There is a self-revelation, a self-manifestation of God, an eternal self-revealing and an eternal self-communication, self-giving in love, and this eternal self-manifestation, self-communication is manifest within time and space, and the whole creation is, in a real sense, a self-manifestation, a revelation of God. The whole created world reveals different aspects of God, His power, His glory, and the whole of humanity is a revelation of God, a manifestation. Every human being is an image of God, and we all reveal God in some way, we also conceal Him of course, because of sin and also our natural defects, but there is a revelation of God in all creation, in all humanity, and in our belief, this great revelation comes to a head

[01:05]

in Jesus, but it doesn't deny, it doesn't ignore the revelation in all other forms. The church in the constitution of the non-Christian religion said, the church forgets nothing that is true and holy in other religions, and this word of God, self-revelation of God, is present in the whole creation, all of humanity, and in every religion, every religion is revealed something of that word of God. The Vedas, Koran, Buddhist scriptures, are all revelations of this word, different aspects of that word are revealed, and all these forms of God in India, Vishnu, Shiva, Rama, Krishna, they're all manifestations of the word, certain aspects of that word of God being revealed in India under these different forms, and they're conditioned by the culture, the history, the nature of the people of India, but they're all manifestations

[02:08]

in their own way of this one word of God, and God's gospel said, that word was with God and was God, without Him was nothing that was made. All creation manifests that word, and in Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And that word enlightens every man coming into the world, the word of God, the self-revelation, which is Christ, is present to every human being coming into the world. God excludes no one from that revelation. And so we're all to take the call to open our hearts and minds to this revelation of God in His word, that He scattered it over the whole creation, even the most primitive tribes have some knowledge of that word of God. He left Himself not without witness, Paul said, in all creation. For every tribe of people has some knowledge of that word of God, some presence of that spirit of God. And in the great religions, Hinduism, Buddhism,

[03:15]

Islam, have a great revelation of the word of God, a great presence of the spirit. And in our faith, we believe this whole revelation comes to a head. Paul said it was planned to bring all things to a head in Him, things in heaven and things on earth, and in Jesus we have a revelation of the fullness of the Godhead. And Paul says, in Him dwelt the fullness of the God who embodied it. So God is revealing Himself everywhere, in every human being, in all holy men, and the constitution, the declaration of non-Christian religion said, the church will get nothing that is true and holy from other religions. Wherever there is truth, wherever there is holiness, there is the presence of God, the word of God, that word who became flesh in Jesus. So we need to open our hearts and minds to this great revelation of God in all the religions of the world. It needs discernment, of course, not everything is God, much with the human, that's true also, much in Christianity, but

[04:18]

we always have to discern the word of God, its presence in other religions, and the spirit of God moving people, drawing them towards Him in love. And in India we have a wonderful tradition of bhakti, devotion to God, and some of the Hindu bhaktas are the most holy men, whose whole life is consumed with this love of God. We are reading Ramalinga Swamigal in our evening prayer, he is a great Tamil saint from the last century, and he had this total devotion to God, one God who is totally surrendered and totally filled with love. So these are revelations of God into the presence, and the Holy Trinity embraces all humanity all these revelations, and they all come to a head in our faith in Jesus. He is the word made flesh, and in that personal manifestation, because the word of God is the sum, the personal manifestation of God, and the Holy Spirit is that personal manifestation of love, personal

[05:20]

love, self-giving love is revealed in the Holy Spirit. So we celebrate a great ministry and we need to open our hearts and minds to its presence everywhere. You see, for a long time we've behaved as though it was all shut up in the church, as though there was no revelation outside the church, and if you didn't believe in Jesus, you were lost, there was no hope for you. And now we understand that God, Jesus is revealing Himself throughout creation, throughout humanity, and there is a presence in every religion and outside every religion, even when a person doesn't believe in God, and yet is seeking truth or justice. You see, there are many atheists who are dedicated to truth. They're atheists because they believe that their religion is false and that the truth is to be found in atheism. And if a man is seeking truth, it is God, then surely God is with him. He is rarely knowing God without realizing it. So this mystery is revealed to all humanity and we're all involved in this great mystery of God's self-revelation and self-communication.

