Repentance isn't wearing sackcloth. Repentance simply means seeing in a new way.
At one time in your life, for example, it seemed all right or even necessary to lie. Now you see from a different vantage, and now you no longer make up stories.
Now you are more connected to yourself. Repentance is awareness. It is seeing from a higher mountain.
Repentance means to leave off shoes that are too tight for you now and put on shoes of a larger size that fit, and then you walk in them. You do not take your old pair of shoes and hit yourself over the head with them. You step out of them.
I ask you not to hold regret before you. Regret is of the past. I tell you to leave the past and not take it with you.
Guilt is not a requirement, yet it seems to be a requirement for repentance. Guilt is no good at all. It is good for nothing. Guilt is stewing in your own juices and perhaps relishing them. Throw guilt out the window. Kick it away with your new shoes. Walk away from it. Get away from guilt. Guilt is an ego-mechanism. Ego would have you wallow in guilt. Ego would make you feel that no one has ever been so guilty as you, and, therefore, your guilt must be of a high stature. No one was as guilty as you.
Anything connected to stature is ego's doing. Better to be humble. Guilt is not humble. It is neither humble nor is it to be proud of.
We can say that you are waking up from sleep. You were asleep and saw your position in life one way. Now you wake up, and you see a different way.
Do you think that beating yourself on your chest brings you closer to Me? Hardly. It takes you closer to smallness, not Greatness. Take joy in the fact that now you are wiser. Now your consciousness is moving up. Certainly that is not to weep about or to punish yourself for. Be joyful.
Jump for joy, and that will bring you closer to Me. Suffering is not high-consciousness. Suffering is old-fashioned and self-centered. Arise from suffering. Allow yourself to be worthy of Me, and come right over to Me. I am waiting. Would you keep Me waiting?
I want you to come over here right now. Do not delay. Do not put obstacles in your path. Do not delay your entry into Heaven. Relieve yourself of guilt and such, and ego will flee, and you will walk right up to Me and take your rightful place at My side. This is where you belong, right with Me. You certainly don't belong anywhere else. If We are One, beloveds, and We are, then be One with Me.
Can you imagine a God Who wallows in guilt or anything of the kind? Stop guilt now, and step up gladly to Me. I do not stand on ceremony. I am not a God Who requires that you go through three tests before you merit My Presence. It is you who obligates yourself. I say to come over to Me, and to come right now. I do not hold you back, so, then, it must be you who holds you back.
Cut out these high dudgeons. They are a waste of time. Come over to Me now, and come happily. That's how I like it.