Do you judge? Do you see value in judging?
Do you think judging changes things?
What do you judge?
Is there different forms of judging
The dictionary says:
Verb: To form an opinion or conclusion about.
And where do those opinions and conclusions come from?
(It could be enlightening and fun to check out other discriptions of judging from the dictionary.)
I have heard that when we judge, we curse ourselves? What might that mean? (One person interpreted it as wishing bad things for someone who had hurt them.
Here is an excerpt on “judge not” from a workshop.
Now the great teacher that lived many years ago said if we loved Him, we would keep His commandments, but we haven’t paid much attention to that. And along with ‘judge not” was the second most frequently repeated statement, to “watch” which is a word that would possibly be more accurately translated as “to awaken” – awake or watch.
When we find ourselves disturbed or, shall we say, getting emotional, the first thing we do is look for blame. Prior to blame, we “made something important” which really says I judge this as being more important than something else. I react in a millisecond and so begins the process of judging. I’ve got “to do something about it” and “this must be changed right now!“ All this is done mechanically in a “sleep state”. Somewhere in the mind is a long established “belief” or an “ideal” of “what ought to be.”
We react with a complaint or blaming or judging because we think “they or it will change”. That reaction began mechanically to be a habit when we were little babies. It worked then, but is about the last way to get “our way” today in our grown up bodies. We are still judging and trying to change things — “I’ve got to have this thing or this sensation sensation; and this one I don’t want.
So are we judging constantly? Is our judging just mechanical efforts, totally unknown, totally unconscious, — are we, then, just a machine? We left the brain and intelligence somewhere while we were reacting to stimuli we judge as “bad”. The machine is like a car going somewhere without a driver. There is no understanding whatsoever.
So first we are judgers. We judge; and therefore, set up the state of opposites – what does it start from? — the first belief established at birth that the whole purpose of living was to regain the nondisturbed state – the state we had just before left the comfort of the womb where everything was provided with no effort on our part.
Now we’ve never reevaluated that decision made at birth – never really knew it existed, and so we judge. It’s a constant struggle to be totally nondisturbed. Every challenge is seen as a threat – “how can I get it away, it’s bad” – the judging goes on morning, noon and night in our sound sleep state.
Now obviously, as long as this judging is in there, that’s pretty prime information to know about going on within. We can possibly awaken to ask “what am I’m doing”? We observed a person the other day who received a letter on pink ruled tablet paper and got all pushed out of shape.
Most of us think we’re not making things important. Do you realize you make things important all day long? Are you conscious of doing it while you’re doing it? No, but in restrospect you see, “Oh yes, I made that important.” But you’re unaware of it until later, is that right?
Right. So there is a very few, He said, who would find “the way” which is to be conscious of what we’re doing: but we want to do it mechanically. What is the constant cry? “Tell me what’s the right thing to do; and I’ll do it?” “Give me some teaching so I can establish a new belief; and then I can do it mechanically. But what difference does it make if a machine does it? The greatest computer in the world is still just a machine; and about the same value as a dollar watch when it comes to consciousness except the computer does different works – both are mechanical. So when it’s mechanical, there is no human being there – he’s gone to a “sleep state” and and lets the machine operate.
Now an awakened individual obviously wouldn’t make important “what you do or say or don’t do or say” because it really doesn’t matter. One wouldn’t make it important what somebody in one’s household says or does – what difference does it make, it goes away in a very short time. If you don’t like it, just wait a minute, it’ll be different. You can develop ways of directing the potential difficulty to another subject or just leaving it without comment. In other words, letting go – it just isn’t that important. We only argue about opinions, beliefs and conclusions, not facts.
So “what’s going on” is what we could call a “transient stream flowing through the mind. When one is awake and watching, one has no desire to make anything in that “stream” important. But if you have that first belief that we all established ,that the whole purpose of living is to be nondisturbed, then anything that’s in the “stream” could potentially be a disturber sooner rather than later. So then I’ve already judged it as “bad”, as a “threat”; and I begin to struggle with it right now.
Some say “Oh I judged then, I was so bad, and that was only in my younger days”. Consequently, we kid ourselves when we say, “Now I don’t judge anymore.” Now is the time we are in – the present moment – there is only now. If I’m unaware of judging now, am I conscious? Do we judge “in the now” and only be conscious of it at some future time if I just happen to look back at it. Is that about the way it works? But have we paid any attention to our judging in the now. Are we awake at this moment to see what I’m doing now? How about that?
Was your last week full of a lot of important things to do at that moment? And were you anxious a great deal of the time as you looked back on it?
(Yes.)
Now what was it about – important things wasn’t it? You never get anxious about things that aren’t important, do you? Is it important what people say to me — what people do? Is it important how much money I had to spend for groceries? And I hear one of those potatoes was rotten too, huh? You got all torn up about a rotten potato I’ve noticed?
(Yeah. They’re pretty stinkin’.)
Yeah, terrible isn’t it? Bad, bad, bad. So we go around constantly in our “sound sleep” judging mechanically – click, click, click, click, click; and then the next moment we say how much we love all the great teachings and the teacher too, huh? But we demonstrate that we haven’t even paid the slightest attention to the teachings. Somebody told us if we say these words — you know, make an affirmation and then we’ll be happy and it’ll all just happen, so I say the words how? – mechanically.
One time I worked in a lab where we had a brainwave machine – you know, one of these things you hook around on here; and it makes little waves on a chart. It shows how your brain’s working. We had this thing working in a grounded shielded booth so there would be no external radio waves or anything to interfere with it.
