This is why loved ones often attack with the most animosity and intensity, leaving long lasting wounds, often impervious to healing. If we are close and you have attained an intimate or “deep understanding” of me, in our emotional combat you will seek to wound me at my weakest points, as only those who know each other intimately will wound the deepest and require the most time to heal. Isn’t this the art of war in which the enemy of my enemy is my friend. My defects of self are enemies of my ‘self,’ but in combat clearly an ally to you.
You must judge degree of threat (only in the rarest of circumstances based on bodily protection) in support of your ‘ego-self,’ which is a compilation of all the beliefs that you hold true about “you.” You base the degree and magnitude of protective mechanisms on the evaluated degree of threat and not all threat requires a full frontal attack, often simply a shot across the bow might do as warning. This judging of threat occurs on a daily basis and happens immediately upon meeting with a stranger in your assessing friend or foe. It may even kick into gear when your dearest life-long friend makes a statement, no matter how seemingly innocuous to your friend, that you perceive as judgmental in some way. Of course, this threat is NOT death to the body, but could it portend threat of death to the “self,’ or that package of beliefs we all idolize and seek to protect at all costs?
SELF-CREATION IS SELF PROTECTION
The self is “you” and was painstakingly constructed from past beliefs, each belief meticulously adopted to maintain correspondence with, or belief in, an individual, isolated ‘self.’ This is the identity you idolize as ‘real’ but has absolutely no existence outside your mind. Nevertheless, you must be vigilant toward accentuating and building upon your manufactured ‘self’ and protecting it from all threat. This self-protection is no less important than threats to your bodily existence or that 'form' which you believe contains the ‘self.’ In fact, many theorists contend that ‘self’ protection takes priority above bodily protection, although essentially both modes of protection are the same. The problem is that protection of your belief in ‘self’ can occur on a daily basis, while rarely will the body be threatened.
The ‘I’ is the most valuable investment you will ever make (your life literally depends on it) and you have learned that protecting ‘you’ is paramount to your survival and also the quality of ‘your’ life. You are an ‘I” existing amongst other ‘I’s,’ all competing for self-enhancing rewards and ever greater access to resources through which to develop and grow your ‘self.’ You must persevere in asserting your “me” (which is how ‘you’ think of your ‘self’ amidst other ‘I’s’) because you are acutely aware of all the other “me’s’ asserting their needs in a world of separate and divided “me’s’ all competing for "happiness." This requires your judging capacity be exquisitely fine-tuned and always ready for action. In fact, is there ever a moment when you are not acutely judging reality in relation to the ‘self’?
From moment to moment, you must identify aspects of reality, or the world external to the ‘I’ belief package, that threaten your 'self’ and aspects that may enhance, embellish, augment and even forcibly assert the “self,’ into a world full of other ‘selves.’ Quite a massive undertaking, yet you do it automatically, in fact, it is ‘your’ only purpose because ‘you’ have no other and to ‘you,’ it is your raison d’etre or reason for being The ego has no other purpose, but to negotiate a reality clearly adverse to an individual identity or a “me.”
Of course, all the other ‘selves,’ in asserting an existence in competition to your own, must judge you, as you judge them and you are fully aware of this fact in regards to all “others.” ‘They’ are just as attuned to threat as ‘you’ and are judging ways to minimize threat and increase ‘self-development for their ‘me.’ Their protective mechanisms are as attuned to self-protection and self-assertion as ‘you.’ So how can you surrender your need to judge them if, in fact, they are actively judging you? (this is what Sartre refers to as the anxiety experienced in “the look of the other”)
Yet, not only are we aware of the threat posed by others, but what about nature? And what about chance? These and many other factors must be taken into account or judged accordingly, in relation to the self-enhancement and protection of the ‘self’ that you have determined is unequivocally and undeniably ‘you.’ No wonder we need sleep on a daily basis as this constant judgmental process is literally intolerable without mental rest.
FINDING THE SPIRITUAL ‘YOU’
However, one day you embark on your spiritual journey, quite often due to the exhaustion of this constant judging and the desire for shelter from this relentless storm of competing “selves”. For decades, you sought to press your ‘self’ into the world because the world taught you that by doing so, you will reap the rewards of a well developed and publicly accentuated ‘self.’ Since, clearly it is only through this mental mingling of selves that ‘your’ value becomes known to you, and thus, you have learned that the greatest value is to be a greater ‘self’ amidst and above all other selves.
We do this through self-development and the seemingly blind adoption of the world’s value system. The world teaches that by embarking on an illustrious career, accumulating large bank accounts, possessing expensive objects, attaining self-esteem and high social standing, exhibiting titles and property, interacting with only the right bodies, etc, etc, etc, you will attain the happiness of a fulfilled “self’ through adherence to this hierarchy of values.
Unfortunately, or so it would seem, the path that the world teaches often results in as much failure as success. Even when partially attained, the expected goal of “happiness’ never seems to sustain and demands the ‘self’ seek further. However, the world has always taught that happiness through the world is possible and what you seek does exist, so who are you to argue with what the world teaches since everybody else’s ‘self’ is engaged in the same pursuits as ‘you.’ We can’t all be wrong can we?
Yet, alas, one day you begin to entertain the slightest doubt about what the world teaches and you begin to consider that 'it' might be wrong and so you begin to explore other value systems, particularly as posed by Spirit and the various paths this requires.
