Now, shame has many causes. As I have said often, many of us inherit it from childhoods where we simply felt chronically unsafe. Our mothers did not hold us enough. They were emotionally incapable of MEANING “I love you”, if they said it at all (I don’t recall mine ever saying that when I was growing up, but my memory is perhaps deficient; I don’t remember much of my childhood).
But powers that want to control us learned long ago that shame is a powerful motivator. It is something simply floating in the air they can grab, and use it to get to our balls and wills. This is the core truth with respect to Christianity as it has been passed down to us.
No religion based on love has everlasting damnation as a consequence of individual choice, personality, and belief. But if you already feel shame, and everyone is telling you you have to submit or face eternal flame, you will break sooner rather than later.
And as I’m sure I’ve discussed, ponder the power the Popes had over kings throughout their long dominance in Europe. They could literally condemn kings to Hell, to everlasting damnation, and the only way out for kings was to reject the Christian faith, or in the case of Henry VIII–and no doubt some others I am too historically ignorant to know about, or recall at this moment–do some really creative theology.
When love is the focus, Christianity is a very life affirming, positive thing. But as an explanation of how the world works, Hinduism and its many cousins is vastly less judgmental. You get as many chances as you need, and it may be quite a few.
In my own case, I am attacked every night by a host of emotions. I am trying to name them, to feel them, to process them, so that I can one day let them all go–or perhaps more accurately, allow them to go, since moving on is already in the nature of normally transient affect.