[06:25]

It excludes no one, and that love of God is offered to every human being. So let us try to celebrate this great mystery. It's the supreme revelation of the Gospel, it's the revelation of the Trinity, and we ourselves are privileged to have an insight into it, to be allowed to share this insight with others, to make it known. So we ask for this place for ourselves, for the Church, and for all humanity that may come to realize this great mystery that God is revealing himself everywhere and is communicating himself with love to all seekers. This thought is difficult, challenging the Gospel. Most Christians just ignore it altogether. It's too difficult, too incomprehensible. And we have to remember, of course, Jesus wasn't carrying down laws, he never did. He was bringing forth some deep principles

[07:29]

to guide our action and fundamental dispositions of the heart, really. So we don't have to take it all literally, like he says, if you're I offend you, cut it out, cast it from you, you see, but we mean it literally. And so here also we can't simply take it literally, never to resist an evil man, not practical at all. And so we have to look a little deeper into it. And as I suggested, I think, perhaps if we think of it in terms of the ego, that that is a fundamental thing, that what stands between us and God is the ego, this limited human personality which grows up in us all, which is not bad in itself, but which is limited and has to be surrendered to God. If we remain in that limited ego, that limited personality, we are opposed to others and we are in a state of conflict. When we surrender the ego to God, then we don't lose it, it becomes a real self. We find our real self and we find

[08:34]

our real personality and we're able to act freely and responsibly. So here also, you see, the old law was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and that was the law of justice. If somebody knocked out your eye, you could knock out his eye, not the other eye. Just one eye for one eye, one tooth for one tooth. That is the law of justice. And obviously it had its value, prevented indiscriminate revenge, but also obviously had its extreme limitations. It means you still remain in your ego, you are defending yourself with a limited way, but still you're basically egocentric. And Jesus clearly wanted to go beyond that. He wanted you to renounce your ego, renounce your lower, pardon, limited self, and open yourself to the love of God. You make that the law of your life. And then you're open to others so that even if, and this is an ideal of something practical also,

[09:35]

even if you are attacked, somebody hits you on the cheek, if you're free from egoism, you'll be ready to surrender the other cheek. If you take your coat, it's a little interesting, the words used here, if anyone would take your coat, I think they say, let him have your cloak as well. I think the Greek words hemation, this coat, is the undergarment actually, the long, rather like this, garment. That was hemation. And the clemency cloak was a big covering which was really for all wants and was very necessary. So you took away this garment, but the more important one you were asked to give up as well. Like the famous story of Saint Martin, he took his cloak when in the winter he saw some poor soldier, or some poor man had no cloak, and cut it in half and gave half to him. Famous story. But that was his clemency cloak, this warm outer garment. So the lesser garment

[10:40]

is taken and you surrender the greater one. And then again, if you would force you to go one mile, this would apply to the soldiers, they would take charge of people like that and force them to go some distance, you had to go too. So this is asking to give up that egoism and to surrender yourself to the love of God. And many have followed this in practice, many Hindu saints, you know, have acted with total surrender. Swami Ram Das is a very good example, you know, he wandered all over India as a sadhu, with no money and no possessions, simply totally surrendered to God. And there were occasions when people took everything he had, famous occasion, a sadhu came along while he was living in his hut and he had some kind of friend who gave him a hut and he had his clothes and so on, and this sadhu

[11:41]

decided he wanted to have all his things, he began to take all his clothes and he surrendered everything to him and he was ready. And that is not an unusual disposition in India, the genuine sannyasi rarely is ready to surrender everything, he only has basic necessities and even those on occasion he may give up. So, that would be the principle. But then again, you see, it may be and normally is, if somebody is doing an injustice, you may have a duty to resist him and normally if it is so, you are not simply an isolated individual, if he is doing injustice to you, still more if he is doing injustice to another, taking away the person's garment or whatever, then you have a duty to resist. But you do it without egoism. You see, I think that is the point. If you resist evil without egoism and a spirit of love for the person and for the people involved, then there is no sin

