Chapter 21
JUDGMENT AND JUSTICE
Charles Fillmore
Dynamics For Living
TRUTH is ready at all times to give judgment and justice. As God is love, so God is justice. These qualities are in Divine Mind in unity, but are made manifest in man’s consciousness too often in diversity. It is through the Christ Mind in the heart that they are unified. When justice and love meet at the heart center, there are balance, poise, and righteousness. When judgment is divorced from love, and works from the head alone, there goes forth the human cry for justice. In his mere human judgment, man is hard and heartless; he deals out punishment without consideration of motive or cause, and justice goes awry.
Good Judgment
Good judgment is developed from Principle. In its perfection it is expressed through man’s mind, with all its absolute relations uncurtailed. Man has the right concept of judgment, and ideally the judges of our courts have that unbiased and unprejudiced discrimination which ever exists in the Absolute. A prejudiced judge is abhorred. A judge who allows himself to be moved by his sympathies is not considered safe.
It is necessary to place judgment in the Absolute in order to demonstrate its supreme power. This is accomplished by one’s first declaring that one’s judgment is spiritual and not material; that its origin is in God; that all its conclusions are based on Truth and that they are absolutely free from prejudice, false sympathy, or personal ignorance. This gives a working center from which the ego, or I AM, begins to set in order its own thought world. The habit of judging others, even in the most insignificant matters of daily life, must be discontinued. The law of judgment works out in a multitude of directions. If we do not observe it in small things, we shall find ourselves failing in large.
Condemnation
Judging from the plane of the personal leads into condemnation. Condemnation is always followed by the fixing of a penalty. We see faults in others, and pass judgment upon them without considering motives or circumstances. Our judgment is often biased and prejudiced; yet we do not hesitate to think of some form of punishment to be meted out to the guilty one. He may be guilty or not guilty; decision as to his guilt or innocence rests in the divine law. We have no right to pass judgment. In our ignorance we are creating thought forces that will react upon us.
Whatever thought you send out will come back to you. This is an unchangeable law of thought action. A man may be just in all his dealings, yet if he condemns others for their injustice, that thought action will bring him into unjust conditions; so it is not safe to judge except in the Absolute. This is the stand which everyone must take–resting judgment of others in the Absolute. When this is done the tendency to condemn will grow less and less, until man, seeing his fellow man as God sees him, will leave him to the Absolute in all cases where he seems unjust.
Judgment Day
The great judgment day of Scripture indicates a time of separation between the true and the false. There is no warrant for the belief that God sends man to everlasting punishment. Modern interpreters of the Scripture say that the “hell of fire” referred to by Jesus means simply a state in which purification takes place.
The word “hell” is not translated with clearness sufficient to represent the various meanings of the word in the original language. There are three words from which “hell” is derived: Sheol, “the unseen state”; Hades, “the unseen world”; and Gehenna, “Valley of Hinnom.” These are used in various relations, nearly all of them allegorical. Hell is a figure of speech that represents a corrective state of mind. When error has reached its limit, the retroactive law asserts itself, and judgment, being part of that law, brings the penalty upon the transgressor. This penalty is not punishment, but discipline, and if the transgressor is truly repentant and obedient, he is forgiven in Truth.
Vacillation
Another form of thought related to judgment is the vacillating of the mind that never seems to know definitely what is the proper thing to do. There must be singleness of mind and loyalty to true ideas. Everyone should have definite beliefs of what is just and right, and stand by them. Condemnation in any of its forms retards freedom of action in the discriminative faculty. We hold ourselves in guilt and condemnation, the natural energies of the mind are weakened and the whole body become inert.
Unjust Treatment
The remedy for all that appears unjust is denial of condemnation of others, or of self, and affirmation of the great universal Spirit of justice, through which all unequal and unrighteous conditions are finally adjusted.
Observing the conditions that exist in the world, the just man would have them righted according to what he perceives to be the equitable law. Unless such a one has spiritual understanding, he is very likely to bring upon himself physical disabilities in his efforts to reform men. If his feelings come to a point of “righteous indignation,” and he “boils” with anger over the evils of the world, he will cook the corpuscles of his blood.
Put all the burdens of the world upon the one supreme Judge and hold every man, and all the conditions in which men are involved, amenable to the law of God. By so doing, you will set into action mind forces powerful and far-reaching.
If you think that you are unjustly treated by your friends, your employers, your government, or those with whom you do business, simply declare the activity of the almighty Mind, and you will set into action mental forces that will find expression in the executors of the law. This is the most lasting reform to which man can apply himself. It is much more effective than legislation or any attempt to control unjust men by human ways.
Jealousy
Jealousy is a form of mental bias that blinds the judgment and causes one to act without weighing the consequences. The remedy for all this is a dismissal of that poor judgment which causes one to be jealous and a fuller trust in the great all-adjusting justice of God.
Success
Success in the world is largely dependent on good judgment. Everywhere businessmen are looking for people who have judgment equal to the making of quick decisions, on the spur of the moment.
By clearing your understanding and acknowledging the one supreme Mind in which is all discrimination, you can cultivate the ability of your mind to arrive quickly at right conclusions. Take the stand that it is your inheritance from God to judge wisely and quickly. Do not depart therefrom by statements of inefficiency in matters of judgment.
When you are in doubt as to the right thing to do in attaining justice in worldly affairs, ask that the eternal Spirit of justice shall go forth in your behalf and bring about and restore to you that which is your very own. Do not ask for anything but your very own under the righteous law. Some people unconsciously overreach in their desire for possessions. When they put the matter into the care of Spirit, and things do not turn out just as they had expected in their self-seeking way, they are disappointed and rebellious. This will not do under the spiritual law, which requires that man shall be satisfied with justice and accept the results, whatever they may be. Justice can be cooperated with by one who believes in things spiritual and he will thereby be made prosperous and happy.
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Dynamics For Living by Charles Fillmore
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