17.01.10
Give Up Judgment
Posted in Musings at 6:42 pm by Linda 
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At one time Jesus says: the ego analyzes and the Holy Spirit accepts. Jesus has many things to say about the fallaciousness of judgment and the utter impossibility of any of us to have a true judgmental thought. In my own experience of working with the Course it seems I have reached a stage in which judging others ceases to have a strong hold on me. Yet judgmental energy can still seem to have some substance and meaning in relation to myself. I think it is because of the illusion that I know something about myself and that I judge I should have known better or should have been able to do better.
In the name of putting these foolish presumptions to rest I have brought together a number of powerful Course ideas together so that the power of truth may shine away what is false.
Jesus tells us that it is not so much that we should not judge. In fact we cannot. (Manual for Teachers, Question 10). And the falsity of judgment is grounded in the very process or presumption of judging itself, quite beside any idea of whether the content of the judgment is true or false.
To judge is to try and pick a strand out of the totality of reality as if it could be viewed and known apart from the rest. Like trying to pull out a thread from a blanket. In the pulling out of the strand it becomes the focus. This is how the ego operates. It analyzes. It pulls apart. It seeks to separate out aspects of a situation it does not like and endeavors to deal with those aspects separate and apart from the rest. As if it can come to a true perception, insight or understanding in this way. Intrinsic to its processing is some sort of comparison. There is an ideal that is used for comparison, or at the very least something is judged to be better. Love does not compare. The ego itemizes what it sees as if that proves that it knows and has some basis of making a decision about what it sees.
This whole action makes real what it focuses on. To focus on something is to make it real. Then, from the presumption of having made it real, it claims to know what it is looking upon and perhaps make an effort to deal with it on the basis of its judgment.
From this frame of reference genuine peace and tranquility of mind is impossible, because you cannot overlook something you have made real. It is like saying: don’t think of an apple. So, it is not so much what the judgment is. It is that there is judgment that is the dilemma and perplexity in awareness.
It is because I seem to live in such close proximity to what I take to be myself that it is easy to forget that what I take to be myself is as much a figure on the stage of the world as any of my brothers. And just as Jesus cautions us against presuming to know anything about the motives of our brothers, so too is it futile to really presume to know anything about our own motives. Many times when think we are explaining our motives; we are really just telling a story that suits us at the time. Remember the workbook lessons: I am never upset for the reason I think and I do not perceive my own best interests.
The simple fact is that we do not have the bigger picture in relation to anything and that includes ourselves. Recall the wonderful words from Section V of Chapter 31 of the text: “I do not know the thing I am and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself.”
Jesus says the relinquishing of judgment is the necessary condition of salvation. (Manual for Teachers, Question 9). Notice the word necessary.
So let us apply the happy lesson equally to all, including the one we might think we know something about and that is ourselves:
Lesson 243 Today I will judge nothing that occurs.
I will be honest with myself today. I will not think that I know what must remain my present grasp. I will not think I understand the whole from bits of my perception, which are all that I can see.
How truly liberating it is not to know and to finally accept I have no basis to operate from in which I could know. We are all off the hook and I am included in that!
Thank-you Jesus