 We continue on with Chapter 3, Judgment and the Authority Problem. We have already discussed the last judgment, but in sufficient detail. After the last judgment, there will be no more. Judgment is a symbolic because beyond perception, there is no judgment. When the Bible says, judge not, that ye be not judged, it means that if you judge the reality of others, you will be unable to avoid judging your own. The choice to judge, rather than to know, is the cause of the loss of peace. Judgment is the process on which perception, but not knowledge, rests. I have discussed this before in terms of the selectivity of perception, pointing out that evaluation is its obvious prerequisite. Judgment always involves rejection. It never emphasizes only the positive aspects of what is judged, whether in you or in others. What has been perceived and rejected or judged and found wanting remains in your mind because it has been perceived. One of the illusions from which you suffer is the belief that what you judged against has no effect. This cannot be true unless you also believe that what you judged against does not exist. You evidently do not believe this, or you would not have judged against it. In the end, it does not matter whether your judgment is right or wrong. Either way, you are placing your belief in the unreal. This cannot be avoided in any type of judgment because it implies the belief that reality is yours to select from. You have no idea of the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from meeting yourself and your brothers totally without judgment. When you recognize what you are and what your brothers are, you will realize that judging them in any way is without meaning. In fact, their meaning is lost to you precisely because you are judging them. All uncertainty comes from the belief that you are under the coercion of judgment. You do not need judgment to organize your life, and you certainly do not need it to organize yourself. In the presence of knowledge, all judgment is automatically suspended. And this is the process that enables recognition to replace perception. You are very fearful of everything you perceive, but have refused to accept. You believe that because you have refused to accept it, you have lost control over it. This is why you see it in nightmares or in pleasant disguises in what seem to be your happier dreams. Nothing that you have refused to accept can be brought into awareness. It is not dangerous in itself, but you have made it seem dangerous to you. When you feel tired, it is because you have judged yourself as capable of being tired. When you laugh at someone, it is because you have judged him as unworthy. When you laugh at yourself, you must laugh at others, if only because you cannot tolerate the idea of being more unworthy than they are. All this makes you feel tired because it is essentially disheartening. You are not really capable of being tired, but you are very capable of wearying yourself. The strain of constant judgment is virtually intolerable. It is curious that an ability so debilitating would be so deeply cherished. Yet if you wish to be the author of reality, you will insist on holding on to judgment. You will also regard judgment with fear, believing that it will someday be used against you. This belief can exist only to the extent that you believe in the efficacy of judgment as a weapon of defense for your own authority. God offers only mercy. Your words should reflect only mercy because that is what you have received and that is what you should give. Justice is a temporary expedient or an attempt to teach you the meaning of mercy. It is judgmental only because you are capable of injustice. I have spoken of different symptoms and at that level there is almost endless variation. There is, however, only one cause for all of them, the authority problem. This is, quote, the root of all evil. Every symptom the ego makes involves a contradiction in terms because the mind is split between the ego and the Holy Spirit so that whatever the ego makes is incomplete and contradictory. This untenable position is the result of the authority problem which, because it accepts the one inconceivable thought as its premise, can produce only ideas that are inconceivable. The issue of authority is really a question of authorship. When you have an authority problem it is always because you believe you are the author of yourself and project your delusion onto others. You then perceive the situation as one in which others are literally fighting you for your authorship. This is the fundamental error of all those who believe they have usurped the power of God. This belief is very frightening to them but hardly troubles God. He is, however, eager to undo it, not to punish His children but only because He knows that it makes them unhappy. God's creations are given their true authorship but you prefer to be anonymous when you choose to separate yourself from your author. Being uncertain of your true authorship you believe that your creation was anonymous. This leaves you in a position where it sounds meaningful to believe that you created yourself. The dispute over authorship has left such uncertainty in your mind that it may even doubt whether you really exist at all. Only those who give over all desire to reject can know that their own rejection is impossible. You have not usurped the power of God but you have lost it. Fortunately, to lose something does not mean that it has gone. It merely means that you do not remember where it is. Its existence does not depend on your ability to identify it or even to place it. It is possible to look on reality without judgment and merely know that it is there. Peace is a natural heritage of spirit. Everyone is free to refuse to accept his inheritance but he is not free to establish what his inheritance is. The problem everyone must decide is the fundamental question of authorship. While fear comes ultimately and sometimes by way of very devious routes from the denial of authorship, the offense is never to God but only to those who deny him. To deny his authorship is to deny yourself the reason for your peace so that you see yourself only in segments. This strange perception is the authority problem. There is no one who does not feel that he is imprisoned in some way. If this is the result of his own free will, he must regard his will as not free or the circular reasoning in this position would be quite apparent. Free will must lead to freedom. Judgment always in prisons because it separates segments of reality by the unstable scales of desire. Wishes are not facts. To wish is to imply that willing is not sufficient. Yet no one in his right mind believes that what is wished is as real as what is willed. Instead of quote, seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, say, will ye first the kingdom of heaven. And you have said, I know what I am and I accept my own inheritance. And from the workbook, lesson number 21, I am determined to see things differently. The idea for today is obviously a continuation and extension of the preceding one. This time, however, specific mind-searching periods are necessary in addition to applying the idea to particular situations as they may arise. Five practice periods are urged, allowing a full minute for each. In the practice periods, begin by repeating the idea to yourself. Then close your eyes and search your mind carefully for situations past, present or anticipated that arouse anger in you. The anger may take the form of any reaction ranging from mild irritation to rage. The degree of the emotion you experience does not matter. You will become increasingly aware that a slight twinge of annoyance is nothing but a veil drawn over intense fury. Try therefore not to let the quote little thoughts of anger escape you in the practice periods. Remember that you do not really recognize what arouses anger in you and nothing that you believe in this connection means anything. You will probably be tempted to dwell more on some situations or persons than on others. On the felitious grounds that they are more quote obvious, this is not so. It is merely an example of the belief that some forms of attack are more justified than others. As you search your mind for all the forms in which attack thoughts present themselves, hold each one in mind while you tell yourself, I am determined to see blank differently. I am determined to see blank. Specify the situation differently. Try to be as specific as possible. You may, for example, focus your anger on a particular attribute of a particular person, believing that the anger is limited to this aspect. If your perception is suffering from this form of distortion, say, I am determined to see blank. Specify the attribute in blank. Name a person differently. I am determined to see things differently. So our direction today is to see the entire world differently, differently from the past. And our reading today is very appropriate because in the text we were told and shown very specifically that judgment blocks the way to knowing that we cannot truly know anything without releasing this belief in judgment. That judgment always involves rejection. Judgment without exception always involves rejection. And so today, if I am determined to see things differently, I must be open to seeing that I could, in fact, never have actually judged anything or anyone. I have to be willing and open to be shown to let it be revealed that I, as a child of God, am incapable of judgment. That judgment is actually inconceivable. Judgment is therefore not a pattern that I must stop. It is instead something that I must see as absolutely inconceivable, that God would never give me the ability to judge, to compare, to reject. A perfect child of God could never have such an ability. And then with the lesson today, I am determined to see things differently. We call upon a vision, a vision of Christ, a vision of light that was given us in our creation, that we still have full access to full capability of because it is our inheritance. And the seeing in light is our peace. It is our understanding. It is our very life. So today we pray to come to life, to come back to life in awareness and to lay aside all foolish thoughts of judgment, to sink inward into the vision of Christ far beyond all past thoughts and all future thoughts. We rest content, opening to true seeing, the wisdom of understanding. So with all our heart we practice today, lesson 21, I am determined to see things differently.