judgment
The mental process of trying to decide what things are, which things are desirable and worthy, and which are dangerous and guilty. This results in rewarding and selecting certain things and punishing and rejecting others (see CE T-3.VII.11:7-12:4). On this process rests our perceptions, our emotions, our attitudes and our behavior.
- This process does not apply to reality, which is all one and is given. Reality can only be accepted and known, not judged.
- Judgment is the process by which we make and organize our illusory worlds, surrounding ourselves with those illusions which we think will support our egos. We apply this process to people, judging which ones deserve special treatment (see special relationship) and which ones deserve punishment (see CE T-15.V.7).
- Judgment is meant to make us safe, but it really brings separateness, guilt, fear and the impossible burden of trying to play God (see CE M-10.6).
- Judgment is not our function (see CE T-14.XI.4:2-3). It should be given to the Holy Spirit, Who will tell us what things mean and what we should do. He sees only one difference: the difference between reality and illusion (see CE M-8.6). He thus separates all things in the world into those that reflect reality and those that reinforce illusion.
- The right use of judgment is to judge the ego and decide it is both undesirable and untrue (see CE T-4.VI.12:1-3). See Last Judgment.
See CE T-3.X.