“Judge not and you will not be judged” Luke 6:37
I think that condemnation and judgement is always a roadblock to self growth.
You see, I have a simplistic notion of love, and the supreme spirit is the instantiation of love. That is, love doesn’t die, and it doesn’t lie. Also what applies to one, applies to all.
So if the “no judgement” rule applies to the universe, then to do personal judging is against ethical principle. You see, at the beginning, when we were created as spiritual beings, it was with, rather than against love. So our creator was love.
We have no need for judgement of each other or ourselves. We created that bit.
When we release ourselves from the tyranny of fear, and act in conscious care and compassion, we have no need to judge others. That is where God, as love, comes from. Yet our egos continue to judge, based on how we were taught, rather than on how we were born.
Let me give you an example. I made a mistake last year. I trusted a guy in Ghana with a lot of my money, to purchase land which appeared to be genuine, but was not. It is not an uncommon story throughout Africa I am told. However the issue is that I judged myself and was down on myself for making that mistake, not having the wisdom to discern, and on not being able to put the money to better use.
As I whacked myself over the head, I was judging myself, and it took some serious quiet time to hear what the spirit was of this judgement. It was diminishing me.
Yet how do we learn other than by making mistakes? Does love reject because of mistakes? Would you reject your child for making a genuine mistake? I hope not, because love doesn’t judge, it observes the experience, and just settles into acceptance – right now I cannot undo that mistake.
Sure, I did report it to the police, and am following up with action to retrieve the money, and yes there is such a thing as justice and judgement, but only for redressing societal laws. Courts in my experience never address matters of the heart or soul. In fact they can make matters worse.
Getting justice from a court is not going to undo my mistake. What lifts value from the mistake is learning forgiveness. I needed to forgive myself for my humanity, accept the grace and love of the holy spirit within, and move on.
Wayne Dyer says in one of his books that we need to look at the worst case outcome, assume that is what will happen, then from that place move forward and release our self-indictment. I did, and since then, though it still irks me, and I still have the ongoing consequences of legal action affecting my life, basically taking the position that the money won’t return, I have let it go. It is, after all, just money. I didn’t lose my love or my faith. I don’t want to add another mistake to the first one, by losing my emotional and spiritual health in concentrating my energies on the past mistake.
Instead I am looking at what I have learnt, believing in my self-worth, my sense of belonging as I am, with my frailties and mistakes. This means I can be positive for today, which will lead to a positive tomorrow.
Now I am working on not judging the people who have defrauded me – sure I cannot trust them, but I am trying now NOT to judge them for punishment, just accepting that their consequences are an immutable law that will happen, reflecting back into their own lives, but does not diminish the spirit of worth which they were born with.
The last judgement is the point where I can give up judgement as a way of life, and so release myself from self-judgement also. Let’s celebrate that, a Last Judgement to be proud of!
“In the beginning was the Way, and the Way was with Love, and the Way was Love.” John 1:1, (substituting Love, for God, and Way for Word which is how I choose to understand that verse.)
“God is Love” 1 John 4:16
“As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the lord is flawless.” 2 Samuel 2:31
Hi, Phil, I enjoyed this post on one of my favorite topics. Using the Ghana scam example was perfect. (These various scams from Africa, many from Nigeria, have been making the rounds for several years.) Once we realize we’ve made a mistake, we feel so foolish. And if we didn’t fall for it, then we are so quick to judge someone who has…without acknowledging that even if we didn’t make THIS mistake, we’ve made others, many others, just the same.
The judge not that ye be not judged verses in the Bible have always been problematic for me until I came to believe that it is not God who judges a judge-r, but the person judging who judges themselves.
PS–On the matter of the link to your blog when you comment on others, this is what happens. When I click on your name when you comment on my blog, it goes to your Google+ page. The problem is that there is no link to your blog from there. If I am a Google+ user and we are in the same circle, maybe there would be, I don’t know.
You might want to have your name link directly to your blog–that’s the easiest. Or at least to a profile that has your blog link. I don’t know enough about Google+ to know if you can put your link on your profile so that it will be visible even if people are not Google+ users or are not in your circle.
You have a nice blog and you don’t want to miss out on readers because they can’t link back to you.