‘I will judge nothing for I can make no assumption based upon such limited perception’

- A Course in Miracles

We live in a sea of judgment. In the Western world it has surpassed epidemic proportions. People pride themselves on their ability to play judge and jury. Some even get paid to do so and call themselves critics. You can check out any media device to see what the resident critic thinks about every imaginable topic known to mankind.

There is absolutely no chance of achieving any form of enlightenment or heart mastery if you judge things. The spirit can’t soar with the judging mind. When I began working with this idea I was surprised at just how much judgment I had on every topic I could think of, and how much I prided myself on my ability to be a good critic.

In my first attempt at releasing judgment, I found myself dumbfounded for weeks with very little to say about anything until I got the hang of talking without judgment. It was a sobering experience.

Judgment is deciding what is good or bad, right or wrong, better or worse, superior or inferior about you, others and the world. It is also about making comparisons. It is a mental activity which keeps repressed any judged feelings which have not been allowed to flow freely. It involves the illusion of a God-like quality that allows you to sit in judgment on creation and the choices of others who are co-creating it with you. When judgment is backed with strong emotional charge, damage is done to you and others because you cannot contain that energy indefinitely. This can be seen easily with anger issues. The damage anger can do to your system is well documented.

Energy gets stuck when you have a judgment on something so it is a way of controlling and manipulating your environment. Judgment is a cold, heartless, heavy energy completely devoid of love. I wasn’t aware of the weight I was dragging around until I started letting it go.

Any judgment you have is a part of you that you are denying. I have met people who smoke cigarettes who have no problems polluting their own bodies and the air that they breathe, but have an issue with air pollution. Another denial example is John condemning his work colleague for having angry outbursts at work but not seeing a problem with shouting at his own wife. John justified his behaviour because it happened in the privacy of his own home.

What happens when you are in judgment is that you send a message to the universe – I do not understand this, please help me understand – and you become what you judge. You will get to experience your judgment so that you can learn to understand it. When I was in high school the local doctor felt that it was better to prescribe the pill instead of seeing teenage girls pregnant, so it was easy to get a prescription without your parents knowing. I thought you would have to be really dumb to fall pregnant. It wasn’t long after that judgment, at the tender age of 16, that I fell pregnant. I quickly gained great understanding for anyone who made that kind of mistake. If you come to a true understanding of why something’s occurring the way that it is, it becomes impossible to judge it.

Not judging people doesn’t mean you have to approve or condone someone else’s behaviour, but the minute you judge it you give it energy. Everything you believe to be wrong in the world, you’re actually giving energy to and thus perpetuating in some way. Your judgement of yourself causes you to be limited and conditioned. Your judgement of all you perceive to be wrong in the world perpetuates the fears of humanity.

An intermediary stage in releasing judgment is to have a loaded preference that will step you out of judging. If you have a preference you consider to be better than everything else, it is less judgmental than deciding whether something is good or bad.

When you manage this, you move into the belief that everything is simply different. You have preference without expectation, judgment or attachment to the outcome. Beyond judgment lies compassion. But to have true compassion you need to discern the truth, see things clearly and set healthy boundaries.

Discernment is about the perception of truth, about seeing things as they actually are --with no lenses, no colour, no emotional charge and no judgement on whether something is good or bad. The truth is the truth, and based on the truth you set appropriate boundaries.

If you find it difficult to release judgment it may be because you are a bit self-righteousness, which is about the need to be right all the time. If you believe you’re right and you’ve got it, there’s no possibility for growth and evolution. You’ve already arrived. Like the Vedas say, you can either realise God or be right all the time, but not both. You may have seen this in the spiritual community. Many mystery schools and religions think they have a monopoly on truth.

Any desire for retribution and revenge must be transcended, because it’s born out of self- righteousness. Every time you judge something, no matter how harmless it appears to be, you are projecting a desire for revenge. Every time you feel that your sense of fair play has been offended, that something’s not right, that something is better or worse, right or wrong, you set in motion currents of revenge. And it’s those currents which operate within the collective psyche, festering like sores, that eventually erupt and produce things like the great war of the last century.

A subtle detector that will alert you to the fact that you still have a judgment on something is when you find yourself saying "yes, but . . ." "I really like the way you speak but . . ." And if you feel the need to forgive yourself or someone else, have a look for the subtle judgment still running.

When you become aware that you’re judging something, don’t fall into the trap of judging the judgment. This can be in the form of being hard on yourself and beating yourself up for how you are. See the awareness as a gift. Choose to feel, know and see those foolish weak things in order to show you the path to love. What do you judge? Where is your discomfort? Use this indicator as a guide from spirit showing you the way.

Everything in life can be seen as a blessing or a curse. We deny this when we label what happens to us as either good or bad. The following old Zen story illustrates this lesson most effectively.

A farmer had a horse but one day the horse ran away, so the farmer and his son had to plough their fields themselves. Their neighbours said, "Oh, what bad luck that your horse ran away!" But the farmer replied, "Bad luck, good luck, who knows?"

The next week the horse returned to the farm bringing a herd of wild horses with him. "What wonderful luck!" cried the neighbours, but the farmer responded, "Good luck, bad luck, who knows?"

Then the farmer's son was thrown as he tried to ride one of the wild horses, and he broke his leg. "Ah, such bad luck," sympathized the neighbours. Once again, the farmer responded, "Bad luck, good luck, who knows?"

A short time later, the ruler of the country recruited all young men to join his army for battle. The son, with his broken leg, was left at home. "What good luck that your son was not forced into battle!" celebrated the neighbours. And the farmer remarked, "Good luck, bad luck, who knows?"

When you move beyond judgment you feel as if you have dumped a huge burden. In its place comes relief, calm assurance and lightness of spirit. The ultimate vision is a life where your minimum state of being is unconditional love. You might occasionally get triggered and drop into some conditional love, but you don’t have bad hair days, and slip into judgment or self-righteous condemnation of this that or the other.