NOT JUDGING your SELF !

BUT SCRUTINIZE your self

One should not judge one's intrinsic worth but rather judge one's actions and behavior. Beware of the little self or ego. Guard the true Self or soul.

"I am guarding my light and my treasure, convinced that nobody would gain and I myself would be badly, even hopelessly injured, if I should lose it.  It is most precious not only to me, but above all to the darkness of the Creator, who needs humans to illuminate his Creation.” C. G. Jung

“Why do the ancient masters esteem the Tao? Because being one with the Tao, when you seek you find, when you make a mistake you are forgiven. That is why everyone loves it.” Lao-Tsu

“No human soul is like any other human soul, and therefore the love of God for any human soul is infinite, for no other soul can satisfy the same need in God.”  Yeats

To err is human to forgive Divine

God or Jesus will forgive us for any sin we have done to our-Selves - our soul - in other words to the Divinity. We are made in the image of the Creator which incorporates both light and dark. 

"I create the light and the dark. Choose light!"

 Everyone can be redeemed and the prodigal son or daughter can return to the Father/Mother and be embraced unconditionally with repentance.

However, to clear the slate and for sins done to another, we will have to seek the forgiveness of the other or others even if it will not be granted. Maimonides says that if forgiveness, (without any attempt to rationalize the mistake,) is requested three times, and still not given, the karma then rests on the one who bears the grudge.

“Be patient with yourself, kind to yourself and, above all, release yourself from what you are not accountable.”                                     The Ancestors

 Sadly, some of us feel that they are not worthy. Rather than understand that what they did was a mistake, they believe they are the mistake. This is antithetical to spiritual transformation and healing.

“... and according to your belief, is it done unto you." Matthew

“As you think it so it can be, as you imagine and believe it so it will be. We create our own reality. We are as we imagine, believe and especially decree ourselves to be.   The Ancestors                               (Both positively and negatively.)

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”         Henry Ford

The "Learned Helplessness" of Seligman, the father of positive psychology, can be unlearned. We can become optimistic with the right conditioning.

“The optimist, by his superior wisdom and insight, is making his own heaven, and in the degree he makes his own heaven, is he helping to make one for all the world beside. The pessimist, by virtue of his limitations, is making his own hell, and in the degree that he makes his own hell, is he helping to make one for all mankind.”                          Ralph Waldo Trine

All of us are given different cards to play in life, some better, some worse. We cannot resign ourselves to the cards we are dealt, or our fate. We have to be in control of our own destiny and soul's purpose. Guilt and shame get in our way.

                      “… It matters not how strait the gate,                                                  How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” W.E. Henley

Do not condemn yourself, and do not let others condemn you.

“The judgment of the 99 neither validates nor invalidates the worth of the one.
The many and the few do not speak to value – only to popularity.
Popularity is not to be equated with value.” The Ancestors 

“Self-condemnation strengthens guilt which is one of the greatest obstacles on the path of realization.” Sri Swami Rama

Belief that you are bad and belief you are out of control makes you more so! Self-recrimination and especially guilt and shame disconnect us from the spacious mind thoughts of the frontal lobe and we default to the primitive, survival centers of the brain. This also puts our sympathetic, autonomic, flight or fight responses on overdrive. Remorse and regret should occur when we have done something wrong. The wrong needs to be righted. Guilt and shame, however, happen when we feel that we are intrinsically bad.

 

Shame is prevalent in the West and the incidence is said to be as high as 60%. Guilt can occur even without any wrong doing. We are responsible for but are not our actions.  Practicing Universal Self-Acceptance or an unconditional positive regard for ourselves and others goes a long way to remedying self-condemnation and even the more insidious emotions of guilt and shame.                                         None of us are perfect.

"Shame is the swampland of the soul." C.G Jung

And if your friend does evil to you, say to him, “I forgive you for what you did to me, but how can I forgive you for what you did to yourself?”  Nietzsche

 “Just as its presumptuous to put ourselves above others, so is it pretentious to put ourselves below them.” Unknown

With illness, self-hexing can result from guilt or shame and the feeling that one does not deserve to be well and that the sickness is God's  punishment. Karma does not work that way! Guilt and shame have no place in healing or curing and can disable the Inner Healer which like our soul is made in the Creator's image. We need to change any self-deprecating thoughts perpetuating "dis"-ease or disease that have no validity. It is interesting to note that hexing of another is empowered by the victim's guilt and the nocebo response (the power of belief to   hurt, harm and even kill - the opposite of placebo.)                                                                         

It is said that kahuna shamans of old would hex someone known to have committed a murder and that the hex alone combined with the guilt or shame was sufficient to induce a death sentence. In Southern Africa before the missionaries arrived, ordeal poisons were used in a similar way. Guilt alone has the power to "hex" that person with devastating consequences. Once the sangoma had determined guilt of murder, (with the help of the evidence and divination,) an ordeal poison was administered as a final test. Presumably the mechanism of fatality was an overwhelming sympathetic, guilt ridden fear response which enabled rapid intestinal absorption of the poison causing the guilty party to succumb. In the event of the person not being guilty the person would immediately vomit up the vile tasting potion. A rather drastic form of justice but it illustrates a point.

“Everybody feels inferior in some way or other. And the reason is that we do not accept that everybody is unique. There is no question of inferiority or superiority. Everybody is just one of his/her kind - comparison does not arise.
The moment you accept yourself as you are, without any comparison, all inferiority, all superiority, disappears. In that total acceptance of yourself you will be free from these complexes - inferiority, superiority. Otherwise you will suffer your whole life. Just be yourself, that is enough. You are accepted by the sun, you are accepted by the moon, you are accepted by the trees, you are accepted by the ocean, you are accepted by the earth. What more do you want?
You are accepted by this whole universe. Rejoice in it!” Osho

“Do not believe in anything that can hurt or harm you. Believe in goodness and truth.”

“Beware the windstorms of doubt and the drought of indifference. Avoid the reticence of rhetoric and the subversives of doubt.”          The Ancestors 

These are just intellectual constructs if practiced alone in a cognitive vacuum without a dedicated spiritual practice. We have to subordinate Monkey mind to Big mind, our shadow to our inclination to do good and, our ego to our higher Self. No amount of study will help without going inward and experiencing our own value of Self. We are all made in the image of the Divine and are worthy. The yoga greeting "namaste" - I see the Divine in you - also applies to the Divine in me. 

There are three rules - spiritual practice, spiritual practice, spiritual practice.

“Do you have the patience to wait until your mind settles and 

 the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving until right action arises by itself.”           Tao te Ching

"The most needful time for spiritual practice is when you feel you have no time." The Ancestors

"Cosmic energy enters through the Energy (Etheric) Body and our thoughts determine whether this is positive or negative and how our Etheric body will be (imbalanced or balanced.) Spiritual practice encourages positive flow." Yoga philosophy