No Judgment

Judgment causes problems to the one who judges. Whoever is freed from judgment can live a free and peaceful life. We can see in our day to day life how disturbing being judgmental can be for us. It effects us not only during this life, but also affects our future lives after death. There are a lot of discussions about judgment. Most of these are about the fear, worry, and negativity that it causes.

I once talked to a man who converted to another faith. He was happy with the new faith which he followed. There was one thing which worried him: judgment. He said, “I am worried because I am a convert to the new faith. When I die, I will be judged by my old faith”. I comforted him with these words; “Don’t worry about that. You haven’t judged anyone, so you won’t be judged”. He looked relieved and said to me, “Yes, I never judge anything. I should not be judged”. What he said to me reminds me of a story which I heard recently. Here is the story:

There was once an old man who used to sell little things in the village, and the people of that village came to realize that he had no judgment. So they would take the things and give him false coins. He would accept them, because he would never say, ‘This is wrong and that is right.’ Sometimes they would take things from him and they would say, ‘We have paid you.’ He would not say, ‘You have not paid.’ Instead, he would say, ‘Okay’, and thank them. He was known as a good man. Then people also started coming from other villages. The news spread, ‘This man is very good. You can take anything from his shop and you need not pay, or you can pay in false coins, and he accepts everything!’

Then death approached this old man. These were his last words. He looked at the sky and said, ‘Throughout my life, I have been accepting all kinds of coins, even false ones. I am also a false coin! Please don’t judge me. I have not judged any people, so please don’t judge me.’ And he died in peace.

The story teaches us that if judgment disappears, we have become innocent. This is so if we don’t divide things into good and bad, ugly and beautiful, acceptable and non-acceptable. If we don’t divide things, if we look at reality without any division or opinion then our eyes will become eyes of wisdom.

If we divide things into good and bad, ugly and beautiful, acceptable and non-acceptable, we will remain blind. If we judge, we will remain blind. If we say this is bad and this is good, we will persist in our blindness… because there is nothing good and nothing bad. When we accept everything as it really is, we accept that we are no different to other things or people and, therefore, we have no problem with them. We become friends with them.

So remember, don’t judge or have an opinion about what you see, hear, sense, touch and think. Don’t move to judge or form an opinion. Only then can we perceive reality or the truth. Reality or truth gives us no problem. Having no problems brings us peace and freedom in life.