If we’re oriented around learning, growth, and improvement of our lives, we generally reach a point where we no longer need the crutches, at which point they can be discarded.

We might see the possibility of discarding them ourselves; we might benefit from a bit of a push from a loving other.

In terms of areas where I see someone operating on the basis of an illusion, though, I typically have a sense of whether it would be productive to point out my perspective to them. When my intuition is no, I keep quiet about it.

There are other times, though, where my intuition is yes, and in those moments it seems most loving to speak up.

“I would like to give at this time also my attitude toward other systems. It is foolish to denounce other systems merely because they exist, and because we see no agreement with their method. It is likewise cowardly to fail to denounce any system that functions under a false pretense, and which in so doing, consumes the valuable young years of a student’s life in repayment for that student’s trust and faith. Of course we may be tempted to say that people without the proper vision deserve to be duped, but such thinking only spells the doom and hopelessness for future generations of which we are the seed, physically and spiritually.

“We must discriminate, even as Buddha enjoined. We must point out error and denounce deliberate spiritual chicanery. We cannot lie down with fornicators and remain pure. We cannot get into mutual back-scratching, or lie down with rationalization unless we wish to become dishrags.

“We can only find Truth be retreating from untruth, not by postulating a ‘Truth’ that we achieve by visualization rather than by realization. In Matthew, 10:34, Christ gives his aims, pointing out that he is not an agent of peace but the agent of the sword. He is referring to the sword of discrimination. In Zen writings it is called the sword of Prajna.”