Inner
Purpose
“So
the most important thing to realize is this: Your life has an inner
purpose and an outer purpose...Your inner purpose is to awaken. It is
as simple as that.”
Eckhart
Tolle (A New Earth)
Yesterday,
in the spirituality group, we talked about judging. The
conversation went round and round, as always, with some saying “we
should never judge another person,” and some saying, “judging is
human and necessary.” Both are true. We humans have an inborn
judging function, which is quite adaptive; we size things up, we test
the water, we experiment and conclude, we plan and develop. Were we
to rid ourselves of judging entirely, chaos would ensue. On the other
hand, some of us are over-developed in this area. Our judging
function overwhelms and utterly disables our feeling function.
We see this most clearly in world politics today, but it exists
within us, too. Sometimes our ego wants something so much, it will
justify whatever means necessary to get it.
There
is a difference between judging and being judgmental. Judging is more
likely to be connected to our ethical code—it allows us to consider
the rightness or wrongness of any given thought or action. Being
judgmental often involves maliciousness—I will say or do something
hateful, just to hurt the other person, or to put myself one rung up
on the ladder.
The
key here, as always, is awareness—self-awareness—consciousness.
If I am oblivious to my motives, I can behave with impunity; I can
say or do whatever suits me, without concern for the consequences of
my actions. On the other hand, if I am self-aware, I will question
myself: “What is going on here?” “Why am I acting this way?”
Now, my good and useful judging function is engaging my feeling one,
and using it to mediate. When the two work together there is balance.
Neither works very well in isolation. Awareness makes all the
difference.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
No comments:
Post a Comment