[12:45]

in it and it is not against the law of the gospel at all. So, I think we have to discriminate in that way. I mean, if you see somebody being mistreated and you stand by idly, then you are committing a sin, you are not doing what you should be doing. And even it might be on occasion also, if you yourself are being attacked and it is going to cause harm to others and to the general situation, then also you have the right to resist. But it has to be without egoism, this is the point. It is done in a genuine spirit of love, of love for the person and love for the whole, for humanity, for the whole situation, then of course, it is always justified. So, I think we need to reflect on it, not just dismiss it. You see, it is easy to say, oh, this is some pure ideal for some people. St. Francis of Assisi was obviously one who took it very literally, you see, and there have been saints who have done so, and it is a call. St. Thomas Aquinas says about it that you needn't always

[13:47]

have to follow it exactly, but you should have a preparatio anime, or you should be prepared in heart when you are faced with a situation which demands that you should be ready to give up everything. Isn't that a very good way to see it? And we all have to be prepared to give up everything in the face of opposition, of violence even, and have that inner freedom which doesn't simply defend the ego, but is ready to surrender it. At the same time, we have to have a sense of justice and the demands of humanity and people who then... So, we have to have a great sense of discernment, how to act in all these difficult situations. As you know, this problem of violence is extremely difficult. You see, many say, I think in South America, who have a situation of violence, the state is keeping people in a state of suppression by violence, having the right to resist it by violence. Some say you have to do that, and surely there may be a right, but others say, and I think much more justly,

[14:50]

that once you take to violence, you create more violence, and the whole thing becomes intolerable, what happened in Sri Lanka. But on the other hand, if you have the will to not use violence, as Gandhiji taught, and really resist without physical violence, but with a very strong moral force, then you create a new situation and you can overcome the evil. And I think Gandhi was the one person who really tried to live this out. He totally rejected violence, but he resisted evil to the limit, and to go to prison or whatever like he was prepared, he had to be killed, if not to kill other people. So, there is a tremendous role of the gospel here, and we're all challenged by it, especially in situations of violence today all over the world, should we take force, you see, to resist the state, to resist the evil done to us, or should we learn to resist it with a moral force. Gandhi spoke of satyagraha, truth force, moral force is what he believed in, and he

[15:57]

replied to that meaningfully. So, these are questions we'll have to answer at some place in our lives. As you know, the sermon on love is a very dangerous doctrine. It takes us beyond all normal human rules and customs and opens us to a transcendent truth, and very few people are really able to accept it. It still goes far beyond. And here in particular, Jesus is really going beyond the whole Old Testament morality. The whole of the Old Testament is based on this belief that you should love your neighbor and hate your enemy. It's not put in that precise form, actually, but that is the law of the Old Testament. Even the beautiful text of Leviticus, you should love your neighbor as yourself, not your Jewish neighbor, not the Gentile. And Israel seems to have had no sense of getting beyond this

[17:02]

duality, and it really is a stage through which humanity goes. We all grow up with this egoistic nature, and a young boy, a young person has to find an ego, has to find a self, and in finding it becomes opposed to others. And there you have to go beyond your ego, beyond yourself, and many don't get that stage. And the Old Testament has really not got beyond that stage. You're still living in that world where you are opposed to your enemies. And in the Psalms, it's quite remarkable, I don't know whether you've reflected on it, but we leave out a great many of them, as many as we can actually, but the Psalmist is never happy without an enemy. He can't be happy, even that beautiful Psalm, the Lord is my shepherd, it's lovely until it comes. He has prepared a table before me against my enemies. He wants to have his enemies looking on while he enjoys himself. And it's a whole mentality, you see, God is on your side, and your enemies are against

[18:06]

God, so you must hate all your enemies. Do not I hate them who hate you? Yes, I hate them And this is very important because it was a stage of morality, and most people have not got beyond it, and unfortunately it went into the church, and we've still got that mentality, we hate the enemies of God. It's very easy for us to do so. And Jesus really takes us beyond this whole mentality, this dualistic mentality, me and the others, you know, my religion and the other religion, my country and the other country, it's all a dualistic mentality, all these conflicts in the world arise from this kind of dualism. And India has taught us this message of non-dualism. There is a stage beyond duality when you realize total oneness. And that really is the goal of the Gospel, to go beyond these dualities and discover the hidden history of the One. And as long as you remain on the

