Common steps and sub-activities

Tolerance [Stop being judgemental]

Tolerance - Stopping being judgemental is a very very gentle form of attrition – the slow breakdown of the Will by constantly suppressing our feelings that we know best, that somehow we know what right and wrong are, that our belief system is right.

Background

For those brought up within the Jewish, Christian or Islamic religious faiths or a myriad of other faiths, good and bad are absolutes. We are taught to believe that the objectives of the Creator are based on ‘good’ and ’bad’, but this is actually incorrect.

What is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’ for example are the products of our culture and our position in that culture. What is ‘ugly’ and what is ‘beautiful’, what is ‘valuable’ and what is ‘not valuable’ is largely a personal or cultural thing. A poisonous snake is not ‘bad’ it just is. A venomous scorpion is not ‘bad’ it just is. A wolf is not ‘bad’ it just is - in fact a wolf is beautiful if we accept it just is. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.

All things are valuable and beautiful if they form part of the creation, it is only people that impose these sorts of value judgements. It is acceptance of this fact that helps people I think to live at peace with what happens and to possibly stop making these sorts of erroneous value judgements.

Thus good and bad do not exist in heaven. There is no such concept. All that do exists are HURT and LOVE and the rule is DON’T HURT. For more details see Sin.

It is our belief systems that determine what we perceive as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and belief systems are invented by man.

In practise, all learnt function is belief. Although scientists may confidently state that something is fact and scientifically proven, their discoveries are just as much beliefs as the beliefs of the religious. One can never be sure that there are not events and observations that will overturn a theory or hypothesis, so our mind is actually full of belief systems, that just about help us to survive, but are a major block to spiritual experience. The busy mind is busy with beliefs and they have to go.

So what on earth does someone do?

Method

One technique on this website provides you with a method of learning how to question your beliefs – see Questioning and Doubting all existing beliefs – but an interesting first step is this one and it requires the person to stop judging others, to stop criticising others for their beliefs or who they are…………..

Alice through the Looking glass – Lewis Carroll

This time she came upon a large flower-bed, with a border of daisies, and a willow-tree growing in the middle.

'O Tiger-lily,' said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving gracefully about in the wind, 'I WISH you could talk!'

'We CAN talk,' said the Tiger-lily: 'when there's anybody worth talking to.'

Alice was so astonished that she could not speak for a minute: it quite seemed to take her breath away. At length, as the Tiger-lily only went on waving about, she spoke again, in a timid voice--almost in a whisper. 'And can ALL the flowers talk?'

'As well as YOU can,' said the Tiger-lily. 'And a great deal louder.'

'It isn't manners for us to begin, you know,' said the Rose, 'and I really was wondering when you'd speak! Said I to myself, "Her face has got SOME sense in it, though it's not a clever one!" Still, you're the right colour, and that goes a long way.'

'I don't care about the colour,' the Tiger-lily remarked. 'If only her petals curled up a little more, she'd be all right.'

Alice didn't like being criticised, so she began asking questions.

'Aren't you sometimes frightened at being planted out here, with nobody to take care of you?'

'There's the tree in the middle,' said the Rose: 'what else is it good for?'

'But what could it do, if any danger came?' Alice asked.

'It says "Bough-wough!"' cried a Daisy: 'that's why its branches are called boughs!'

'Didn't you know THAT?' cried another Daisy, and here they all began shouting together, till the air seemed quite full of little shrill voices. 'Silence, every one of you!' cried the Tiger-lily, waving itself passionately from side to side, and trembling with excitement. 'They know I can't get at them!' it panted, bending its quivering head towards Alice, 'or they wouldn't dare to do it!'

'Never mind!' Alice said in a soothing tone, and stooping down to the daisies, who were just beginning again, she whispered, 'If you don't hold your tongues, I'll pick you!'

There was silence in a moment, and several of the pink daisies turned white.

Once that is done and they listen, then the technique above can be used.

All it requires method wise is that the person holds their tongue and listens as opposed to passing judgement the whole time.

The Cloud of Unknowing

And so I warn you, think twice about passing judgement on the lives of other men. In the privacy of your own conscience judge yourself as you see fit before God or before your spiritual father, but do not meddle in the lives of others

We do not know what motivates other men to do what they do – the reasons may be sound and in the long term the way the world should be progressing. Furthermore, our beliefs regarding moral actions – man made as they are – may be wholly incorrect, and what we imperiously condemn as a ‘sin’ or morally wrong, may actually be perfectly alright and it is our belief system and ‘morals’ that are suspect. Remember that in the spiritual world the only rule is ‘don’t hurt’.

The Cloud of Unknowing

Some who are now despised and held in contempt shall on that day [when they die and go to heaven] reign in splendour with the saints.

And perhaps some of those who have never ‘sinned’ grievously and who to all appearances are pious people, venerated as gods by other men shall find themselves in misery among the damned.

My point is that in this life no man may judge another as good or evil simply on the evidence of his deeds.

Observations

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WHAT AND WHERE IS HEAVEN?

VISIONS AND HALLUCINATIONS

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Common steps and sub-activities

Tolerance [Stop being judgemental]

Background

Method

Observations