We had an Archbishop in the Roman Catholic church was one of the patients we were working with one day, so we had him to multiply some numbers like 393 by 16 and it made some pretty good jiggles on the chart. And then the man that was operating it – (it wasn’t me, I was just the technician in there holding wires), said to the Archbishop, “Would you say the Our Father and two Hail Mary’s please? So he rattled them off. When he got through the technician of the machine walked over to him and said, “Bishop, I hate to tell you this, but your prayers didn’t even get out of this booth.” “They didn’t make a squiggle on the machine. So the mechanical way of rattling off the words did not register on the brainwave machine.
(Did he laugh?)
Who, the archbishop? No. I did, but you know I’m always seeing something as funny. He didn’t laugh at all – he didn’t think that was appropriate – it was very undignified.
But judging is our prime business, is that about right? Now suppose that I give a little exercise. Everbody says they wanna be awake. They have even asked me, “Bob, wake us up.” So I’ll give the shake now. That is that this week, you will judge consciously everything that you come in contact with at that moment – you will judge it. Now you’ve apparently been doing it pretty consistently and unconsciously as you look back in retrospect, but you didn’t do it consciously at the moment because you don’t judge consciously. If you judged it as bad then you have first made it important — very important; and you try to figure a way to change it or some person into something “good” –something that fits your ideal — something you approve of, is that right? Then you discover that you’re in a state of struggle and you resist what is – you stay in conflict as long as it’s not the way you want it. – is that correct?
So let’s say that number one, we will consciously judge everything. In other words we will consciously sin for a change. You’re gonna sin, do it consciously, man, get all the mileage you can out of it. Don’t just go around in your sleep doin’ it – sleep walkers don’t get no mileage out of their sinnin’. So consciously judge. Consciously make everything very important “which is to judge it” i had to judge it from something I made important. So I have to judge whether it’s good or bad; and then I can consciously be caught up in the opposites. That makes me double minded okay? How can you expect anything if you’re trying to go in two directions at once. So you keep on doing it deliberately and on purpose or, shall we say, consciously because, you see, you can’t keep on doing it when you discover that it isn’t justified that there really is no understanding of the total picture. When you’ve awakened, you can’t keep doing it. Try it as much as you like. So we’re really not conscious except in retrospect that I made something important.
So for this week in order to be awake, I’m gonna judge everything as very important first, huh? That’ll set it up. I wanna make it important; and then I’m gonna see whether it’s good or bad; and if I judge it as “good”, I’m gonna work desperately to hang onto it; and if I judge it as “bad”, I’m gonna work desperately to make it go away, okay? Now that would be beginning to look at this first idea of the teachings a little bit; and would that be waking up just a little bit? In retrospect, we look back and say we’ve judged and made everything important, and we wind up full of anxieties, chewin’ our fingernails off to taking gobs of tranquilizers and other good remedies. And then we wonder why our stomachs are upset. Why we have headaches. Why we have backaches and why we’re falling apart at the seams — my skin’s saggin’ and all this because after all I’m very “good” you know. We even judge that as a belief. We’ve been influenced with that saying that “only good people get sick — those old reprobates don’t ever get sick”. Did you ever hear that? So we will make things important, we’ll be anxious, but we will be consciously anxious; and we will consciously judge everything; and we will consciously be in a state of opposites; and we will consciously know we need expect nothing because we are in conflict, struggle and resisting “what is”.
[From Marsha…
When working with this exercise, the question came up as to whether he was talking about expressing it outwardly or not. I can express it outwardly with no one around similar to when I did the exercise of working off anger by beating a towel against the sofa when I was alone and going through all the anger statements.
But if we judge others openly, I think we would not only experience lots of arguments and defenses; but also a lot of disapproval and rejection which probably isn’t to my advantage in the long run – either at home or at work. People don’t want to do things for me when I constantly judge them.
When I questioned how judging someone is a curse for me, I observed others and myself. In the first place I don’t feel so good inside when I judge and that makes it hard to keep my mood up – I begin to make it important to not be around them and that’s all I see of them – I don’t see the whole person and all the valued aspects of them. Therefore I am tempted to cut myself off. If, instead, I have looked at the complete person as they are each time I see them, (be knowing them moment to moment) often the judgement melts away. And from working with that idea, I have developed some wonderful relationships that were to my advantage in many ways – skills, recommendations, rides (because I can’t drive), financial help, new relatonships both in friends and work and on and on.
I’ve have heard an idea that helps me to discern who I want to be with and who I don’t want to be with – is that judging? Maybe. But there are many people invited to this earth party. Some I will want to be around a lot and some I won’t. It doesn’t make those that I don’t want to be around bad or wrong – it just means that either we see things differently or we just don’t have anything in common, so I let them pass on through my life.
I also have noticed that when somebody judges me, first off I feel compelled to defend myself which goes nowhere. They just bring up better arguments to either put me down or try to change me. I also find that I feel a need to please them and either do or not do whatever they judged me for. But when they’re gone, what do I do then? Can you guess?
And we can also see whether it’s of value to judge myself. Do I change or do I only become double minded trying to go in two directions at once. I describe the opposites as “do what I want to do” verses “do what I think I should do or ought to do”. Seems like the result of that conflict is to “feel bad about myself” which goes into guilt and/or self pity. Does that have any value? Do I change or do I just create a vicious cycle that continues on and on.
Do I make it important and judge others who are judging? Do I kid myself that only I can judge because I do it “justly.” Does that leave me in a peaceful state with an ability to keep the mood up?
And another judgement I observe is when it is made important that everyone have the same personal taste that I have. I happen to like jazz and others like rap. They just have a different personal taste from mine; and if I see that, then I can just “let it be” without getting all emotional about it. If they don’t like jazz, so what – what difference does it make?
So this is certainly a worthwhile exercise to use and discover what it has to offer for each of us.]