This seems to be a time of immense conflict, because, although your nagging suspicion of the world’s value system drives you deeper within to this abstraction referred to as “Spirit,” you must still engage the concrete world on the world’s terms. Nevertheless, Spirit begins to intercede on your judgments leading to an altered perception of the world.
Many paths present, in one way or another, the Christ message of “judge not, lest ye be judged.” Religion provides lip-service to this message, but in your new found skill of spiritual self-inquiry, you sense there is more to this idea than presented through religious dogma. You explore deeper into the evident contradiction that it is not only those who would attack your ‘self’ that must be judged, but the very reality necessary to support the ‘self’ could easily annihilate the self (and its bodily container) without a moments notice. One day you’re here, the next gone.
Now you realize that your judgment was not only directed toward self-protection from other ‘selves,’ but self-protection from the entire world or the whole of reality. In fact, you begin to believe that quite possibly all your self-development strategies may in fact result in the reverse of what you desire. Instead of the happiness you seek, varying degrees of suffering seems to dog your every step. Relationships fail or, at the least, fail to sustain and the accumulation of encounters with ‘success” fade much too quickly just as the enjoyment of possessions obtained for pleasure become worthless encumbrances.
Now you begin to allow your thinking to consider that your pursuit of happiness may in fact have been a useless path to nothingness. You begin to see things differently and gradually the process of “judgment” seeks out alternative information contrary to what the world teaches as “truth.” In fact, the ‘judgment’ that the ancient masters have informed you must be relinquished is not only the judgment of others and the world, but the judgment of YOU against your ‘self’. The very ‘self’ that you are so hell bent on protecting often turns against you and will be quick to inform you that your spiritual path is worthless and you are a fool.
This is because the ‘self,’ essentially constructed of past ‘judgments,’ must now fear this new and all-encompassing judgment of JUDGE NOT LEST YE BE JUDGED. “But how can this be!,” the ‘self’ demands, “when I have worked so hard through so many seemingly infinite moments of judgment, to protect us, insure our existence and to enhance the quality of our life.” The ‘self’ informs you that only IT can provide ‘you’ happiness and you have only one question in response, "when!" So you press on in search of a better way.
There is a better way and it begins with reducing the workload of the ‘self.’ Judgment is the burden that weighs us down and encircles us in a self-protective bubble that obstructs our vision and keeps us from seeing the opportunities for peace, joy and love. Self-protection and the constant need to judge threat, by its very nature can only allow so much love or joy to enter. Therefore, it is crucial that we choose those relationships through which we can come out from our fortifications and let our guard down. These are the significant others who are not supposed to attack us, but instead love, honor and protect our ‘self’ as we seek to protect the ‘self’ they idolize and worship.
Yet, sadly, even this hallowed ground is not immune from self-protection. The moment I sense attack from you I will reflexively seek to self-protect. I may “forgive” your attack, but if you persist, I will defend and, of course, the best defense is a good offense. Eventually, you may turn to others for the intimacy and closeness you so desire while you have fortified your defenses against me, the one you vowed to love. You have judged me as a threat to your ‘self’ and I, in the name of self-protection, must do the same until eventually we part and I become the “EX” lover, husband, wife, friend. I have been EXcluded, but then, so have you.
There are a million self-development sites on the internet all seeking to enhance the ‘self’ in order to accentuate quality of life and fortify against attack. Self-esteem is nothing more than creating fortifications to minimize attack from others and to protect against an attacking world. The stronger my sense of self, the more impervious I will be against your judgments and the judgments of the world. Thus, the world teaches the enhancement of judicious decisions. In fact, we often refer to the most judicious of us, or those who make the best judgments, as exhibiting profound “wisdom.”
But what happens if I completely suspend my self-protection and related judging capacity? What if I gradually let go of my need to judge not just you, but the entire world? What if I no longer seek out potential threat and allow myself to be targeted by your judgments, but to no effect? What if I become impervious to judgment not through a reinforced and strengthened self, but through a diminishing or fading self?
Psychology teaches strong ego-boundaries lead to a successful life. But this is true only when success is defined through the world’s value system. Now I allow my judging capacity (the reticular activating system of the brain) to be severely minimized and focused on only the most crucial stimuli (not walking into walls, and maintaining basic bodily functions). Now there is no longer a need to discriminate between opposites and judge between opposing variables.
Or, what if I allow my judging function to only affirm and suspend all capacity to negate? In this sense, all perception embraces image and appearance as eligible for rejoicing through the most profound joy. Even death is perceived as wondrous and spectacular.
Obviously, I present the two extremes simply as food for thought, since clearly the ego-self chooses neither to radically rejoice through perception nor to shut down or severely suspend the judgment capacity of perception. Nevertheless, my present belief regarding those who we often refer to as “enlightened masters” is that just such mechanisms of changed perception and diminished judgment are initiated and embraced so as to provide an enduring peace from the conflict of opposites that the world demonstrates. To be enlightened is to rise above the wisdom the world upholds as “truth” into a realm of thought that requires the complete dismissal of all worldly truth and the complete acceptance into the mind of a Truth the ego-self cannot comprehend.
Nevertheless, it is the ego-self that must eventually decide to embark on this journey to Truth. Yet, once the decision to embark is made, funny how quickly the guide always seems to appear.
