Don't Use Enlightenment as a Weapon

This journey I’ve been on has helped me minimize my judgment of myself and of others, and has shown me how both are interconnected in ways I was completely unaware of. Although I’m not perfect, I’ve been able to react with love instead of judgment when something less than harmonious happens. Instead of taking things personally, I’m able to take a look at why the other person is behaving that way, and what I can do to help instead of attack back and “defend” myself, which isn’t necessary, because I know now that I have nothing to prove.

Unfortunately, I just found myself using enlightened truths as a weapon of judgment. I’ve been reading A Course In Miracles, and I found myself taking some of the truths it speaks of and relating it to how other people have treated me. These are truths that are supposed to help ME. I’m not supposed to use them to determine how other people have “screwed up”. I’m supposed to exclusively think about these truths as they relate to ME and how I interact with others, not the other way around.

It was pretty discouraging when I saw that I was doing this. I tried to snap myself out of it and continue reading from a different perspective, but it wasn’t working, so I just stopped. I figured maybe I was in a mood and I should continue reading at a different time when the mood passed. I just watched a tv show with the same mindset. Not quite as bad, but still relating it to how other people behave. Which is fine in general, but I don’t like the feeling it gives me. Being judgmental. That’s exactly what I’m trying to get away from. I had a couple good thoughts – the tv show expressed that people don’t change, which is something I used to believe. Now I know that isn’t necessarily true, though for the purposes of the tv show it is, because the timeframe and experiences of the characters is too limited for those changes to occur. But people can and do change in their lifetime. It was encouraging that I was able to disagree with the concept somewhat.

I like to help others. I like to show people truths they were unaware of about themselves to help them become better, happier people. But sometimes I get myself in a situation where I want to show or tell someone something that is applicable to how they behave, and it isn’t helpful. All it does is defend me against their behavior. All it does is judge them. It doesn’t actually help them. There is a line, and sometimes that line is very fine.

Ironically, I just had this discussion with one of my friends… I was trying to show him the distinction, because sometimes he has the same problem. He thinks that the situation is “telling people what they NEED to hear instead of what they WANT to hear”. I tried to show him examples of how that isn’t what’s going on in a lot of those cases – sometimes what he is actually doing is telling people his judgment of them as what they “need” to hear, and not telling them what they actually need to hear spiritually because he thinks that’s just what they want to hear. Granted I gave him an opportunity to learn the difference, and it turns out he didn’t need it! At least not in that case. And what’s hilarious is that I’ve just shown that I have the exact same problem sometimes!

One of the truths I’m using as a weapon of judgment is that the Course says that people give too much attention to controlling their actions, and say that you can’t control how you think. Really, you do control how you think – that is the only place where you can exercise free will, and your thoughts directly affect how you behave. It also says not to bring body thoughts to the level of the mind. When I read these things, I felt completely validated in all the arguments I’ve had with people. People like to excuse themselves for thinking horrible things, and place all their value on whether they act on it or not, and I always found that completely disgusting at times. I’ve had endless arguments with people about that sort of thing, so I felt such a victory reading it and directing that truth towards all the people who tried to “lecture” me about how I was wrong and they were right, and that’s just “how it is” and I’m not living in “reality” if I think otherwise. I used it to defend myself in my mind. It felt GREAT at first! Hell yeah, I was right! And by being right, that means there are people out there enlightened enough to not have some of the awful thoughts those people have tried to excuse themselves for! There is hope in the world! And suddenly I have a slight desire to send them those quotes. But for what? What would that accomplish? Most of those people clearly are not in a place to hear such a thing, and most of those people would just attack me and try to find reasons to dismiss and negate it. I shouldn’t be using my free will to choose to want to attack people with these truths so that I can feel better about myself. I already know it is true, and that should be enough. I shouldn’t be trying to argue with people using this as ammunition. Let them go on their own journey. Let them figure it out for themselves. It is not my mission to expose people to these truths, especially when it is in defense of my ego.

Really this is all just a continuation of me fear that all people think a certain way, and those ways are things that I am morally against. I just have to keep reminding myself that there is a balance. People do NOT all think the same way, but I should also not be afraid of the seed of truth in what those horrible thoughts are. The people who upset me are on one extreme, and I am on the other. Not everyone thinks the way they do, but the way I think about it isn’t completely healthy, either. The truth is pure and peaceful. Neither one of us is there. I don’t have to be afraid of it. I’ll get there. I’ll work through my issues, and when I do, their issues cannot be a threat to it. I don’t have to have a fear that they are right. They are not right. But I also don’t have to point that out to them. They think that way because of their own experiences and fears. I don’t have to defend myself against their issues. That doesn’t even make any sense. I don’t have to defend myself against another person’s perception of reality – even when I know a lot of people with the same one. I know it is only a certain type of people, and if that perception bothers me so much, I need to just stop exposing myself to it until I can handle it better. I need to stop surrounding myself with people who trigger all the issues I have and are preventing me from making progress. And really, I’ve already done that. I’m not around them anymore. So now it’s just all in my head…

Let it go. I need to just let it go. Working through it here in this post was actually extremely therapeutic. I think now that I’ve worked through that, I can get back to reading inspiring literature as a means to help me and only me, because that is where my reality begins and ends.