St. Jude's Summary 10-28-2008 and 11-4-2008

The last two weeks have seen some interesting discussion. We talked about confronting evil and about avoiding judgment.
Regarding the idea of evil there were a couple of points. One was that even if we think a certain type of behavior is evil, those expressing the behavior are not evil. Evil is not a person or a place. So if we are going to confront evil without becoming evil ourselves, then we need to confront the ideas or energies that are motivating the people who are acting. Sometimes that means acting forcefully against those who are acting in an evil manner, but once their actions are stopped, or they stop acting, then no more force is used. For example, when someone is prevented from committing a crime once the person is apprehended, then no further force is used, and, in fact if excessive force is used that can be punished.
In the Judeo-Christian tradition the most egregious act of evil is to claim that one is acting in the name of God, when in fact one is acting in one’s own interests. This is a violation of the Third Commandment, “You shall not carry the name of the Lord your God in vain.” The seriousness of this commandment is emphasized later in the text where it is listed as the only commandment for which there is no forgiveness. Jesus mentioned this indirectly when he said that any sin would be forgiven except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
The take home lesson is that if you are going to act, then act on your own authority, or on the authority of some organization, but do NOT claim to act on God’s authority unless you are willing to suffer extremely serious spiritual consequences if you are wrong.
The discussion on judgment was animated, and in particular the idea of avoiding judgment was challenged. The question was what to do if we are not to judge. My suggestion was to practice describing. A judgment is an emotionally charged label, and because of its emotional charge we get focused on the label instead of the reality. If we train ourselves to describe, then in order describe accurately we need to become more familiar with the reality we are trying to describe. Description increases our engagement with the situation, judgment reduces our engagement. Note that if we have to act in opposition to something, the more we are able to engage with it the better we will be able to act effectively against it. Using judgmental words against one’s opponents may feel good, but they can give one a delusional sense of knowledge that leads to disaster.
How is all this related to spirituality? There are very destructive processes at work in our world. (This is descriptive and I could go into details about how certain forces are destructive.) Confronting those forces is spiritual work, and engaging with the agents of those forces to limit their destructive actions is the physical aspect of that spiritual work. I think one reason spiritual teachers emphasize non-judgment is that we are able to confront these destructive forces more effectively if we describe instead of judge. That also keeps us from demonizing the physical agents and becoming self-righteous.