This question came from someone who wrote to me from my website:
If the bible says not to judge, doesn’t that mean that everything happens for a reason, so we’re not supposed to get upset when we get less than pleasing results in life? A book I read—A New Earth—says there is no such thing is good and bad; it just “is” and we should not judge as good and bad because its all from God. What confuses me is that if we’re all made from God wouldn’t that mean we’re already perfect so why do “sinners” get told we’re not and that we have to ask to be saved. I’m a Christian, but I don’t get it!!
I think the idea is that there are natural laws, as in nature, as in energy and consciousness—universal principles. When we act in harmony with them, everything flows and evolves and there is no suffering. Part of this flow is a natural expansion and contraction, like breathing. Contraction is not evil, just part of life, but I think religions often misinterpret this. Contraction without fear might simply be focusing on an idea. Contraction with fear often results in paralysis, stuckness, and frozen energy and consciousness—which prevents our ability to know ourselves as souls, as spirit.
When actions are motivated by fear and control, they are out of harmony, meaning they don’t allow us to experience alignment with universal principles. That is why spiritual leaders point out certain behaviors as undesirable—like murder and the various “sins.” Sin means missing the mark—not being aligned with the goal, which is truth and compassion. It means these ways of acting are inefficient and block us from experiencing ourselves as having the divine inside us, and all around us.
I think we are created perfectly, and are always actually complete, but because of the way our mind perceives separation—we focus on fear and negativity and don’t fully experience our oneness with the divine. Most spiritual paths teach ways to come back into harmony with the experience of oneness. And as for asking to be saved, perhaps this is just the act of opening our minds for the grace of natural perfection to emerge once again, to invite it in consciously, as we do with prayer. We sometimes need to make a hole through which truth can flow without being suppressed by fear’s drama.