In this second session on guilt (following an earlier tape that Bartholomew felt was inadequate), he drilled down to a startling core insight: human beings want to do what they want to do and not feel guilty about it. This session distinguished sharply between genuine inner transformation and the religious ritual of confessing sins while intending to continue them. It contains some of Bartholomew's most incisive observations about the mechanics of the ego's resistance to change, and closes with a powerful teaching on Socratic ignorance as the prerequisite for real spiritual learning.

Context: A morning session in Santa Fe on October 7, 1978, with Justin Moore. The session was prompted by Bartholomew's own sense that the previous week's tape on guilt had left important questions unanswered - particularly about the Ten Commandments, religious confession, and how to choose between guilt and freedom.

The Kernel of Truth in Religious Structure: Bartholomew began by acknowledging that the Roman Catholic Church and other great religious movements still carry a living kernel of truth at their center. For the devout person whose heart genuinely yearns for union with God, the theology and its requirements can be genuinely efficacious. But for the many who give only rote belief - who attend mass on Sunday but have no real interest in oneness with God - the guilt structure gnaws at them rather than the love structure. The commandments were given for those whose hearts yearned for union; when followed mechanically, they produce only resentment and empty ritual.

Confession Without Intent to Change: Bartholomew was direct: God is not misled by words. If someone goes to confession, recites the formulas, and has no genuine intent to change, nothing whatsoever is accomplished. Any priest, rabbi, or teacher with real perception can see the falsity in the heart. The problem is not the ritual of confession itself but the belief that merely speaking the words of old rituals will cleanse one while the behavior continues unchanged.

The Core Insight - "They Want to Do What They Want": Mid-session, Bartholomew had a moment of sudden clarity (crediting Mary-Margaret's own inner understanding for enabling it): the fundamental human problem with guilt is that people want to continue doing exactly what they are doing - they simply do not want to feel guilty about it. They seek to remove the guilt while keeping the action. Bartholomew said plainly: that is not divine wisdom, and he has nothing to say about it. He can only help when a person reaches the point of saying, "Help me to want what God wants."

The Process of Real Change: Genuine transformation begins when someone deeply recognizes an area of darkness within themselves and then discovers they lack the tools to eradicate it. Negativity seems to rush in from all sides; one begins to feel overwhelmed and helpless. Bartholomew said this helplessness is actually the turning point he waits for - because only when the ego feels truly vulnerable can a person turn to the real power within and begin to move the darkness out. The prerequisite is that one must first stop the activity - you cannot continue doing what makes you guilty while trying to dissolve the guilt.

There Are Not Two Wills: What appears to be a conflict between one's own desires and God's will is actually an illusion. The twinge of guilt itself proves that one already knows the right movement - not only knows it, but wants it at the deepest level. The surface ego desires have simply been followed for so long, across so many lifetimes, that they seem to be one's real will. They are not. The real will is the divine will, and they are one and the same.

Socratic Ignorance as Spiritual Prerequisite: The session closed with a powerful exchange between Bartholomew and Justin about Socrates. The single qualification for knowing God, Bartholomew said, is willingness to be taught - and that requires knowing that you do not know. Not knowing in certain areas while claiming knowledge in others, but truly knowing nothing while operating from the limited mind. Socrates did not say "I am ignorant in some areas"; he said "I am ignorant." As long as the small mind is trusted to run one's life, the higher mind cannot enter. Bartholomew invited listeners to search their own beings for questions and to become active participants rather than passive recipients of the teaching.