Let us be merciful in our mental judgments of our brothers and sisters, for, in truth, we are all one, and the more deeply they seem to err, the more urgent is the need for us to help them with the right thought, and so make it easier for them to get free.
Interpretation
We should judge others with mercy and compassion, recognizing our shared humanity and the importance of helping one another.
This quote emphasizes the importance of compassion in our judgments of others. Emmet Fox suggests that instead of harshly criticizing those who seem to have erred, we should understand that we are all interconnected and that our role should be to offer help and positive thoughts, which can facilitate their growth and freedom from mistakes.
In practice
During a community meeting about personal growth, one could quote this to advocate for a supportive environment.
There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer: no disease that love will not heal: no door that enough love will not open...It makes no difference how deep set the trouble: how hopeless the outlook: how muddled the tangle: how great the mistake. A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all. If only you could love enough you would be the happiest and most powerful being in the world.
What we see in the outer is but a reflection of the inner, because we surround ourselves with a picture of our own beliefs. In other words, we manifest in general what we seriously think and believe. So if we want to find out what our habitual thinking is like, we have but to look around us and ask ourselves what we really see.
Bless a thing and it will bless you. Curse it and it will curse you....If you bless a situation, it has no power to hurt you, and even if it is troublesome for a time, it will gradually fade out, if you sincerely bless it.
It is the Law that any difficulties that can come to you at any time, no matter what they are, must be exactly what you need most at the moment, to enable you to take the next step forward by overcoming them. The only real misfortune, the only real tragedy, comes when we suffer without learning the lesson.
What we experience is our own concept of things. That is why no two people see quite the same world, and why, in many cases, different people see such different worlds. To put it another way, we make our own world by the way in which we think; for we really do live in a world of our own thoughts.
To be afraid is to have more faith in evil than in God.
Confidence-building is not something that can go on forever. If it goes on forever then it becomes counterproductive.
Stupidity is an elemental force for which no earthquake is a match.
To seek approval is to have no resting place, no sanctuary. Like all judgement, approval encourages a constant striving. It makes us uncertain of who we are and of our true value. Approval cannot be trusted. It can be withdrawn at any time no matter what our track record has been. It is as nourishing of real growth as cotton candy. Yet many of us spend our lives pursuing it.
There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.
People say, on the raft, you must have hallucinated. Baloney. We were sharper after 47 days than the day we started because our minds were empty of all the war and contamination; we had clean minds to fill with good thoughts. Every day we'd exercise our minds.
A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.
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