histories.

In that instant it seemed like I didn’t breathe or speak or think, time had stopped, with a certainty of what I needed to do next.

The other three players, close friends, were already in the cup on this 410-yard par four, eighteenth, slick as glass, putting surface.

A successful putt would win the match with bragging rights reserved for the warmth of the Sand Trap Lounge, afterward.

Sure, where all wagers would be settled. A tradition for this grizzly foursome.

I stepped up to evaluate the seven-and-a-half-foot task in front of me.

A steady plumb bob with my left eye, confidently perceived the line presenting itself vividly, as if it had been inscribed across the dance floor in incandescent paint, and as if a trough to the hole was waiting for a delicate stroke.

I stood over the ball with my feet firmly spiked into the turf, the blade of my putter was perfectly square at impact and the ball rolled in.

A downhill left-to-right slider, struck not too hard and not too soft, taking the five-inch break and entering the cup on the edge.

It was side door all the way to tumble and rattle heart-stopping in the bottom of the cup. It seemed to happen in slow motion.

My brain was functioning entirely from its stem and no higher.

Yes, a Feeling of Transformation without Guilt nor an Ounce of Indecisiveness 

It wasn’t until a half hour later where the four of us were already secure at a corner table next to the old stone fireplace in this bitter cold Ohio October afternoon.

We talked up the scorecards while I returned to myself.

That golf round was waiting to be recapped over a few foaming pitchers of cold beer among the camaraderie we offered one another, and reminiscing the day is how we each accepted it.

I played the final eighteen of thirty-six holes in seventy-four strokes including two balls forever lost in the woods.

The fact of this gut match was complete for the day as we each grasped the moment for a friendship never to die. A brotherhood.

A toast or two of cheer sealed the day as a page or two in our own little history book, then each of us returned to our own reality and headed for home.

As you move on in this article keep in mind this spiritual metaphysical principle from A Course in Miracles:

• Consciousness is the state that induces action, though it does not inspire it. You are free to believe what you choose, and what you do attests to what you believe.

It seems that history is what makes us and the world around us, which has been shaped over only what seems to be millions of years to that point of the first tick of time, where the dream of form began.

What seems like many years in dreams is merely an instant in reality.

The illusion and fantasy the first thought of humankind projected was that they were separate from the one-mind of Creation, a reality we’ve never really left at all.

Shockingly this dream state of mind projected an image of itself to block out the real world.

The human body was perceived as what seemed to be an animal-type body that had thoughts separate from the One Thought of Life that they came here from. They were decidedly separate from their Source—God—and no longer whole, it seemed, and they were different and separate from each other.

Time became what seemed too distant from God and their urge to pull away was constant, giving them disturbing and insecure sensations.

On the level of the body, we humans are similar to animals.

All the basic bodily functions, pleasure, pain, breathing, eating, drinking, defecating, sleeping, the sexual urge to find a mate, and of course, the sensation of birth and death we do share with animals.

Man’s history book began compiling pages as we humans became constantly obsessed with insecure thinking—and these thoughts fragmented more and more thought with the concern: “We are more than an animal.”

This became the truth for the first humans to walk the planet, the image they made staring them in the face. This was too disturbing a truth to tolerate.

In the symbolic first relationship, Adam and Eve saw an image of nudity and scarcity, which made them afraid. Thoughts of denial with their nature set in quickly.

But they were also afraid to go back within to the reality—the wholeness they projected themselves out of. Their guilt for doing so kept them even more separated from reality and continues today.

Rather than being willing to tap into the knowledge of what was truly real, their unwillingness piled on more guilt and shame.

As the guilt evolved so did the image of the human body and living with the threat of the unknown matured with it.

Their history portrays plenty of indecisiveness and panic that repeats itself in the world today.

As thoughts fragmented into bundles of more thought, the same as the splitting of cells, the word “time” was validated, and it had a frightening and worrisome tone in its definition or lack thereof.

As projections continued, humans were everywhere and were haunted by this separated thought system they continued to defend.

Now committed to separation from their Source, more and more insecurity and unawareness of what to do next or what to expect, with the discovery of certain body parts and bodily functions increased their unsettledness.

Their sexuality was so confusing they labeled it taboo.

As new fears flowed in, existing fears compounded.

The light of their reality was obscured and not bright enough to be friendly with their animal nature. I mean, to allow it to be and yet enjoy that aspect of themselves let alone to go deeply into it, and find Divine guidance hidden there.

Humankind was lost.

(I also suggest a related article on having a great attitude: To choose your attitude is one of those things that is in your personal transformation power.) 

Personal Transformation without Guilt for making Real Life Decisions

With history mounting errors, it became difficult to find reality within this dreaming state of mind.

So humans did whatever was necessary for survival, and their newly formed ability to make judgment helped make decisions of “right” and “wrong.”

With the discovery of time, science was born and they accepted this dream as their reality.

The more they questioned their own thoughts, the more their uncertainties began forming images of one another that changed with time and with right and wrong attitudes being formed.

The more they saw themselves as having a body, the more they questioned this possibility of transformation not guilt.

Their uncertainty of the body raised more questions about their origin.

It wasn’t long before religions began arising and disassociation became pronounced as the “you are not your body” belief.

Countless people in the East and West throughout the ages tried to find their creator, or some form of enlightenment with transformation not guilt. Yes, to save them from this uncertainty of who and what they were.

Many began to deny the body of certain pleasures and of sexuality in particular, where fasting and ascetic practices began being explored.

They even inflicted pain on the body trying to awaken or punish it, because they regarded it as sinful.

In Christianity some practices were considered mortification of the flesh. Others tried to escape the body by entering trance-like states, or seeking out-of-body experiences.

Many still do seek personal transformation without guilt.

Even the Buddha is said to have practiced body denial through fasting and extreme forms of asceticism for six years. But he did not attain enlightenment until after he’d given up the practice.

The fact is no one has ever become enlightened through denying or fighting the body, or through out-of-body experiences.

A State of Spiritual Freedom is Fascinating

Such an experience can be fascinating and can give you glimpses of the state of freedom from material form, but in the end you will always return to find your body is where essentially transformation takes place.

Let’s understand that transformation is through the body, not away from it. Why, when all along I’ve been suggesting the body is illusion?

It’s because had we not separated from our Source and projected the image of the body, we would have no need for transformation.

But remember, we never really did separate from God, we only dream we have.

Thereby, the idea of personal transformation without guilt is using the body, or using the dream of having a body, to go beyond it and rise above it to our true light.

In other words, to awaken.

In my ever-developing book series you will discover why the body is the means to get you there, the doorway through the “fence,” if you will.

This is why no true Master of Spirituality has ever advocated fighting or leaving the body.

(I urge another related article on: Let’s briefly look at why we ask, is life a dream? From there let’s see why dealing with feelings of guilt may be holding you back in life.)

James Nussbaumer proves to his readers that this world of light, this circle of brightness is the real world, where guilt meets with forgiveness. This is your purpose now.