Judgment

Stop being a victim of "Yesterday's News"! Calling on "what was" to deal with "what is"... is like being stranded on a deserted island, without any food, and hoping to make your growing hunger pains go away by reading and re-reading "Best Places to Dine Around Town"... the one magazine that washed up with you when you staggered onto shore.

Perhaps you've worked hard to be more aware of yourself in the Now, and that for this effort you catch a glimpse of how quick you are to judge others, to criticize them for their "failings." This pain that strains you -- and those you touch with it -- is itself a creation of a false sense of your own perfection. But your awareness of its punishing presence within you is the same as your invitation to transcend the negative nature that is responsible for it.

The easiest thing in the world is to walk around unconsciously feeling superior to everyone we meet. But with what do we measure? A critical spirit? A judgmental mind? What kind of eyes have to look down on another to convince themselves of up?

We can never hope to be free as long as any part of us struggles with, or suffers over what others are doing, have done, or won't do with their lives. Besides, if we could remain aware of the often-compromised state of our own character, that is, how we still do those things to others that we don't want to do, this awakened conscience would stir in us a new need. Rather than worrying about whether so-and-so gets his comeuppance for being the...

At some point in our lives we have all dealt with uncomfortable moments where an unexpected or unwanted change in one near to us brings up some unpleasant reaction in us. Of course we are usually very quick to find fault with this person, but here is the real, invisible story. The reason we fall under the rule of these reaction-driven dark states, and then find ourselves trying to dictate the life direction of the "offending" person, is that something...

Real life is not by the numbers; it is impossible to "know" and grow at the same time. Yes, one can have a formula for a prescription drug, or a recipe for a good green salad; but there is no system of thought that can stand up to the ever-shifting changes of real life, let alone meet those same changes fearlessly. The self that knows itself through thought can never develop beyond the content of itself, any more than a math equation can suddenly outgrow...

One of the most slippery parts of the upper path is the temptation to judge ourselves -- to loath ourselves for whatever "weakness" is exposed to us in the moment. The act of judging ourselves in times like these seems natural and even necessary if we hope to ever "outgrow" our own limitations as revealed. But this kind of self-laceration is a Trojan horse within whose dark recesses lies...

Key Lesson: We cannot see what we will not look at... but it is not "us" who refuses to look.

Key Lesson: If you want a "misery-backed" guarantee that the painful relationship you have with whatever troubles you about someone -- or with something -- will never change... Just keep complaining to yourself about it!

Only in our conscious awareness of a personal limitation -- through our ability to sense the presence of any indwelling negative, or otherwise self-denigrating thought or feeling -- is realized the strength we need to die to an unconscious nature that, otherwise... lives to ensure that we accept its dark and limited view of life as our own.

It should be obvious, but it's not: we can't protect our heart and keep it open at the same time, any more than it's possible to be covered by a shadow, and feel the caress of a sunbeam touching our face.

Spiritually speaking, all relationships serve one purpose: self-knowledge. And self-knowledge, in turn, serves a single purpose: discovering the truth of oneself: an inner awakening that serves still a higher purpose: rebirth...the reconciliation, and fulfillment of all relationships.