Ame-Lia,

I really appreciate your courage to post what you have posted.

I think I hear your thoughts and questions very clearly. My immediate thought is: It is not as simple as you seem to have made it.

What do I mean by this?

As I have tried to point out in some of my earlier posts over a period of time, I really think that there is a big difference between JUDGEMENT and DISCERNMENT. I also think that a confusion between the two is very commonly prevalent. It is the same kind of confusion as what exists between, in Gary’s lingo, reaction and response, happiness and joy, respect and reverence, pain and suffering, caretaking and caregiving, etc., etc. In brief, it is a confusion that is bound to exist between the effects of frightened parts vs loving parts.

When we understand Gary’s teachings correctly, it is of course clear that we should NOT JUDGE what has happened. In other words, I think that your feeling a huge ball of pain in your solar plexus and your chest feeling like it had a heavy weight upon it were not needed upon hearing the election’s specific outcome, and the fact that you did feel so is supposed to indicate that some fp’s were active in you. And, obviously it becomes your responsibility to challenge them and change them.

HOWEVER, I really don’t think it is wrong or whatever to discern it – to evaluate it as correctly as possible. I feel that it is something that has to be done, not just in this specific context of the election outcome alone, but at every moment of our life as we interact with others around us. It is a necessity, I think. Construing such an inevitable discernment as judgement can be misleading, I believe.

I need to make it very clear here that the above is my own thought. I have often wondered whether I am correct or not in thinking this way. Sometime ago I suggested the topic of ‘discernment vs judgement’ to Gary as a possible topic for the live call. I am eager to hear what he has to say. I know that in one video he makes a passing reference to discerning. But, to my knowledge there is no detailed discussion of this topic by him anywhere.

Of course, I would love to hear your thoughts as well as those of the other members on this community board regarding the above thought of mine.

Incidentally, conclusions resulting from the discernment process are prone to be vastly different among various people. The differences would depend on the extent of knowledge of the actual facts. While discerning, I think it is always important to keep in mind: What facts do I really know regarding the given incident? Thus, there is always an inherent limitation on the nature of the conclusion arrived at as imposed by the extent of knowledge of the facts involved. As the discernment process is continued, a need for acquiring a knowledge of more and more facts becomes evident. Such careful analysis is absent in a judgement process activated by a frightened part.

With love and trust,
Sundar Naga

P S: I believe this is not an appropriate forum to discuss the pros and cons of the election result. The idea is to make use of this opportunity to understand and apply Gary’s teachings.

Hi Sundar, Ame-Lia,

I think this board is an absolutely appropriate place to discuss the election.

The results have lead to a lot of feelings of pain, fear, loss… and the purpose of a community is to support one another in difficult times. Perhaps as people express their hurt and disappointment in a safe environment where they won’t be shouted down, it opens up avenues to see and recognize their frightened parts and work on them.

Sundar, I also think you are getting closer to the answer in yours second to last post. At the risk of being accused of giving advice to make myself feel superior, I will share why I am encouraged by that post. You ask, is it even possible to discern the true intention of another person unless they share it in an honest fashion.

Very good question. As far as you are concerned, you (or I or anyone) always sees things through the prism of their own fears. So, their judgment/ even discernment is more than likely to be flawed.

Now what if the other person is completely honest about their intentions, can you then correctly discern? It is very difficult for the other person to be completely honest about their intention unless they are way enlightened, because even they are seeing things from behind their own prism. They are more often than not making themselves out to be the good guy and the other person the bad guy.

So, that is why, if I understand Gary’s teachings correctly, our job is not to look outward, but to look inward, try to fearlessly discern our own intention, uncover our own frightened parts. That is why the constant refrain “what are you feeling, where are you feeling it?” Turn your intention inwards.

Hope this helps!

Shelley

Hello Shelley,

Yes, there are two kinds of judging: (1) self-judging, and (2) judging others and the situations. Correspondingly there must be two kinds of the opposite, namely discerning: (1) self-discerning, and (2) discerning others and the situations.

