degree to which you are not fully joyful—and that is the degree to which you are not fully
loving.
You have discussed this before, and so I get that it must be pretty important. You are saying
that to be totally loving means to be fully free.
Yes, and to allow others to be fully free.
You mean everyone should be able to do anything they want?
That is what I mean. To the degree that it is humanly possible to allow that, yes. That is what
I mean.
That is how God loves.
God allows.
I allow everyone to do anything they want.
Without consequence? Without punishment?
The two are not the same thing.
As I have now told you repeatedly, there is no such thing as punishment in My Kingdom. On
the other hand, there is such a thing as consequence.
A consequence is a natural outcome, a punishment is a normal one. It is normal in your
society to punish. It is abnormal in your society to simply allow a consequence to assert itself,
to reveal itself.
Punishments are your announcement that you are too impatient to await a natural outcome.
Are You saying that no one should be punished for anything?
That is something you have to decide. Indeed, you are deciding it every day.
As you continue to make your ongoing choices about this, you may feel it beneficial to
consider what method you find most effective in causing your society, or anyone within it, to
change behaviors. This is, after all, your presumed reason for imposing punishments. To
punish for purposes of retribution—for, basically, “getting even”—will not create the kind of
society you say you wish to create.
Highly evolved societies have observed that little is learned from punishments. They have
concluded that consequences are the better teacher.
All sentient beings know the difference between punishments and consequences.
Punishments are artificially created outcomes. Consequences are naturally occurring
outcomes.
Punishments are imposed from the outside by someone with a value system different from
the one being punished. Consequences are experienced on the inside, by the Self.