Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 7th mo. 25, 2015 at 8:23pm

Yeah!

When Jesus is quoted as saying, "Satan ['The Accuser'] always was a liar," that's probably what was meant.

Judging oneself is likewise pernicious (or so it seems to me!)

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by James C Schultz on 8th mo. 6, 2015 at 9:12am

whenever I bring this scripture up someone will bring up scriptures such as

Heb_5:14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

I differentiate between them by saying one has to do with conduct and the other with a person.  I also think that discernment is a judgment made by one's collective senses while judgment too often comes from the heart.  It can be an intuitive assessment based on appearance or smell as much as from observation of a person's conduct.  The real problem to me is the door into the spiritual world that a judgment from the heart opens.  Jesus didn't go around willy-nilly teaching what not to do.  After all He does tell us there are only two commandments.  So why this "don't judge"?  He gives the answer: so ye be not judged!  I don't think he's talking about a post earth judgment.  I think it's a part of how the world operates.  A wheel in a wheel.  In physics there's a law that for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction.  I think that what takes place in this realm or wheel brings about an equal and opposite reaction in the spiritual world/wheel.  People who judge a parent for marrying an alcoholic find themselves married to alcoholics (a generalization of course), etc.  LIKE JESUS SAID: DON'T JUDGE!  Taught by Nuns in my early years I remember more than one saying "remember, there but for the grace of God go I".

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 8th mo. 6, 2015 at 12:01pm

It may or may not seem relevant that one quote is attributed to Jesus, the other to Paul -- and that one was credited with miracles of enabling the blind to see, the other (so far as I remember) with striking people blind; that is, Paul may not yet have 'gotten it' as well as Jesus. (Or was more concerned with administering institutions struggling to embody Jesus' teachings?)

Either 'discerning' or 'judging' might conceivably be done with more or less of one's whole self... but the significant distinction might be between 'recognition' and 'condemnation.' We know that Obama has murdered on a scale that, were he a private individual, would render him liable to trial and even execution. That's recognition, of understanding the character of actions he continues to carry out in our collective name. To think of him as 'a murderer', as somehow more capable of evil, even more guilty than the many citizens he misleads into approving these murders, would be a judgement.

In 'judging' even oneself, there is something different than merely recognizing a character flaw or two. 'Discernment' would identify a flaw and the need to do/be better... but would leave scope for 'skillful means' in the effort to overcome it; while 'judgement' would focus those efforts on arousing guilt and striving to suffer -- rather futile as curative measures, yes?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 8th mo. 7, 2015 at 10:41am

Further thoughts... Virtually everyone is a sociopath in relation to whichever subset of the population our imagination fails to connect to our hearts. That is, so far as there is anyone whose sufferings seem unimportant to us -- we are falling short.

Personally, I can feel only the vaguest sympathy for the current Cause-of-the-Month protagonists, the gays and transexuals. They are such an utterly convenient target for our concern; and it isn't that I can't imagine myself in their place, not entirely -- but that their sufferings in the major US cities are so much outweighed by those of the poor, who vastly outnumber them everywhere, are continually losing children and people close to them to a health-care system, educational system, and prison system all somehow tailored to exploit and magnify their sufferings -- yet who somehow get cast as the villains in every context. [And incidentally, we do know what kind of person the word 'villain' originally referred-to, don't we?]

I can profitably include those tiny subpopulations among the vast numbers of us whose true selves are unacceptable either to themselves or the society around them, who might be afraid even to look closely at those true selves... and consequently are prey to considerable irrationality, flailing indignation -- and harsh judgment of self-and-others. But in that perspective, aren't we all really just poorsouls?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Keith Saylor on 8th mo. 7, 2015 at 2:01pm

I wonder how often it happens that those whose eyes have been cleared of a huge log, then see specks in other's eyes, that flick right back over into their own eyes again manifesting logness re-turned?

It is true life to know a self-conscious free from even the perception of specks in the eyes others. The life of consciousness free from identity with outward perceptions and other outward forms, institutions, and practices and living in the experience of consciousness anchored in itself and a conscience informed from within that experience itself, witnesses the falling away of the log overlaying his or her own eye and the falling away of the specks in the eyes of others ... for in this eternal Heritage, which all human beings share, we see right through and past the log and the speck.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 8th mo. 7, 2015 at 2:24pm

A kiss is just a kiss, a log is just a log, a legitimizing mythology is just another legitimizing mythology (no matter whom it justifies or demonizes) -- and yet one can stumble over a log; and might as well know it for what it is. So it seems best not to take any such thing too seriously.

• ▶ Reply

▶ Reply to Discussion