III. Tolerance
1 God’s teachers do not judge. To judge is to be dishonest, for to judge is to assume a position you do not have. Judgment without self-deception is impossible. Judgment implies that you have been deceived in your brothers. How, then, could you not have been deceived in yourself? Judgment implies a lack of trust, and trust remains the bedrock of the teacher of God’s whole thought system. Let this be lost, and all his learning goes. Without judgment are all things equally acceptable, for who could judge otherwise? Without judgment are all men brothers, for who is there who stands apart? Judgment destroys honesty and shatters trust. No teacher of God can judge and hope to learn.
As far as I can see the ego has two favorite activities, thinking and judging. The mind will think and it will judge, but I don’t have to listen to the first or believe the second. I remain very vigilant for judgment and as soon as I notice the judgment, I ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind.
When I first started to do this I felt very anxious when I would find judgments in my mind. This is self-defeating because I was judging myself for judging. Slowly, with the Holy Spirit’s help, I let go of that kind of circular thinking. Now I am happy to see the judgment because I know what to do with it.
I asked Holy Spirit what He would have me know about this. He gave me the thought that I would continue to judge as long as I was interested in my judgments. I saw that I could let go of judging more quickly if I did not encourage the judgmental thoughts by giving my attention to them. In the beginning years of my practice, I would think about whether it was true or not. I would think about why I had that judgment and what I could do to avoid judging in the future. But none of that is necessary and I learned that all I needed to know about judgment is that I wasn’t interested.
I do still have judgmental thoughts but not all the time anymore. My disinterest in them and my refusal to accept these thoughts seem to have discouraged them. When it does happen, I don’t worry about it, I just let those thoughts go. One thing I have learned in recent years is that judgment can be subtle. Of course, I recognize the thought that someone should be different than they are as a judgment. But I have not yet made everything acceptable.
Something that has helped me with that is a process by Michael Langford called the Loving All Method. This method asks us to love everything just as it is. This doesn’t mean that I would not change something if that was appropriate, but that I would love it while it was happening. An example he gives is that he loves that the vase is falling, and he loves that he catches it before it hits the floor. Using this method has helped me in my practice to accept all things just as they are without judging them.
Without judgment are all things equally acceptable, for who could judge otherwise?
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