Grief Leaves Nothing to Judge

Judgment is a false belief.

There isn’t any room for judgment in one’s life, as it always comes home to roost. To bypass it, one mustn’t forget the old adage, " Love thy neighbor as thyself." In that simple truth, something becomes clear—when one judges another, one is judging oneself.

Experiencing life in terms of oneness draws a clean line: never give power to self-righteousness. Because in doing so, the self-righteous become righteous ever more. And in that tightening, something else quietly takes hold.

Oppression.

Not always loud. Not always visible. But felt.

Self-determination is key. What one reaps, one sows. It has always been this way. It isn’t up to anyone else to hoe the row. The work belongs to the individual—to one’s own inner government, one’s own integrity.

Because what one truly has is self-determination, to the exclusion of “other.”

The accusation of “other” excludes the Divine, because at the level of divinity, all is Unity. “Other” creates separation, and separation becomes its own kind of purgatory—self-created, self-sustained.

And then grief arrives, and dissolves all of it.

My beloved aunt—always a mother to me, with the added special gift of sight—passed away several years ago. She was one of the most beautiful people I knew.

When I flew to Washington from California to visit my uncle, I could feel her loving presence everywhere I opened my eyes. It wasn’t imagination. It wasn’t memory alone. It was something living.

My uncle must have felt it too.

As if something in his heart didn’t die, even though her body had already been cremated.

Her spirit is everlasting in our hearts and minds, as we are reminded: I will never forsake you.

In the presence of grief, judgment loses its footing.

Because judgment is the moment one sacrifices Reality for selfish purposes. It’s the attempt to hold position—to save face, to refuse to “give up the ghost.” But grief doesn’t negotiate with illusion. It brings everything back to what is real.

And what is real must be acknowledged.

Otherwise, it becomes obvious… and even a little foolish… to cling to past events, to limiting beliefs, to the stories that once defined us.

Awakening doesn’t arrive as an argument. It moves through the psyche in a deeply personal way. No one can be pushed into it. No one can be convinced into seeing life more wholly—beyond addiction, beyond self-deprecation, beyond the quiet ache of unworthiness.

Grief has its own way of doing that work.

It softens the edges. It removes the need to be right. It dissolves the illusion of separation, not through force, but through love that refuses to leave.

The abiding love of the Eternal is ever-present. Ever-fulfilling. Impossible to take from another.

Presence is, as God is.

The Universe is, as self-worthiness is.

And abundance… true abundance… means there is never a moment of loss.

Even when it is time to let go of the body.