Judging Love

When we think about love, the word “judgment” may not enter our minds. But too often judgment builds a wall that separates us from love. I am not talking about just romantic love, but agape, universal love, including self love.

When you judge you miss the experience of being present to the love that is right before you. Judgment requires comparison and measurement. How can you possibly be present to love when your mind is distracted by what should be, could be, once was, or might have been?

In the New Testament as part of his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus asks, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

It is this plank—our misinformed beliefs that have separated us from Christ consciousness--that cause us to judge. We judge if we have the need to be right and believe we are more than others. We judge if we believe we are less and we make others our heroes, not understanding that we are One and equally capable of expressing God.

We can only love one another fully when we are equal and not judging ourselves to be powerless or victims.

Matthew 7 asks: “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?”

We are told to take the plank out of our own eye first, and then we will see clearly to remove the speck from our brother’s eye. This is enlightenment and through grace we have this ability to heal ourselves by looking at our own selves, not with judgment by the ego but with the true self, which always includes love and understanding.

--Patrice Gaines for Unity of Charlotte