10.08.23 "Thou Shall Not Bear False Witness"

As a young Catholic boy I was taught the 10 Commandments in religious instruction. The 8th Commandment (or perhaps 9th depending on what version of the Bible you are reading) was, "Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor." I was taught this meant one shouldn’t lie about what one had seen, heard, or otherwise witnessed someone as having done or not done. I accepted that. It made sense.

Many decades later, ACIM turned that all around by a new meaning for "false witness." "Your judgment rests upon the witness that your senses offer you. Yet witness never falser was than this. But how else do you judge the world you see? You place pathetic faith in what your eyes and ears report." (OrEd.WkBk.151.3) ACIM is telling us that anything our eyes and ears report to us is suspect and unreliable. The entire perceptual world is false witness. Therefore, not bearing false witness against the holy Child of God would mean not using anything that appears in the world as a judgment against them. That would include ourselves as well.

ACIM also tells us directly that the appearance of sickness is indeed a false witness for us or for anyone else. It is a sensory "proof" to something that is actually a lie. However let us remember that the senses prove nothing. "It is hard to perceive sickness as a false witness ... This witness, then, appears to be innocent and trustworthy, because you have not seriously cross-examined him." (OrEd.Tx.8.73) Well … then let’s do that. Let's cross examine the witness of sickness and ask the Higher Court to invalidate this testimony.

27 min.
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