Eaton Satsang
Judgements
The topic of judgements might seem a bit confusing because our mind wants to simplify its understanding, but there are actually different types and effects of judgements. For simplicity’s sake I like to acknowledge that many practical, and necessary comparative judgements are the product of everyday functioning and these serve a useful purpose in our ordinary lives.
Spiritual teachers, however, are pointing to a different form of judgements that result from the lifelong conditioning that has distorted our perception of reality. These distortions are reflected in our personal, subjective, egoic biases including moral judgements. Judgemental beliefs that we apply to others are also the same judgements by which we judge ourselves, so even our self-perception is distorted. This is evident through the suffering induced by the Inner Critic or Superego - the collection of shoulds and should-nots that are so familiar. Our first task is to learn to recognize and become witness to the circumstances 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
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)
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
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.
– Ram Dass
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
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.
