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THIS
ARTICLE IS AIMED AT PEOPLE LIKE MYSELF WHO, in having moved beyond
such fundamental judgment like prejudice, may, without even realizing
it, HAVE come to refine their judgment into the finer aspects of the
polarity that could be described as "evolved-unevolved," most
commonly felt in the thought that one is more "spiritually evolved"
than someone else. I believe that spiritual superiority and elitism
are something that needs to be addressed in the spiritual community.
That said, the ultimate form of non-judgment is to not judge judgment,
and the ultimate form of that is to not judge yourself for your own
judgment. So if, through this article, you find judgment in yourself,
please do not be ashamed; that is not my intent. I am just presenting
ideas for your discernment.
~~~~~
The more
I have awakened, the more I have come to face the paradoxes that exist
in reality. One truth that I am personally very certain of is that there
is no one truth; that all paths lead to enlightenment. Put another way,
I believe that everyone is exactly where they need to be at every moment
and are fulfilling the path they have set for themselves. I find I react
strongly to people who proclaim they have found the "true"
path. People who say they have the answer, and that those without this
knowledge are surely lost. In fact it is probably true to say that I
look upon them as being the ones that are lost as they are so in conflict
with my truth that there is no one truth. In doing this, unfortunately
for me, I step on my own point. I have stated that their "one truth"
viewpoint won’t lead them to "evolve" when I myself am
stating that all paths lead to enlightenment. I have fallen into judgment.
In the spiritual community I have met many wonderfully open-minded people
who don’t seem to have a negative word to say. They are always
looking for the "good" in everyone. However, when they are
faced with someone being judgmental a different side comes out. At worst,
they may become hostile, but more often, they start making statements
that clearly label the person as "unevolved," statements of
superiority, and, not to mention, statements that start out with, "What
you need to do is..." when the person has not requested any help.
In the mid-ground, before judgment of judgment, is a whole area of people
expressing judgment over others who, for example, show anger or negativity,
or are into things that some consider to be wacky or fringe, or who
smoke or dabble in drugs, eat meat, or - the greatest sin of all - who
don’t connect at all with our most beloved spiritual book. "You
didn’t like the Seth Material! Oh shame, it is quite high level.
You can’t have understood it. You probably aren’t ready for
it yet." Inside, we have written them off as being only someone
who can learn from us, and not someone we could ever learn from. We
think that maybe, if they show willingness, we can teach to them what
we know.
Okay, most people aren’t that outwardly blatant, but I am just
trying to convey the point. I really do believe nearly
all of us, including myself, use this evolved-unevolved polarity scale
in our heads, and whether we mean to or not upon meeting someone we
very rapidly give them a score and interact with them accordingly. It
is my contention that in doing this, we not only do them a disservice,
but we do ourselves a disservice. We cut ourselves off from what they
could teach us. To throw in another one of my "truths," I
believe that everyone on this planet is unique, contains uniqueness,
and therefore everyone has something to teach us. If someone appears
in your life, then you put them there, for a reason.
When I come to look at this type of "refined" judgment in
myself, a pattern soon emerges. What I am in fact doing is saying, "How
similar to my own beliefs are this person’s beliefs?" I consider
myself "evolved," and therefore the more of my beliefs they
share, the more evolved they are. If they are in disagreement with my
beliefs then they are less evolved. If they hold my core beliefs, and
then teach me something, then they are more evolved than I am. Here
I keep using the word "evolved," although you may personally
have a different word. Polarity can be expressed in many ways, such
as pure-impure, good-evil, right-wrong, saved-fallen, "found the
light"-"lost in darkness."
So where does this come from?
To become what we are, we will have made many choices in our lives.
These vary from personal spiritual choices (what we do and don’t
believe) to choices in the way we live our lives. We of course like
to think that we have made the "right" choices; that we haven’t
made mistakes. In the desire to feel we have taken the right path, often
an attachment is made to those choices and sometimes even a feeling
of threat from people that have made different choices.
"Why didn’t they choose what I chose? Why have they rejected
what I have accepted? Do they think that I am making a mistake? Do they
think that I am on the wrong path?"
When we each make choices in life, we obviously make what we consider
the "best" choice. We are each clearly trying to forge our
own best path. This is the nature of our reality: to use our free will
to discern a path for ourselves. Many of these choices are deeply personal.
Many of these choices are hard to make. With so much energy going into
this process it is only to be expected that we feel attached to these
choices. They are bets that we make, and we want to know if the outcome
will pay off in the way that we hope. Will our expectations be fulfilled?
Essentially, I am saying I believe we are naturally attached
to the choices that we make for ourselves, what we are attached to we
value, and value is a currency. So when we interact with others and
assess their beliefs in relation to our own, we are determining how
much currency they have and how much to value them. The scary result
is that those like us score highly, and we interact joyfully with them;
those that are different from us score low, and we tend to walk away
from them. This leads us to be constantly in a process of reaffirming
our own beliefs and sheltering us from different viewpoints. This surely
is not a good set-up for expanding our understanding. We fall into our
beliefs becoming a heavily trodden rut that we cannot easily step out
of to embrace new ideas; worse than that, we cut ourselves off from
having a wide understanding/perspective. You do not need to believe
everything you hear, but I think it is wise to at least try to understand
why the people that believe different things from you believe them.
And I mean really understand, not just fall into the easy conclusion
that they are just less evolved than you!
A lot of this comes from our attachment to spirituality. Yes, you heard
me right! I imagine that each of you reading this has made a strong
commitment to spirituality. It is one of your deepest life choices.
As such we each have an individual spirituality of huge value. The scale
of evolved-unevolved includes all things - how evolved are you at: baking
an apple pie, understanding quantum physics, building a house, raising
children, artistic expression, computer programming, public speaking,
flying a plane, etc. As a community we tend to forget these other things;
we are so focused on spirituality that we have inadvertently limited
our polarity to contain only it. We see it as the "true" measure.
As I mentioned earlier, I believe we are all unique; we all contain
uniqueness. Coming to this understanding, more than anything else, has
helped me on the path of releasing me from the evolved-unevolved polarity.
Within the polarity, we are seemingly a path of people from one "unevolved"
end, marching our way forwards trying to get to "evolved."
In many ways it is seen that those further ahead know more than those
below them. This is essentially saying that all the people below you
(on this illusionary scale) are a sub-set of you. You are all of them
plus more. You have nothing to learn from them, and they need to learn
more in order to reach the point that where you are. In this, we miss
the point that the first of us to levitate may only just be catching
up with the woman in Finland who through years of practice has learnt
to make the most "perfect" apple pie that you will ever taste!
In reality though, there is no "catching up," because we are
all perfect; in each and every moment, we are perfect at being us.
As for me, I am working hard at trying not to apply my beliefs
about what is important to me, to others. I do seek to further define my own beliefs,
but in seeking that definition, I will try not to be so attached to
needing the reassurance that it is the "right" choice. It
just is. I will try not to be threatened by those who believe differently
from me. I will not devalue myself when I meet someone that I perceive
as "advanced." I will try to move beyond falling into the
game of trying to show others that I am spiritually evolved.
I have my uniqueness, and that is what makes certain things resonate
with me. I will seek to open myself to other viewpoints, and not judge
people whose viewpoints are contrary to mine. I do not need to believe
what they do, but I do need to accept that it is perfect in each moment
for them to believe as they do. They are no more right or wrong than
I, for we are each trying to solve a unique dilemma. They are the evolving
answer to their question, and I am evolving the answer to mine.
©
Aehron 2003
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