[19:06]

mental level, the mind is a dualistic mind. You and the world outside it, you and your neighbor, everything is dualistic. When you go beyond the mind, the mental stage, and open yourself to the deeper center, you discover this unity. We were reading the Upanishad, the Maitreya Upanishad, a very remarkable expression of it, that said, as you remember, a quietness of mind overcomes good and evil, good and evil, and in quietness the soul is one. Then one feels the joy of eternity. And that is the stage beyond the mind, when you're open to the Spirit and you're open to God, and you discover this hidden mystery of unity. And really that is the call of the Church and the world today. You see, the whole

[20:10]

world is in conflict because people are living in this dualistic mentality, and the Churches and the whole are still in that mentality. And the only way to bring peace is to go beyond dualism, to discover the hidden unity of the whole of humanity and the whole creation. All creation is one in God. And Jesus reveals this total oneness. And the last thing, he says, you must be perfect, which for Heavenly Father is perfect. For God is one, and He is that perfection of total unity. And Jesus came to bring the whole creation and humanity back to that original unity of one. As Paul says in the letter to the Ephesians, he broke down the barrier making the two one. In the temple there was a barrier which separated the Jew from the Gentile. No Gentile was allowed to step over it. He'd be killed if he did. And Jesus broke down that barrier between the Jew and the Gentile, between every dualism

[21:14]

of black and white and of Jew and Arab and of Christian and Muslim and all the rest of it. All these dualisms were broken down and we discovered that there is unity which is behind all. So that's really the call of the Church today and the call of each one of us. As long as we preserve this dualistic mind, we'll always have enemies and we'll always create enemies. As long as you have that dualism, we'll make enemies, because you've got one attitude and you're opposed to another. And when you learn to go beyond them, you reconcile, you become this book of reconciliation. And Jesus, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, he calls it. And that is really, as I say, the call of the Apostles. So we all need to learn. And we learn it in meditation. There's hope in meditation to go beyond the dualistic mind. As long as you're thinking, you'll still be dividing things, subject and object and truth and error and so on. When you go beyond the mind, you discover the hidden

[22:14]

mystery which reconciles these opposites. Nicholas of Cura spoke of the coincidentia oppositorum, the coincidence of opposites. When you get to the highest level of the mind, beyond the mind, you reconcile all these opposites. And that is the reconciliation which Jesus brings, this total reintegration of humanity and the creation into the oneness of God. So we all ask for the grace to live out that mystery of oneness of non-duality. The disciples come to Jesus asking him how to pray. And in a sense it's something we all ask how to pray. And in a sense, there are no words which can express prayer. Jesus

[23:15]

says here, your heavenly Father knows what you need before you ask Him. And in a sense, one can say that it's rather foolish to make prayers to God. God knows what we need, all that we can ask. And we do it really from our own need. We need to express ourselves. But always our expression is quite inadequate. And even the Lord's Prayer is only one way. We don't even know exactly what He said to Luke as a person, which is slightly different from that of St. Matthew. And it isn't so much the words that matter, it's the inner attitude of mind. And all prayer really begins in the heart. And it's the prayer of the heart which we all have to learn. As we say in the Psalms and other readings, the Lord's Prayer itself is really there to remind us, to open the heart to this inner truth. A real prayer

[24:18]

is always prayer of the heart, where we discover ourselves and discover God in ourselves and ourselves in God. And there are no words really that can express that prayer. In a sense, obviously, it's a little artificial to be saying words to somebody who is not here, who is everywhere and is nowhere. And all words and language are quite inadequate. Some people feel that very strongly. They find it difficult to pronounce prayers to a person who is beyond us altogether. And in a sense, it is true. As I say, really the real prayer is always the prayer of the heart. And any words we use are only meaningful in so far as they express that prayer. As you know, the great danger of all external prayer is that it does become mere words. That's why Jesus says, do not keep up words. As the Gentiles do, they think to be heard for their many words. And the danger of all external prayer

