In our culture we often confuse Judgement and Discernment. During Nancy Shipley Rubin‘s workshop, she discussed their distinctions.
I wrote the prior article on Our Protectors. This is when we’re in judgement with a closed 3rd chakra. This arises because we’re not getting our needs met. We’re in defence. However, when we fall into judgement, we are separating ourselves internally. Then we have trouble seeing and naming our needs. And because what we put out there comes back, life confirms our judgement and perpetuates what we don’t want.
However, if we have fear around judgement, we lose our voice and rights. Others overshadow our personal power.
Judgement has a charge (polarity), it divides and protects. It sees right and wrong, good and bad. It dismisses what is not “right”.
As Nancy said, “It has to be in here before it’s out there.“
Discernment on the other hand comes out of the 6th chakra. It allows us to see the truth of the situation and discriminate or distinguish. Not to make right or wrong – that’s judgement. The key marker of discrimination is neutrality. Seeing it as it us, what is real right now, in the moment. This opens the door to grace. It is non-linear, more inclusive, and is sometimes described as like a lightening bolt.
However, we also have to bring discernment down so that we can name and give language to it. Left in the 6th, it is formless.
But as outlined in Our Protectors, we can’t get to discrimination when we’re in judgement. Another sign of 3rd chakra is a need to control. As Nancy said, “It’s not about being in control. Its about being in alignment.“
Another sign of judgement? Being against rather than for. Anti-war, anti-drug, and anti-abortion are all judgements that will actually strengthen what you are in opposition to.
Nancy spoke of our 3 lights:
– the 3rd is our centre of personal power. Our sense of doing what is right, stabilized with grounding.
– the heart (4th) is our grand central, balancing the universal and personal.
– the 6th is our universal light source – the ideals of truth, love, clarity, etc.
It’s also the beginning of duality – the active and receptive, the male and female.
You may wonder at this sequence: 3, 4, and 6. But in the 1 into 3 into 7 process, 2 is the complement of 6, and 3 is the complement of 5 (the throat) and the heart is the centre or fulcrum. The complements are the receptive versions of the energy, local and cosmic.
Nancy also spoke of how Truth grounds and Love expands. Too much truth and it gets too heavy. Too much love and it’s too expanded. The goal is a balance of truth and love. This is akin to the divine masculine and feminine or Atman and Sattva that I have often written about here.
Davidya
Last Updated on November 11, 2017 by Davidya