"I tell you frankly, Beloved Students and individuals, there is not the slightest hope for you in heaven or earth so long as you persist in holding within your consciousness thoughts and feelings of criticism, condemnation, or hate of any description, and that includes mild dislike.
This leads us to the very vital point that you are concerned only with your own activity and your world. It is not your province to judge another, for you do not know the forces playing upon another or conditions. You know only the angle that you see of it, and I tell you that if an individual should be entirely innocent of any intent to wrong another, the individuals who send criticism, condemnation or hate to such an one are doing worse than committing physical murder. Why is this so? Because thought and feeling are the only Creative Power, and while such thoughts and feelings may not touch or harm their objective, they must return and bring with them the conditions sent out by the individual who sent them forth--and always with accumulated energy.
So after all, the one who holds vicious thoughts to another is in reality but destroying himself, his business and his affairs. There is no possible way of averting it, except for the individual to awaken and consciously reverse the currents."
Judging is the opposite of forgiveness. When we forgive we "flip the switch" from fear (anger, upset, annoyance, hurt) to love. This moment when we forgive and flip that switch is what is called the "holy instant" in A Course in Miracles. It is the moment when the miracle occurs.
On the other hand, when we judge, we are flipping the switch back in the opposite direction. We are switching back to fear. We judge because we are filled with fears. We feel threatened by our world in some way, and so we judge. In many cases, we don't even know why we feel fear. Often, it is coming from our sub-conscious minds.
We have two kinds of work to do if we want to stop the habit of judging. First, we must be vigilant always in guarding and protecting our minds from any vicious and judgmental fear thoughts. As A Course of Miracles says, "choose again". It is always within our power to choose again when we find our minds filling with fear and judgment. When we see that we are starting to judge, we can make another choice, the choice for love.
Our second work is that we must ask ourselves important examining questions when we find ourselves judging. What is this fear I feel in this moment? Where is it coming from? Why do I feel so threatened by this person? What in my past is causing this moment to flare up so large in my mind? If we are judging it is because we are feeling "little". Why? What about this person and this event is so threatening to our own sense of safety? As we examine our fears, we can forgive and release them.
Again, as it says in the "I AM" Discourses, "the one who holds vicious thoughts to another is in reality destroying himself". This is why as we learn to stop the ugly, destructive habit of judging others and we begin to give out love instead, the world around us changes. It becomes a place of peace, first in our minds, and then that peace begins to out-picture in our worlds. And when peace comes, we begin to find our happiness.
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| St. Germain--the source of the "I AM" Discourses |