[25:23]

is that it becomes a form of words and no more. So we have constantly to remind ourselves and we're trained that this is only an outward expression of an inner urge of the heart. And the heart needs this openness to God. You see, there's something within us, God is within, something within urging us to open our hearts, to express ourselves, to relate ourselves, and to discover the hidden mystery in the heart. And Jesus speaks of our Father as one way of speaking, Father in heaven. It is only a symbol, really. God of the Father is a symbol, God of heaven is a symbol of the hidden mystery that's beyond word and beyond thought, which is in the heart of all. And that is what we have to discover, the hidden mystery in the heart. And words we use in prayer are ways to open the heart to this hidden mystery. But there is one aspect of it which is fundamental, which Jesus brings out at the end, and he says, if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father

[26:27]

also will forgive you. And the condition of having an open heart to God is having an open heart to others. If there is some block in our minds, in our hearts, then we can't discover the mystery, we can't be open to God. And that's why it's very interesting, you see, having given that prayer, the one thing he emphasizes is if you forgive, you will be forgiven. And many people experience that, I think we all do to some extent, you see, there's always some block in our prayers, some block in our relation with God, with truth, because there's some block in our relation with others. And often we have to work on this obstacle. Father Bernard de Mello, who died just recently, as you know, has been a great spiritual guide. And I was told, I think it's true, he began this Sadala Institute, this idea of an institute for spirituality, but he found people had so many blocks in the way of spirituality that it became a psychological cause, particularly priests

[27:31]

and sisters and family all had psychological blocks. And we all have, it grows up from childhood, from very early age and from all our experience, we have various emotional blocks, fear, anxiety, anger, resentment, all these things are in us, and they block our approach to God. So one has to discover these hidden blocks in our nature and become aware of them. And one of the great works of prayer and meditation is this becoming aware of ourselves, of the unconscious feelings and desires in our hearts. And as that comes up and we can free ourselves from them, then we become open to the deepest presence of God, to the mystery within. So that's really the battle of prayer. It opens the unconscious and we discover the hidden blocks in our nature, and then as they gradually dissolve, we discover

[28:33]

more and more the hidden presence and mystery of God in the heart. I think it's important to know that it's good to pray our Father in heaven, but it's a symbolic language, you see. Heaven is really the sky, you see, and to think of God in the sky, for many people it's meaningful, his heart is above us. But of course it's a metaphor, it's a symbol. God is not above anywhere, God is in the heart. And it's to discover the hidden presence in the heart. The Father in heaven is the Father dwelling in the heart, and his presence in the heart. I think the word Father is a religion, both for one and the way. But again, it's an obstacle to some people, you know. Some people have a very bad relation with their father, maybe he has to get married, have a divorce or something, and the father is an obstacle, he's the image of what they don't like and what upsets them. And for them it's very difficult to use the word Father. And for others the word Mother may be more meaningful.

[29:36]

The mother's love is sometimes much more real to a person than the father's. So we must stick at the language, you see. The Father in heaven is one way of expressing the mystery of God, the mother is another. And then as I say, no words can properly express it. We have to discover the mystery ourselves in this wordless silence that's in the heart. So prayer must always lead us into the heart, into the inner mystery, and then we need some words. When we discover God within, we need some words to express ourselves, and the Lord's Prayer is one of the good expressions of it. But then as I said, we only discover the mystery, discover ourselves when we free ourselves from these locks, these hidden obstacles in our nature, which separate us from others and therefore separate us from God. So prayer is really a great venture, a great mystery, and a great experience, because it really is the discovery of ourselves, discovery of the world, discovery of the real meaning of

[30:39]

life. This mystery of the body and blood of Christ is a great mystery, and I think today it's very easily misunderstood, because we live in a world where matter is considered to be the reality, spirit is something above, beyond, maybe non-existent for many people, and it's the exact opposite of the true understanding and of the more ancient understanding. See, matter is the most unreal thing which we encounter. It appears solid, this floor looks very solid, and we all think it has solid bodies, but as we know, it's an illusion behind that apparent solidity of all these atoms and electrons and protons, and it's simply

[31:40]

a vibrating energy. The whole thing is an illusion, an appearance of solidity. And same with our bodies. Our bodies appear to be solid and stable, we've got the same body now as I had a year or so ago, but we know that the matter of the body is continually changing. You see, in seven years, not a single particle of matter is the same, and yet the body remains. So matter is the changing appearance of things, and behind the matter is what Aristotle called the form, the reality of the body. It's not the matter. The matter keeps changing, the body is something different from the matter. And as I say, today people think that the matter is the reality. And so when Jesus speaks of his flesh and blood, they immediately think of the material flesh and the material blood, and to eat material flesh and material blood is obviously something very strange and not at all attractive. But Jesus is not talking about material flesh and material blood, he's talking about spiritual flesh.

