In my spiritual life, over the years, I had many ups and downs.
Downs were mostly connected to sense enjoyment, and subsequent
decreasing of spiritual practice up to the point of not doing anything
Krsna consciouss. Sometimes these periods were longer, and sometimes
shorter.
My understanding is that I was able to come again and again to the bhakti
path due to the mercy of devotees, and the fact that I always avoided
Vaisnava aparad.
At first times when "comming back to the bhakti path" I was feeling
great guilt for all my neglecting Krsna, then other times as the time went on
I felt lesser guilt and was just picking the path and going further,
and at the end I came to the state of mind where I do not think of guilt
at all, but just try to stand up and continue bhakti path without any remorse.
GM from time to time speaks about embarrassment that the disciple
would feel or should feel when confronted with the fact how he or she
is still selfish and is not surrendering enough - as he can see such
surrendering example in his guru.
I myself noticed that any greater remorse would just block me all together
to continue with bhakti-yoga.
I do not want to think about what I was supposed to do, and to waste
time on lamentation. I simply think - "Krsna oppened the door once
again for myself. Run and fight." Then I fall down, Maya stricken agan.
I am very unstable person, and nothing can catch my attention
for long. The only thing I continued to take interest in is Krsna
consciousness. For already 23 years I am dooing like I said up and
down, but I do not loose interest, as one proverb says:
"He tryes like deaf on telephone."
What is the right perspective for looking upon guilt and advancement
in Krsna consciousness?
My off-the-top-of-the-head response is that there's a distinction between guilt on the one hand, and regret or remorse on the other. It's something that's on my list of things to investigate (which I do by writing). My sense is that guilt isn't necessarily helpful and can be crippling, whereas remorse and regret can help in our progress. However, because I haven't really explored this to the extent I'd like, I don't have any well-developed advice to offer yet.