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Judgements

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The topic of judgments can be a bit complex because our minds tend to simplify understanding, yet there are various types and impacts of judgments. To keep it straightforward, it's important to recognize that many practical and necessary comparative judgments are essential for everyday functioning and serve a useful purpose in our lives.

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However, spiritual teachers point towards a different kind of judgments, those founded upon unquestioned beliefs stemming from lifelong conditioning that distorts our perception of reality. These distortions manifest in our personal, subjective, ego-driven biases, including moral judgments.

 

The same judgments we apply to others are mirrored in how we judge ourselves, thus distorting our self-perception and often inducing anxiety or worry. This is evident in the suffering caused by our Inner Critic or Superego—the internal collection of "shoulds" and "should-nots" that are familiar to us. Our initial task is to identify and observe situations where our judgmental mind is most active.

I have the following reminder posted as a stickie note on my computer:
    Replace judgement with curiosity & inquiry
    Replace judgement with compassion
    Replace judgement with love
    Replace judgement with understanding.
    Replace judgement with not knowing

    Replace judgement with trust

 

Quotes


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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More than anything else, judgment will take you out of the present moment. It will take you out of Oneness into separation. Whenever judgment arises within you, just notice it. Acknowledge it. Confess it. It is just an energy arising within you. Do not judge it or try to get rid of it. Just bring it to consciousness with love, acceptance and compassion. In this way, judgment will be transformed into love.
~ Leonard Jacobson

Matt.7. [1] Judge not, that ye be not judged. [2] For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. [3] And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
~ Bible - Matthew 7 (King James version)

 

If you con't compare, then you are neither bigger nor smaller, neither ugly nor beautiful, neither intelligent nor stupid. If you don't compare, you are simply yourself.

~ Osho

The false messages we were told when we were young are distorted, untrue, and don’t serve our peace and well being. It’s like we’re hypnotized, living under their spell. And when we believe these messages, we project them onto the world.
We become magnets for rejection, judgment, and unkindness, which only confirms that the messages are true. Our whole lives feel off because everything stems from these false beliefs.
~ Gail Brenner

Do not criticize anyone today as criticism deepens your belief in separation. Do not gossip or convey any unnecessary opinion about another. Judging others is a habit that feeds the erroneous perception of individuality.
~ Jac O’Keeffe

You judge only who you believe us to be.
~ Byron Katie

 

At any time, do not judge anyone as good or bad, neither yourself nor the other; because no one, neither the sage nor the psychopath, does anything: everything happens according to God's Will/Cosmic Law.

~ Ramesh Balsekar

Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian,
stone, ground, mountain, river,
each has a secret way of being with the mystery,
unique and not to be judged.
~ Rumi

 

If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue. Make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved, and the need to judge. Those are the three things the ego is doing all the time. It's very important to be aware of them every time.

~ Deepak Chopra

Do not concern yourself whether
you're going to do anything wrong or right.
You are just one of the many actors on the stage of life.
Everybody has come here to play a role, so-to-speak.
Some people have to be the good guys,
some people have to be the bad guys.
This is the reason we never judge anybody.
This is the reason you should never call anybody evil or bad.
It is really a role that they're playing.
And a person on the path of Jnana (wisdom)
does not judge anybody or anything.
They leave everything alone.
They observe it, they watch it.
Come to no conclusions.
Good and bad is out of their vocabulary.
Right and wrong has been transcended.
This happens before you become fully enlightened.
~ Robert Adams

When one is without ego, one becomes immediately free of all personal judgements and perceives life and the world with divine eyes and mind. Nothing is offensive to such a one, and they remain in perfect serenity and peace always.
~ Mooji

Mindfulness is the quality and power of mind that is aware of what’s happening — without judgment and without interference. It is like a mirror that simply reflects whatever comes before it.
~ Joseph Goldstein

Awareness does the observing;
thought does the judging.
~ Rupert Spira

How vital it is to refrain from the temptation to judge ourselves or the teachings, and to be humorously aware of our condition, and to realize that we are, at the moment, as if many people all living in one person.
~ Sogyal Rinpoche

With love and space, absent from any kind of judgment, our soul unfolds into deeper reality beautifully, because it inherently knows the way.
~ Miranda Macpherson

 

As soon as the mind says something shouldn’t have happened, we are in an argument with reality. Reality is simply what it is. As soon as we have anything in us that judges it, that condemns it, that says it shouldn’t be, we will feel division. There isn’t a justified reason to argue with reality, because we’ll never win the fight. Arguing with reality is a perfect prescription for suffering.

~ Adyashanti

 

No jewel is more radiant and clear than a mind free from judgments. Here is the space where we can truly meet.

And no "practice" is more full of grace than simply dropping judgment. Yet this effortless non-doing requires great courage. Because the moment we drop the judge, we are assailed by ten thousand voices from our conditioning, our politics, our education, shouting, "How dare you! This is irresponsible! You must choose sides! You must condemn the opposition! How can the world survive without your judgments?" 

Yes, the moment after you drop judgment, a tidal wave of inner voices judges YOU. Be courageous. Drop them too! When we drop the voices of our judgment, we drop the voices that judge us, and we drop them not one at a time, but all at once. Let an exhalation of surrender sweep these voices away like scattered petals, dry leaves. Then breathe in the breath of emptiness, sparkling with Shakti, vibrating with the pure power of silence. 

Hollow and transparent, blaming no one, we are present, eyes open to a luminous world, created just now. The ocean of the heart overflows through these eyes. Few words are needed. We meet. And we respond to a world that actually IS, instead of responding to our mental judgments about it. This is real response-ability. 

When Jesus said, "judge not, lest ye be judged," he was not warning us, but inviting us into the spaciousness of love, a realm beyond karma. Judge-not is the gateway to the miraculous. Judge-not is immediate spontaneous communion in Christ-Consciousness.

~ Fred LaMotte

 

Individual differences are not better or worse, merely different. If we forgo judging, we come to understand that each of us has a unique predicament that requires a unique journey. While we share the overall journey, everyone’s particular experiences are his or her own. No set of experiences is a prerequisite for enlightenment. People have become enlightened in all ways. Just be what you are.

The experiences along the way are not enlightenment. So if you don’t see lights or meet remarkable beings on other planes, or if your body doesn’t shake, or if you don’t feel the greatest peace, or even if nothing seems to happen in meditation, don’t compare or judge. Just keep going. To compare yourself with others is to forget the uniqueness of your own journey."

~ Ram Dass 

I want what's best and I trust the universe, not my little brain, to be the judge of what's best and how best to make it happen.
~ Jed McKenna

 

No matter how many times I tell you this, 

you're still thinking, thinking, judging, judging, 

coming to conclusions, trying to work out your life. 

You have to let go. 

Totally, absolutely, completely. 

~ Robert Adams

I'm simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I'm saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes. It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering, not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say "this is good, this is bad," you have already jumped onto the thought process. It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher.
~ Osho

 

Compassion lets us appreciate that each individual is doing what he or she must do, and that there is no reason to judge another person or oneself. Merely do what you can to further your own awakening.

– Ram Dass

A Sufi teaching story featuring Nasrudin, the holy fool
A judge in a village court had gone on vacation. Nasrudin was asked to be temporary judge for a day. Nasrudin sat on the Judge's chair with a serious face, gazing around the public and ordered the first case be brought-up for hearing.
"You are right," said Nasrudin after hearing one side.
"You are right," he said after hearing the other side.
"But both cannot be right," said a member of public sitting in the audience.
"YOU ARE RIGHT TOO" said Nasrudin.

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