[32:44]

He says, the flesh profits nothing, the words that I speak to you are spirit and life. And when he speaks of his flesh and blood, he's speaking of his spiritual flesh and his spiritual blood, which is the flesh and blood of the resurrection. In the resurrection, that flesh and blood of Jesus went under a transformation, was totally transformed and became spiritual flesh and spiritual blood, and it's no longer conditioned by matter, material conditions of this world. And the main conditions of this world are time and space. All matter appears in time and space. And the body of Jesus in the resurrection is not in time and it's not in space. It's gone beyond the material conditions. And the real mystery is, you see, the whole universe, all matter, is destined to be transformed, to pass from its present state in time and in space with laws of causality, and to pass into the spiritual state, the spiritual matter, the spiritual body, the new creation. And in the resurrection,

[33:46]

that is what happened. This matter of this universe in the body of Jesus was transformed into spiritual body, spiritual blood, a spiritual being. And in the Eucharist, we celebrate this mystery of the transformation of matter into life, into spirit. And we take bread and wine, the ordinary matter of the universe, and that bread and their wine is no longer this changing matter. It becomes this spirit of life. It becomes this transformed reality. And we enter into that transformed reality. We experience the mystery of divine life, divine flesh and blood, the divine life of Christ. So this is really the central mystery. And I think today people have almost got sight of it, because we all think that matter is the reality. And matter is always changing and always multiple, always divided. And it's the opposite, that the reality is unchanging. See, the body of Christ in the resurrection

[34:50]

is unchanging, and it's universal, it's infinite. And that matter is finite and changing and multiple. But the reality is unchanging, infinite, and one. There's one reality. And St. Paul brings it out beautifully in the lesson we read, where he says, Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. See, that bread of the Eucharist is the body of Christ of which we are all members. See, that body of Christ in the Eucharist is not a limited material body which you can touch and see. It's an immaterial, infinite reality of which we're all parts. We all are protesting to pass from the present state of material being into that spiritual state where we're all one. See, matter divides and separates everything, but spirit unites and brings all

[35:51]

into one. And matter is always changing, spirit is unchanging. So we're going to pass from this multiple state unity, from the changing to the unchanging. And it's very interesting that in our Indian tradition we have this very profound sense, you see, that behind the matter of the universe is the one unchanging reality. We read that reading from the Chandogya Upanishad, where the father takes a little seed and tells the son to break it open, and you can't see anything in the seed, but he says, from that spiritual essence you cannot see, the whole tree, the whole thing comes, and from the spiritual essence which you cannot see, the whole material universe comes. And we have to discover the spiritual reality behind the appearance of the universe. And that is wisdom, when we see behind these changing appearances, the changing appearance of our body, to the one reality which is manifesting in this matter, in this body, and in the Eucharist, we're taught to go beyond the material appearances

[36:54]

of bread and wine, and to see the one reality, the body of Christ which embraces the whole universe and all humanity, all contained in that one body. And the bread symbolizes, you see, we're all, we share that one bread, and through that we share the mystery of the one body of Christ, the one reality, the one truth. So we're celebrating the great mystery which we all need to reflect on and to live out in our lives, living out this great mystery of the transformation of matter into spirit, of the body into the eternal life, and that is what here comes to reveal. These things, the concern of the heart, these problems, very few of them can be taken literally. It's so that I offend you, take it out, cast it from you, take it literally, for again you're not being anxious for your life, what you eat, your body, what you put on, because

