Quote for August 11th, 2013
As the teacher of God advances in his training, he learns one lesson with increasing thoroughness. He does not make his own decisions; he asks his Teacher for His answer, and it is this he follows as his guide for action. This becomes easier and easier, as the teacher of God learns to give up his own judgment. The giving up of judgment, the obvious prerequisite for hearing God’s Voice, is usually a fairly slow process, not because it is difficult, but because it is apt to be perceived as personally insulting. The World’s training is directed toward achieving a goal in direct opposition to that of our curriculum. The world trains for reliance on one’s judgment as the criterion for maturity and strength. Our curriculum trains for the relinquishment of judgment as the necessary condition of salvation.
ACIM Manual for Teachers, 9,2
Certainly we can all agree that the wisdom and power of God, and only that, can completely solve any and all problems and bring complete fulfillment to everyone and everything in creation for all time past, present, and future. And if this wisdom and power is available to guide us in our choices and decisions, it would be unwise to not make use of it. But to make use of such guidance, two things are necessary. First we must acknowledge humbly that we, in our current state of awareness, do not possess the omnipotence and omniscience of God, and therefore our choices and decisions can at best be incomplete. This is obvious but by no means easily implemented, not because it is difficult, but because it requires we admit that we don't know what on earth we are doing; we're doing our best, but that really means our best guess. Second, we must have a little willingness to listen, heed and completely trust God’s guidance, knowing that He has our best interests, as well as the best interests of everyone else at heart. Ok, but how do we do that; how do we hear God's voice? This quote tells us that “...the obvious prerequisite for hearing God’s Voice,” is “the giving up of judgment... ,” so let us look more closely at this prerequisite
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To give up judgment is to relinquish the certainty we have about our perceptions and the conclusions they lead us to. Fore anyone who has lived a few years, the belief that our perceptions are infallible is fairly quickly realized as completely false, or at least inaccurate in many cases. In this observation alone, we have the obvious logic and motivation for relinquishing our judgments--they do not work. Yet we persist in judging, claiming there is no other apparent means for navigating our human life. This quote suggest we give up judging, i.e. relinquish the certainty we have about our perceptions and our ideas about the world and about God, thereby allowing a deeper knowledge to come to us.
We depend on our perceptions and judgments out of habit, simply because that is what we have been taught by our parents, elders, teachers, etc., and because that is what everyone else in our environment seems to depend on. But all it takes is a brief review of our lives and the history of our civilizations to clearly show that our judgments leave much to be desired. It is for this reason that more and more of us are increasingly motivated to leave judging to the only One who can judge, and listen to His guidance instead. This is the way to understand who we really are and what our function and purpose is. This is the way to live a more peaceful, happy, and fulfilled life, and it is only this knowledge that offers the hope of lasting salvation for the world.
Our quote says that giving up judgment is “...usually a fairly slow process, not because it is difficult, but because it is apt to be perceived as personally insulting.” This is because we hold highest on the list of desired skills, the “ability” to make “good” judgments as opposed to “bad” ones. Presidents, leaders, company executives, etc., are paid enormous sums of money for having this ability, or at least for appearing to have it, and this is, perhaps, the primarily ability we hope to engender in our offspring through the education system. But our history has shown us time and time again that success in this endeavor is fleeting at best. The conclusions and decisions of our best minds, even with the best intentions, have repeatedly proven to be incomplete, myopic, and at most to serve the best interests of only a few, and even for them, only for a little while. How long need we repeat this painful scenario before we realize that it is hopeless, senseless, and meaningless. How long before we acknowledge that no decision we make however well thought-out, well intentioned, well planned and executed can ever bring complete fulfillment to all for all time. How long before we decide to stop the sacrifice of our collective happiness at the altar to our individual, group, national or international righteousness. How long before we choose to be happy instead of right. How long before we turn to the path that leads to real, meaningful, and lasting solutions. How long before we turn to God and away from our perceptions and judgments; perhaps today?
We are here offered another way to navigate the world, through the relinquishment of our judgments. This is the path that leads to truth, because it is not based on our perceptions and the inevitable, and incomplete conclusions these lead to. It is based instead on the One who knows all means and ends--our Creator. Only the One who created us can know who we really are, our function and purpose, what is real and what illusion, and only that One can lead us to salvation. If we which to know these things, it would be folly to search elsewhere. Where else can such truth exist if not with the Source of all-that-is? Giving up judgment is:
- The willingness to trust not in what we perceive (the world), but in what we can know (God).
- The willingness to lean not upon our own limited understanding of things, but to rely on the infinite wisdom and understanding of our omniscient Creator.
- The willingness to disregard logic, which often leads to insane conclusions, and instead faithfully value God’s communications to us.
- The willingness to choose the joy of God instead of the pain of the world.
Giving up judgments is not difficult once we realize that there is one close at hand who has greater knowledge and wisdom about all subjects. In fact it is quite normal for us to do just this; we naturally depend on the opinions and judgments of “professionals” in every phase of our lives, simply because we recognize that our limited knowledge could engender potential problems that we can easily avoid by trusting in the wisdom of the professional. If it is easy, natural and normal for us to do this with our “things” and with various aspects of our lives, can it be difficult to do it with our very lives? Certainly not! And with respect to our lives, undoubtedly our Creator is the ultimate and only “professional” and His infinite wisdom is close at hand, indeed as close to us as our very breath. Again, it would be folly to trust in any other “wisdom.” Who else could we trust with our life, if not our Creator.
The wise among us has taught us that God’s wisdom is always available and easily accessible to us, all we need do is “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.*” What can be simpler than this? Ask, Seek, and Knock are the means to fulfillment. Ask and remember you ask of One for whom all things are possible. Seek and remember the One who is the source if all that is. Knock and remember the One who always answers. We call these prayers or propitiations for the fulfillment of our desires, and these are well and fine, but let us always remember the One who provides for our fulfillment and look to that One only, for in that One is the fulfillment and the end of all desiring.
Giving up judgments automatically brings us to a space of openness to all possibilities. Without judgments we have no opinion, no investment and no expectation regarding the outcome of a situation. We are free because we have given up all responsibility regarding the outcome to the One who is fully capable of handling any situation so that the best possible outcome is realized with the least amount of effort, stress. or pain. Do as He suggests, following His guidance, letting Him lead, and we will be happily surprised to see things work out even better than we could have ever imagined. We need only have this happen once to recognize it as a superior way of navigating the world, or recognize the obvious benefit of making it a habit, a tool in our problem-solving repertoire, indeed our magic elixir.
Our quote reminds us that: “The world trains for reliance on one’s judgment as the criterion for maturity and strength. Our curriculum trains for the relinquishment of judgment as the necessary condition of salvation." By giving up judgment, we avail ourselves of the wisdom of the One who knows, and thereby guarantee fulfillment and salvation for ourselves and the world.
* Matthew 7:7
