Monday, March 2, 2020

Virtue Development - Humility - Suspending judgment


Chapter Six - Humility
Suspending judgment.

Humility is one of the least understood virtues. Humility is not meakness, not submissiveness, not passivity, not allowing oneself to be oppressed and subjugated. Humility follows from faith, and honesty, and a nonjudgmental attitude, and kindness, and gratitude.

Humility comes from taking a “not knowing” position and an attitude of curiosity. Humility is giving up the need to be right and the admission of not knowing everything. In A Course of Miracles humility is called “defenselessness.” It is written in ACIM, “God’s teachers have learned how to be simple. They have no dreams that need defense against the truth.” ACIM.MT.4.VI:1-2

When a person understands who they really are, a part of God, they have no need to strut, to pretend, to hide behind a facade, to defend themselves from vulnerability. A humble person understands that they are invulnerable because of their essence, the Ground of their Being.

It is important to know what one doesn’t know. To cultivate an attitude of curiosity and a desire to love what one does not know is an important skill. Humility takes practice.

In our insecurity, we insist that our view of the world is the only correct way to perceive and understand things. Being willing to suspend judgment, to suspend certainty, to suspend righteousness in the service of giving everyone, even oneself the benefit of the doubt is the hallmark of the virtue of humility.

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