Corresponding Manual for Teachers Section

Chapter 4: Teacher / Individual Questions

2. How Is Judgment Relinquished?

Judgment, like other devices by which the world of illusions is maintained, is totally misunderstood by the world. It is often confused with wisdom, and substituted for Truth. As the world uses the term, an individual is capable at any time of “good” as well as “bad” judgment, and their education aims at strengthening the former and minimizing the latter.

There is, however, considerable confusion about what these categories mean. What is “good” judgment to one is “bad” judgment to another. Further, even the same person classifies the same action as showing “good” judgment at one time and “bad” judgment at another time. Nor can any consistent criteria for determining what these categories mean actually be taught, because judgments are themselves judged by their perceived effects after the fact. At any time a person may disagree with what someone trying to teach them “good” judgment says about it, and the person trying to teach them may themself be inconsistent in what they believe it is. “Good judgment” in these terms does not mean anything, and neither does “bad.”

It is necessary for the Teachers of the Divine to realize not that they should not judge, but that they cannot. In giving up judgment they merely give up what they did not have. They give up an illusion, or better, they have an illusion of giving up. They have actually merely become more honest. Recognizing that judgment – determining what things are real and which courses of action are right based on the split or rational mind – was always impossible for them, they no longer attempt it. This is no sacrifice. On the contrary, they put themselves in a position where true Interpretation and Evaluation by Spirit through them can occur.

Spirit’s Interpretation and Evaluation are neither “good” nor “bad.” They are simply based on the only true judgment there is, which is the Divine’s Judgment:

“The Divine’s Children are innocent, and sin does not exist.”

The aim of our curriculum, unlike the goal of the world’s learning, is the recognition that judgment in the usual sense is impossible. This is not an opinion but a fact. Understanding the power of judgment on everything it touches, in order to judge anything seriously and correctly, that is, for one’s judgment to be anything other than fantasy posing as reasonableness, one would have to be fully aware of an inconceivably wide range of things past, present, and to come. One would have to recognize in advance all the effects of their judgment on everyone and everything involved in it in any way. And one would have to be certain that there is no distortion in their perception, so that their judgment would be wholly fair to everyone on whom it rests now and in the future. What person is in a position to do this? Who, except in grandiose fantasies, would claim this for themself?

Remember how many times you thought you knew all the “facts” you needed for “sound” judgment, and how wrong you were! Is there anyone who has not had this experience? And this does not take into account how many times you merely thought you were right, without ever realizing you were wrong. Why would you choose such an arbitrary basis for decision-making?

Judgment is not wisdom; wisdom is the relinquishment of judgment. Make then only one more judgment of your own, which is that there is One Who is with you Whose Interpretation and Evaluation are perfect. This One does know all the facts, past, present, and to come. It does know all the effects of Its Interpretation and Evaluation on everyone and everything involved in any way. And It is wholly fair to everyone, for there is no distortion in Its Perception.

Therefore lay all judgment aside, not with regret but with a sigh of gratitude. Now are you free of a burden so great that, were you to be aware of it, you could merely stagger and fall down beneath it, as you have done. And it was all illusion. Nothing more. Now can the Teachers of the Divine rise up unburdened and walk lightly on. Yet it is not only this that is their benefit. Their sense of anxiety is gone, for they have none. They have given it away along with judgment. For they have given themselves to the One Whose Interpretation and Evaluation they have chosen now to trust instead of their own judgments. Now their mistakes are quickly corrected, for their Guide makes no mistakes. Their Guide is sure. And with It by their side, where they once came to judge they now come to bless. Where they used to weep they now laugh.

It is not difficult to relinquish judgment. But it is difficult indeed to try to keep it. The Teachers of the Divine lay it down happily the instant they recognize its cost. All of the ugliness they perceived around them was its outcome. All of the pain they looked upon and experienced was its result. All of the loneliness and sense of loss, of passing time and growing hopelessness, of sickening despair and fear of death, came from judgment. And now they know that these things need not be. Not one is true. For they have given up the cause of these things, and these have disappeared like mist in the morning sunlight, because they were only the effects of their mistaken choice of perspective—of judgment.

Every Teacher of the Divine learns that their giving up of judgment brings them Peace. Can it be difficult to want only this?