T-3.VI Judgment and the Authority Problem
1. We have already discussed the Last Judgment, but in insufficient detail. ²After the Last Judgment there will be no more. ³Judgment is symbolic because beyond perception there is no judgment. ⁴When the Bible says “Judge not that ye be not judged”, it means that if you judge the reality of others you will be unable to avoid judging your own.
2. The choice to judge rather than to know is the cause of the loss of peace. ²Judgment is the process on which perception but not knowledge rests. ³I have discussed this before in terms of the selectivity of perception, pointing out that evaluation is its obvious prerequisite. ⁴Judegment always involves rejection. ⁵It never emphasizes only the positive aspects of what is judged, whether in you or in others. ⁶What has been perceived and rejected, or judged and found wanting, remains in your mind because it has been perceived. ⁷One of the illusions from which you suffer is the belief that what you judged against has no effect. ⁸This cannot be true unless you also believe that what you judged against does not exist. ⁹You evidently do not believe this, or you would not have judged against it. ¹⁰In the end it does not matter whether your judgment is right or wrong. ¹¹Either way you are placing your belief in the unreal. ¹²This cannot be avoided in any type of judgment, because it implies the belief that reality is yours to select from.
3. You have no idea of the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from meeting yourself and your brothers totally without judgment. ²When you recognize what you are and what your brothers are, you will realize that judging them in any way is without meaning. ³In fact, their meaning is lost to you precisely because you are judging them. ⁴All uncertainty comes from the belief that you are under the coercion of judgment. ⁵You do not need judgment to organise your life, and you certainly do not need it to organise yourself. ⁶In the presence of knowledge all judgment is automatically suspended, and this is the process that enables recognition to replace perception.
4. You are very fearful of everything you have perceived but have refused to accept. ²You believe that, because you have refused to accept it, you have lost control over it. ³This is why you see it in nightmares, or in pleasant disguises in what seem to be your happier dreams. ⁴Nothing that you have refused to accept can be brought into awareness. ⁵It is not dangerous in itself, but you have made it seem dangerous to you.
5. When you feel tired, it is because you have judged yourself as capable of being tired. ²When you laugh at someone, it is because you have judged him as unworthy. ³When you laugh at yourself you must laugh at others, if only because you cannot tolerate the idea of being more unworthy than they are. ⁴All this makes you feel tired because it is essentially disheartening. ⁵You are not really capable of being tired, but you are very capable of wearying yourself. ⁶The strain of constant judgment is virtually intolerable. ⁷It is curious that an ability so debilitating would be so deeply cherished. ⁸Yet if you wish to be the author of reality, you will insist on holding on to judgment. ⁹You will also regard judgment with fear, believing that it will someday be used against you. ¹⁰This belief can exist only to the extent that you believe in the efficacy of judgment as a weapon of defense for your own authority.
6. God offers only mercy. ²Your words should reflect only mercy, because that is what you have received and that is what you should give. ³Justice is a temporary expedient, or an attempt to teach you the meaning of mercy. ⁴It is judgmental only because you are capable of injustice.
7. I have spoken of different symptoms, and at that level there is almost endless variation. ²There is, however, only one cause for all of them: the authority problem. ³This is “the root of all evil”. ⁴Every symptom the ego makes involves a contradiction in terms, because the mind is split between the ego and the Holy Spirit, so that whatever the ego makes is incomplete and contradictory. ⁵This untenable position is the result of the authority problem which, because it accepts the one inconceivable thought as its premise, can produce only ideas that are inconceivable.
8. The issue of authority is really a question of authorship. ²When you have an authority problem, it is always because you believe you are the author of yourself and project your delusion onto others. ³You then perceive the situation as one in which others are literally fighting you for your authorship. ⁴This is the fundamental error of all those who believe they have usurped the power of God. ⁵This belief is very frightening to them, but hardly troubles God. ⁶He is, however, eager to undo it, not to punish His children, but only because He knows that it makes them unhappy. ⁷God’s creations are given their true Authorship, but you prefer to be anonymous when you choose to separate yourself from your Author. ⁸Being uncertain of your true Authorship, you believe that your creation was anonymous. ⁹This leaves you in a position where it sounds meaningful to believe that you created yourself. ¹⁰The dispute over authorship has left such uncertainty in your mind that it may even doubt whether you really exist at all.
9. Only those who give over all desire to reject can know that their own rejection is impossible. ²You have not usurped the power of God, but you have lost it. ³Fortunately, to lose something does not mean that it has gone. ⁴It merely means that you do not remember where it is. ⁵Its existence does not depend on your ability to identify it, or even to place it. ⁶It is possible to look on reality without judgment and merely know that it is there.
10. Peace is a natural heritage of spirit. ²Everyone is free to refuse to accept his inheritance, but he is not free to establish what his inheritance is. ³The problem everyone must decide is the fundamental question of authorship. ⁴All fear comes ultimately, and sometimes by way of very devious routes, from the denial of Authorship. ⁵The offence is never to God, but only to those who deny Him. ⁶To deny His Authorship is to deny yourself the reason for your peace, so that you see yourself only in segments. ⁷This strange perception is the authority problem.
11. There is no one who does not feel that he is imprisoned in some way. ²If this is the result of his own free will he must regard his will as not free, or the circular reasoning in this position would be quite apparent. ³Free will must lead to freedom. ⁴Judgment always imprisons because it separates segments of reality by the unstable scales of desire. ⁵Wishes are not facts. ⁶To wish is to imply that willing is not sufficient. ⁷Yet no one in his right mind believes that what is wished is as real as what is willed. ⁸Instead of “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven” say, “Will ye first the Kingdom of Heaven”, and you have said, “I know what I am and I accept my own inheritance”.