[37:58]

again we have to be concerned about our livelihood, about our clothing. And so here you can't live without judging. So judgment is a gift of God, and we have to judge ourselves, we have to judge others. I'm in a position of authority, you have to pronounce judgment, a lawyer or a judge has to pass judgment on a person, they condemn him to death. So judgment is there, and you can't avoid it, but it all depends how you use this judgment. And of course the first thing which Jesus emphasizes is you have to be clear in your own conscience, because very easily you have your own obstacles to your judgment, and you judge from your own very personal, very human point of view, and you don't see the person as he really is, and then you pass these false judgments. And that is a fundamental problem, that we're all damaged in many ways, and our judgments are not true, and so we easily misjudge people,

[39:04]

and we don't judge ourselves. And of course the great lesson is to learn first to judge oneself. And it's not easy, our natural tendency is to judge others, we look out, we see people doing things we don't approve of, and we judge and condemn them, and we don't see our own conduct in the same way, and to reverse that process is the primary need. First of all to judge ourselves, to try to see where we're wrong, what is mistaken, and it's very difficult because we're often governed by unconscious motives which we don't recognize but which other people can see, and so it's this judging ourselves is a tremendous work, and really it had to be done every day, to learn how to see oneself as one really is, to know oneself, and it's a life work really, because so much is unconscious, half our conduct is simply habits that have been formed from childhood, and we go on following without realizing it, unconsciously we're governed by these prejudices, and most people are governed by unconscious

[40:08]

motives, consciously they think they're doing quite well, unconsciously they're being governed by suppressed anger and hatred and malice and all kinds of evil which they don't recognize, but to learn to recognize the evil in oneself, and therefore to be afraid of passing judgment, and then as I say, still you can't altogether avoid it, but supposing you do pass judgment on somebody, always remember that it's provisional, you don't see the whole truth, thus you don't easily see the truth about yourself, you never see the whole truth about somebody else, somebody may commit a murder or adultery or theft or whatever, but you don't know the real motives behind it, there may be some motives you know, jealousy or anger or whatever, but behind that action lies the person's own life, what you do now is conditioned by what you've been from your infancy, or even before your infancy, you're conditioned from the wound, your emotional life is conditioned, and then from childhood and adolescence,

[41:10]

all through, conditioning, it's growing, you're conditioned by your whole background, your family, your habits of life and so on, but they're conditioning all your actions, and what you consciously do is very limited, what your conscious action can't do, it's a tremendous work of the unconscious at all, and so when we judge somebody we see their external behavior, and as I say, it may be murder, it may be adultery, it may be theft, it may be any crime you like, but behind it lies all this unconscious motivation which is conditioning that person, and that we never fully understand, so we always have to reserve our judgment, we may have to make a judgment, this action is wrong and so on, and we have to correct it in some way, but behind it you have to recognize what you can't judge, and that is why you say, judge not, and leave the judgment to God, God alone feeds the heart, God alone can judge any person, God alone can judge yourself, and Paul says, I judge

[42:14]

not myself, as one is judged as he is God, and curiously we read in the epistle today a very good example of judgment, Paul says, I've already passed judgment on that man, who was living with his father's wife, and he's very confident, this is the judgment of the Lord Jesus, and you excommunicate him, you deliver him to Satan, and Paul is very convinced that this judgment is right, and maybe he was, but presumably he also knew that there's something beyond all that, and strangely enough, deliver him to Satan for the condemnation of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord, so it actually leads it to the judgment of God, and so there is judgment, and you can't avoid it, and sometimes you have to judge in the name of God, you see it's your duty, but always there's something beyond that, there's a judgment of God which is beyond all human

[43:14]

reason and calculation, so I think we all have to learn to go beyond human judgment, which is always defective, even the best person is never aware of the full truth of things, and we never judge fully, so we have to ask for that grace to surrender our judgment to God, when it's necessary we have to make the judgment in the sight of God, as conscientiously as we can, but always with the reservation that our judgment is limited, and God alone can judge the person, and perhaps we have to do the same with ourselves, we try to judge ourselves to see what's false, see how we are limited and so on in our behavior, and yet always knowing that some things we don't know ourselves, but that God is able to judge us, and so it is great to be able to commit judgment to God, whether of ourselves or of others.

[44:08]

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