How do we judge when we’re discerning or discern when we’re judging?
Oh, the whole thing is so confusing. Aren’t they the same?
Well, words can be made to fit any circumstance. They’re symbols upon which we freely and arbitrarily bestow meaning.
So I could use “judgment” and “discernment” as if they’re the same. But I find it useful to consider them as two.
The distinction is for me that “judgement,” as I’m using the word, (1) is a thought that derives from the ego whereas “discernment” is a thought that derives from the Self.
The Self “lives” in the heart. Love lives in the heart. So it could also be said it derives from the heart.
I use “judgment” to refer to thoughts that denigrate, deprecate, demean, and stigmatize others.
I use “discernment” to denote thoughts that factually describe a situation without denigrating others.
Sometimes discernment may require us to protect ourselves or others who are using and acting on judgment. It happens as long as some of us remain in third-dimensional belief systems with third-dimensional vasanas.
But using discernment is always in aid of protecting people’s rights to grow and evolve, it seems to me, rather than to conquer and subjugate.
Where judgment is not found, discernment is the way of being. That was my experience after my heart opening: No judgment, but discernment. But as a natural state, not something that needed to be maintained as our judgments seem to.
Gradually, I think we’ll find ourselves relying more and more on the verdict of the love that lives in our hearts. (2) Judgment won’t arise. The conditions that give rise to it will have gone.
Footnotes
(1) And it doesn’t apply to a judge whose job is to make judgments. We’re talking about personal judgments that blame, shame, and criticize.
(2) I’m referring to a higher-dimensional form of love, not what we ordinarily think of as love.