But, until I read your post I was considering only the second kind of discernment, namely discerning others and the situations. Thank you for enlightening me.

Yet, my questions have to do with only the second kind of discernment rather than the first kind in the context of the US election. I will elaborate on this when I find the time, so that we can continue the discussion constructively and productively. Just wanted to make the above clarification quickly.

With love and trust,
Sundar

Amie-La,

More power to you for both being able to express your thoughts and feelings, and being able to introspect spontaneously and self correct and practice authentic power! Really happy for you, and hope to be there soon.

For me, for the moment I feel the wound is still too raw to be even able to comprehend what happened and speak about it. I tried to write a couple of nights ago and could not even process my feelings. Gob smacked!

Shelley

Hello Shelley,

Sorry about the delay.

My wife and I watched CNN until about 3:30 or 3:45 am that night. We both are independents and not at all affiliated with any specific party. Especially later into the night John King of CNN was showing the results county by county in the key states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, etc. and visually compared the red and blue nature of the various counties in 2012 and now in 2016 by showing the corresponding maps. It was obvious that something very special was happening that night. They were talking about how almost every pundit and every pollster happened to be totally wrong with respect to predicting the election result.

We went to bed a little after Mr Trump gave his victory speech. As far as I was concerned, I knew what had happened and I was not at all reacting to it. I had no pain in my solar plexus area and I had no feeling of any big weight being placed on my heart. After waking up in the morning, as unexpected as the result happened to be, of course it made me think and follow what others had to say. I noticed that people were discussing different ideas such as silent voters, jobless or low-income angry voters, etc.

Especially after watching the facts shared by John King of CNN, it appeared to me that even if there were no issues such as the email issue, gender issue, etc., even if Mr Trump’s opponent had been a perfect Democrat, he might have had a landslide victory, despite his own issues such as the video issue, etc. If that is indeed the case, the question that keeps arising in my mind is: Isn’t there a need for a discernment, not judgement, but discernment of what the electorate might actually be saying? Otherwise, isn’t there a possibility that we could miss out on some or other important lesson to be learned, which is probably one of the salient, significant reasons for an election of this kind?

I totally agree with you that when I and others like me have the issue of seeing things through the prism of our own fears, our discernment process is going to be flawed. But, what about the enlightened people? Should they not be engaged in discerning the situation? Well, even an enlightened person might be prone to seeing at least certain things through his or her own prism of fear that might become active at the moment. At least, we should not rule out such a possibility. But, whenever that happens, should that person not exercise more care and continue the discernment process? In the absence of such a discernment process, is it not possible that we might be missing something very important regarding the welfare of the society as a whole, in case there is indeed an important message here? I really don’t know the answers. I am just asking the questions to learn more.

In fact, Gary’s statement that “two political parties each pursuing external power have produced a destructive and predictable consequence” has confused me a lot. Is that what it is all about? Why do we then praise people such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. for what they have done to the society as a whole? What has confused me even more is Gary’s placing the two kinds of opportunities, the 9/11 type event and the macro event such as the election of an American president, at the same level, namely created by the same energy, the energy of fear. Are they both at the same level? I am really missing something important here, it seems to me.

I am not at all debating the need to turn the intention inwards, especially when any of us ends up reacting to the election result instead of responding to it. There is no doubt in my mind about that need. But, what I wonder about is: Does the process stop there in the case of an event such as this? Or, is there also a need to go one step further and discern (without judging) the situation at a totally impersonal level just so that one can be clear about the lessons to be learned for the society as a whole and move forward in the right direction as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. did?

I think I have a lot to learn in this regard. Any help by anybody is deeply appreciated. I will keep reading all the responses from you and various other members who might be interested in this topic and who might be willing to share their thoughts.

With love and trust,
Sundar

What were you missing, Sundar? Share your wisdom please!