Objectivity

"To become objective with your own internal states, you must operate from a position where you can observe them and where you are not dominated by them. This will allow you to become present to yourself and will give you true compassion and understanding. Then you will not be a tyrant with yourself, and tyranny in your life will come to an end."

"If you are too afraid to face the world objectively, clearly, without condemnation, then the great Love will not be aroused within you, and the greater strength that you carry within you, the greater inspiration and power, will not emerge. It is facing whatever life presents to you as honestly and as objectively as you can—this will bring forth the power of Knowledge and with it, the enduring love."

Directives

"When you are around other people, be neutral and observant. Look and listen for what people are really communicating through their behavior and their words."

"It is necessary to be able to see both truth and error objectively. Do not think that you can see truth by denying error. And do not think you can comprehend human behavior and evolution by their positive aspects alone, for you must see all of it. Your Knowledge will take from all of it what is real and genuine, and from this, it will teach you how to see, how to act and, therefore, how to live."

Objectivity in understanding human nature and experience

"To see another, you must become neutral. Neutral means you are not trying to love them; you are not trying to judge them; you are not trying to put them into a category; you are not trying to evaluate them according to their outward appearances. You are just neutral. You are just looking and listening. Without trying to make anything happen, you are just being present."

"It will serve you a great deal here to observe relationships in real life and not just in the movies. In real life, people are teaching you everything to do and not to do. If you have an open mind, are listening carefully and not simply following your own ambitions or condemning others, then you can learn a great deal from what others are doing, thus saving yourself years of painful experience. Do not think that you are different than they are. Do not think that because you know so much or have so much spiritual awareness or are so physically endowed or so mentally astute that your experience will be that different from what other people are experiencing."

Objectivity regarding one's own self

"If you are completely identified with your body, you will rarely experience your mind in an objective way."

"It very hard to see yourself objectively. In fact, only to a certain degree can you see yourself at all. You need the eyes of another to point out aspects of yourself that you are either unaware of or cannot see clearly. You need the perspective of others to realize the meaning of your behavior and what it communicates to others. You also need to learn from the behavior of others, for people in the world around you are demonstrating all manner of error and all forms of self-deception and self-denial. Yet they are also demonstrating honesty and true communication in many forms. When you look at others and the world without condemnation and without attempting to justify your own ideas, you will be able to discern both truth and error. You will be able to benefit from the observation of both, for both are meant to serve you."

"From an objective point of view, others are teaching you everything you need to learn. You will find, as you learn to observe the behavior of others without judgment and condemnation, that error follows very simple patterns. Though the manifestations of these patterns can be quite varied, you will find that in all cases people are attempting to protect an idea of themselves. They are attempting to protect the survival of their bodies and their ideas by conducting themselves in a certain prescribed way, which in most cases is barely known to them. Yet they will follow this pattern faithfully until they learn to see it objectively, which will give them an opportunity to choose another way."

Objectivity in relationships

"God wants you to heal your relationship with others, for here you will finally learn to become objective with yourself."

"Building genuine personal relationships is a challenge and one that will call upon both your spiritual awareness and your worldly skills. It will require that you be alert, discerning and objective and refrain from condemnation and fantasy so that you may see others clearly and take effective action as a result."

"If you observe people objectively without condemnation, without criticism, they will tell you a great deal about themselves. And if you learn about their past experience—what they have achieved, what they have not achieved, how they have dealt with uncertainty, how they have dealt with loss and disappointment, how they view their past relationships and so forth—you will learn a great deal about how they will function in the future and whether or not you should become engaged with them."

See also

Discernment

Further study

• Steps to Knowledge, Steps 29', 35, 46, 51, 59, 63, 77, 80, 84, 96, 126, 127, 131, 133, 139, 147, 177, 189, 196, 199, 202, 203, 204, 208, 210, 224, 228, 230, 233, 237, 252, 257, 262, 266, 270, 271, 294, 308, 309, 312, 322, 327, 343, 346, 347, 350, 357

• Wisdom from the Greater Community, Book 2, Chapter 5: Working with the Mind