Showing posts with label judgment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label judgment. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Judgment is impossible

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. If we are to truly respect the interdependent web we must give up judgment.

One of the milestones on the walk with Love on the path of the spirit is the giving up of judgment. On what could our judgment possibly rest since we lack omniscienceness?

When we judge we delude ourselves. The bumper sticker says, "Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment."

The phenomenon we observe and even the perceptions we experience our multi-dimensional. How could we ever know totally? At the best, we guess and often are wrong.

As the Buddhists say, "It is what it is." With that, let it go and recognize and acknowledge that we really don't know, can't know. We learn to turn our judgment over to our Higher Power and we are grateful and experience a new found peace.

Thursday, November 9, 2017

When we damn others, we damn ourselves

UUs convenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. UUs also believe in universal salvation. UUs eschew judgment, condemnation, and exclusion.

It is written in the Introduction to the 21st chapter of the text of A Course In Miracles:

"Damnation is your judgment on yourself, and this you will project upon the world. 2 See it as damned, and all you see is what you did to hurt the Son of God. 3 If you behold disaster and catastrophe, you tried to crucify him. 4 If you see holiness and hope, you joined the Will of God to set him free. 5 There is no choice that lies between these two decisions. 6 And you will see the witness to the choice you made, and learn from this to recognize which one you chose. 7 The world you see but shows you how much joy you have allowed yourself to see in you, and to accept as yours. 8 And, if this [is] its meaning, then the power to give it joy must lie within you."

Have you noticed all the condemning going on currently in our society? Condemnation lends itself easily to sound bites and tweets. It seems that those asked for a statement and opinion on some tragic event, when it involves another human being, use the word "condemn" without knowing anything about the person other than the tragic act that they have been reported to have perpetrated.

Have you noticed how people in opposition to others, especially in political campaigns, are prone to condemn their opponents? From where does this desire and willingness to condemn come from?

Judgment is an arrogant act presuming omniscience on the part of the person doing the condemning. Judgment is a usurpation of the omniscience and omnipotence of a Higher Power which the judger engages in with a hypocrisy which only casts himself in a darkness fraught with guilt and anguish.

A person with a more highly developed level of spiritual maturity has given up judgment and condemnation as inappropriate, illegitimate, and a form of idolatry. A spiritually developed person laughs as the absurdity of condemnation of one human being by another. Condemnation of behavior is one thing, but condemnation of a fellow human being is quite another. As Jesus said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

Monday, July 3, 2017

Transcending the dichotomous mind though forgiveness.

The second principle of Unitarian Unversalism is to covenant to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. This is a worthy secular value but it implies that there is the opposites: injustice, inequality, and sadism also in the world and as we learn from the Tao Te Ching the spiritual life is based on a transcendence of the ying and yang, the paradoxical quality of our dichotomous minds.

What Unitarian Universalism should be promoting and affirming is forgiveness. Forgiveness is the rising above and the letting go of judgement. It is getting to a place where justice, equality,and compassion are no longer necessary because Love is all there is.

It is written in A Course In Miracles that we hold on to the past to be able to judge for "judgement becomes impossible without the past, for without it you do not understand anything." T-15.V.1:1

A little further it is written: "You are afraid of this because you believe that without the ego, all would be chaos. Yet I assure you that without the ego, all would be love." T-15.V.1:6-7

Does this mean I should forget the past?

Not exactly for as human beings that would be impossible and we would not learn anything and grow. What is suggested is that we forgive the past, we rise above it, and we do not let the past imprison us in the present.

As a psychotherapist sometimes I am asked, "Do you really believe people can change?"

I answer, "I would be a hypocrite and a fraud if I didn't believe people could change. Of course they can. I have been honored and privileged to witness miraculous change."

Anna and Mike came to see me after Mike had an affair. Anna, then our of revenge, went and had an affair too. They both decided to get back together. Mike told me, "We are so much better now."

Anna chimed in and said, "We went out for coffee and forgave each other and decided to start over again. It was wonderful."

They both are in their late 40s and had met in high school at age 15. They have been together 27 years.

"Start over?" I asked.

"Yes," Anna said. "We agreed to pretend that we just met."

Without history there is no judgment and with no judgement, there is a space for love to exist.

I love the bumper sticker "Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement." The best judgement is forgiveness which makes a place for love.

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