Many confound self-occupation with self-judgment. Seeing self-judgment to be right (when we fail), they are found asking themselves where the one ends and the other begins.
Self-occupation is the bane of the soul. Man makes himself the center and chief object upon earth. This is self-occupation.
Self-judgment is the work of the Spirit of God. It is not His proper work; but often, from our want of watchfulness, it is His necessary work. Without it, there is no way of return to the joy of communion when that communion is broken through sin. Self-judgment, though right in its place, is not communion; on the contrary, it is the confession that communion is lost. But it is the only way back; it is medicine, not food.
To live daily with self ignored, is the highest Christian condition. Here the Spirit of God is free to take Christ and put Him before me as my food. Here the soul is free to be occupied by and for Christ alone. The Apostle says, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." It is the only right state for food. And food is the soul's appropriation of Christ, and feeding upon Him as ministered by the Spirit. He alone is the "bread of life which came down from heaven"; as John 6:56 says, "He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me and I in him." (It is not the having done so once by faith. That is in verse 51, and is of the first importance.) Food is the daily need of the man. But how important to see that self-occupation is not food, and that self-judgment is not food; and how can I live or grow without food?