I remember a fengshui master whom I regard as one of my earlier teachers told me in a light hearted manner, “If you did all the judging, then what is God to do?” At that moment, it dawned upon me that the stress I was going through in most of my relationships then was indeed caused by my judgments. My judgment all came with probable solutions too! ‘He talks too loud, he should speak softer’, ‘She doesn’t care about him, she should treat him better’, ‘This dish is not delicious, you must learn how to cook.’ Sounds bossy, doesn’t it? Of course, having known better now, judgments are merely arising thoughts through one of the mind’s functions to perceive which I had taken as real, and as mine.
A few days ago as I read A Course in Miracles, it clearly stood out again, our inability to judge. It shared,
How can you judge? Your judgment rests upon the witness that your senses offer you. Yet witness never falser was than this. But how else do you judge the world you see? You place pathetic faith in what your eyes and ears report. You think your fingers touch reality and close upon the truth. This is awareness which you understand and think more real than what is witnessed to by the eternal Voice of God himself.
Can this be judgment? You have often been urged to refrain from judging, not because it is a right to be withheld from you. You cannot judge. You merely can believe the ego’s judgment, all of which are false. It guides your senses carefully, to prove how weak you are, how helpless and afraid, how apprehensive of just punishment, how black with sin, how wretched in your guilt
– Lesson 151, A Course in Miracles
If my senses, which do not know one another only to have meanings or perceptions conjured in the mind because of its functions of interpreting and perceiving, how will I know if what I perceive is to be of truth? And if it is not of truth, then what would I be perceiving or judging except to allow my mind to throw in their own idea-ready-recipe into a pot of soup for dinner so to allow disaster in my experience to unfold?
The truth is that, judgment only arises because I have believed in a certain chain of thoughts that occurred in the mind. If I was just watching the thoughts coming and going, that is all that they are – impersonal thoughts that come and go; but instead, when I start buying into the thoughts which are constantly being churned out by the mind, making them all so personal to my experience, I create my own hell so per se.
Funnily, a thought just crossed my mind, why is it that we tend to believe judgments or thoughts that ruin us, but doubt those of the thoughts that say, ‘I am loved’ or ‘I can do this!’ or ‘I can be a multi-zillionaire’? We are indeed, a strange species.
The other day, I received a sms from a neighbor citing that the security guards at our garden did not conduct a stringent check on a foreign vehicle that he was in. Being the chairman of the resident association committee, I got edgy and irritated with the guards for not performing their duties up to mark and was ready to give them a good blasting. Clearly, there was already a sure case of judgment. The minute I got down from the car and consciously made an intention to listen to the whole situation instead as the security supervisor explained to me what happened, I realized that I had no reason to feel edgy, irritated or angry. Whatever that he did, was perfectly fine in his perception (and mine too!). But it was because I did not listen to the full story, merely buying into my neighbor’s story, which could have been misinterpreted or misperceived by my senses anyway; I judged the guards wrongly and got myself angry.
This incident allowed me to see how I am so incapable of judging anything or anybody based on limited information. As A Course in Miracle also states in the same text,
No one can judge on partial evidence. That is not judgment. It is merely an opinion based on ignorance and doubt. Its seeming certainty is but a cloak for the uncertainty it would conceal. It needs irrational defense because it is irrational. And its defense seems strong, convincing, and without a doubt because of all the doubting underneath.
How true that this is revealed. If I am to refrain from judging, I am lessen a burden of a task I thought was mine to carry out; and this applies too to self-judgment. As long as someone or something becomes the target of blame, judgment has set in and thereby disallowing truth to unfold itself. In truth, whatever happens out there is none of my business. In fact, my business is also none of my business because it is already fully taken care of. But for the sake of having something to ‘do’, then my business is, just to be with Truth, and to be Truth – to forgive my perceptions which cannot represent truth, and to be Love. And oh my, Love judges not. Now, that’s Truth.
Even what is going on with the ego is none of my business! But what i did is took it as MY business, hence the drama :). Nothing, nothing at all belongs to me, here in existence, as what is here in existence is a mirage, a bubble, bursting each moment as it arises, like a dream, which does not occur beyond time. Hmmm but yet, and yet…. it is sooooo real!
Love your wisdom.
Ah… but that is the irony… if it was not so real, how could it have fooled us? If it didn’t fool us at first, for us to rise above it sooner or later, then how would or could we have come to realise our own greatness?
Wisdom has never been mine, but yet it is an inherent nature; awakened, supported by the work that you have done and the wish to be free.