One day you are doing something that you know is not right, but you have a strong desire to do it. As you do this thing, you “feel” in the chest area a lowering of sorts, a diminishing as if things are being lowered within you. This is compared to the “good” feeling you had in general, when having kept the commandments and you were obedient. It is that good feeling that is lowered and heads downward. Despite what you feel, you continue with the thing you desired and soon, the higher feeling of goodness no longer resides in you. Depending on how long you continue, you feel more worldly or “darkened” and a kind of “lost” feeling begins to take place within you. 

For those who have experienced the higher spiritual state and then the lowering will know that they are loosing their spiritual connection and status with the Lord. This feeling of loss is similar to loosing the Spirit. Your spiritual state is diminished and is the reason why you begin to feel more worldly or darkly. 

This experience is more prominent when doing things that are a sin. It could be a simple as doing something mean or callous toward someone or toward a situation you are in. This experience of lessening is a warning to you that you are doing something that is wrong and a sin against God and his Spirit. This diminishing feeling is quite real and can only be experienced when you act against a higher spiritual state. For the men, this can be related to be the same as feeling the loss of their priesthood. 

The best thing to do is stop what you are doing and repent. There is no such thing as “justification” for sin and doing wrong. When you stop immediately, the likelihood of regaining that higher spiritual state is easier and sooner. Not stopping immediately, it will take longer to regain it because then your repentance has become more involved, depending on what was done, it can take longer to remove and end the sin that was committed.

Sometimes, when feeling this diminishing, the act may not appear as a sin, but somewhere in that act is something that is a sin. This, for example, can be something like believing that you are doing the right thing in reference to gospel principles toward someone else, yet despite your “justification” of the act, you still feel a diminishing, the Spirit withdrawing or a darkening. This usually means that what you think is right is really not right. This does not speak against gospel principles, it speaks against why you are doing that act in the first place, your real intent is the cause and it is misusing gospel principles.

To ignore the feeling of your spiritual state is a mistake. It is by these feelings that you can better keep yourself in the right and keep yourself proper before the Lord. These feelings are not controlled by you and not about your personal desires. They reflect the state you are in and guide you, they are the spiritual response to your choices. These feelings act from your conscience. These feelings are akin to hairs on your arms, for example. To feel a brushing against these hairs tells you something is very near. You do not control these feelings, but they give you an “indication” of something happening. Therefore, your intent can cause a response by feelings of a rise or lowering in your spiritual state. It is a “spiritual gauge” of sorts, built into all of us and increases in availability when a connection to the light of Christ is improved and increased within you. 

Another point to make on this is that these feelings work when you are silent about it and act in accordance to your spiritual well being. To go around broadcasting them to everyone or others is an act of pride and we know that pride is against the spiritual things of God.

Listen and do not ignore, for these feelings can even warn you when evil is present.

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