Disapproval as a virtue

[Deb]

Ouch, is this not the way many of us are raised? Roots in original sin? Bass ackwards thinking and we need a "cure."

You are taught to question your motives, your behavior, your feelings, and everything but your beliefs. When you really believe disapproval to be a virtue, and you believe in virtue, then you obviously find yourselves in a position where the more you disapprove of yourself the better person you think you are—a contradiction of the most insidious nature, for how can you approve of a self you disapprove of? In such a quandary all you can do is add disapproval to disapproval, in some twisted hope that somehow some trust or love of the self will ensue.

TPS04, January 7, 1978

[T.M.]

Hi All,

Hi Deb,

I think a lot of the problems we are facing today are due to the bad side of religious ideology and saviour/victim syndrome.
I think people unwittingly see themselves as victims, and are awaiting, the cure, or God, or whatever, to show up and save everything.

I don't say this to mock, attack, or belittle anyone or any religion

[jbseth]

Hi Deb, Hi All,

Both "disapproval" and "approval" are really just two parts of the same thing; judgment.

       Disapproval   =     wrong     =     judgment.

       Approval       =      right       =     judgment. 

However, love and compassion = no right or wrong = no judgment.


In SS, Ch 12, S550, Seth says:
I spoke earlier of rigid concepts of right and wrong. There is only one way to avoid this problem. Only true compassion and love will lead to an understanding of the nature of good, and only these qualities will serve to annihilate the erroneous and distortive concepts of evil.

- jbseth

[Deb]

If only we could change the teaching of self-disapproval as a virtue—maybe taught under the guise of being humble or modest? A method of controlling people? I don't imagine ALL cultures think that way. Certainly Westernized ones do.

Just being curious, I submitted "approve" to the search engine, and came up with 143 results. Seth seems to have thought it was an important issue. Love begins at home, we have to love ourselves in order to be able to love others. I'm not forgetting Seth's Daily Affirmations either.

https://findingseth.com/q/approve/

These are interesting too: "Humility, in various interpretations, is widely seen as a virtue which centers on low self-preoccupation, or unwillingness to put oneself forward, so it is in many religious and philosophical traditions, it contrasts with narcissism, hubris and other forms of pride and is an idealistic and rare intrinsic construct that has an extrinsic side. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humility

"1 Peter 5:5 (KJV): Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble."
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pride_comes_before_a_fall