When we care for another soul, without criticism and judgment, we do not feel separate from them. Our heart and its openness keeps us feeling united and a sense of one-ness follows, whilst our soul is simultaneously nourished. This is unconditional love.
Judgment and its link with Separation
When we judge ourself or another, separation has to be felt…it is impossible for it not to be the case. By the mere fact that we are judging, a part of our heart is closing in that process.
The sad part is the significance of this, since it means that part of our heart is actually closing to ourselves too!
This division when felt internally carries pain and an associated lack of acceptance of life, and all the things we see and experience.
Often however we pretend to care, by showing signs of connection and unity outwardly, and yet in our mind we know we are not keeping the same integrity and fully experience the inauthenticity. A fake face can be difficult to carry.
Some might choose the opposite and show the judgment outwardly and although they are more authentic with their real feelings, because this does not fit in with a code of conduct that society agrees in, they are inadvertently condemned too for being honest, and of course they have not seen the hidden lesson in the experience for themselves!
A deeper understanding is required of both of these polar opposite responses to judgment.
The missing link- Honest Care with Integrity
The missing ingredient to not feeling like an island and to not feeling separate from others is therefore honest care that carries integrity. Ironically we have to learn how not to be judgmental of ourselves to truly gain the insight of how to be truly caring towards others.
Once we care for ourselves without self criticism, our heart remains open to everyone else too, and our mind has the compassion for those that choose to still judge. We see it is a temporary stepping stone towards finding an open heart.
By understanding how family life assists our evolution into feeling separate, we begin to understand how to get back in touch with a different quality of mind too. This understanding helps us to forgive our judgments, and see how they arose without our cognitive will- i.e. how they are simply a pattern we borrowed from elders.
The new type of mind that evolves is beyond the illusion of fear and separation, the type of mind that we had when we were still children and extremely innocent, when we inherently knew how to feel the joy of staying in our heart. This happens automatically by heightening self awareness and dealing with our unconscious conclusions.
How does family life keep the idea of judgment and separation alive?
When we speak of others with disdain, speculation, and opinionated views we never understand that we know nothing of the truth of what is really unfolding for them! In too many homes, including mine, it has felt natural to gossip about others without real thought of the deeper devastating implications of such behaviour.
Our children are guaranteed to copy our behaviour.
How can our mind ever be right in its evaluation when it is unlikely to have the full facts! Your mind is not living my life, and my mind is not living yours. The basis of mind conclusions is thus totally irrelevant and ignorant, and only point to deeper and hidden aspects of our own personality that we are still condemning and not liking.
So why at the kitchen table is it sooo common place to discuss what we have seen on Facebook or elsewhere about someone else or why is it so easy to talk about others in one way privately and then publicly in another? There is no integrity in such behaviour.
Our observations if judgmental are very destructive and yet they happen so easily. Only with understanding do we get to see how the mind works and the fact that the quality of our mind can change with consciousness expansion.
How change we fear makes us most opinionated!
When things change from an existing status quo (or our own perceived standard), exploration and growth happens for that person who has grown some wings to move, and that growth would be bringing beneficial developments to their lives- all change teaches and offers new learnings!
It takes courage and strength to explore new things and even greater courage to take a road less travelled than most. Backbone is required to weather the storm of a collective society that is only too ready to judge.
But what we need to understand is that when we fear something we become resistant to move towards change, and with it we become naturally critical of anyone that has tread in the direction of our deepest fears.
It is our own insecurity and jealousy that is driving the judgment, not the fact that the person we are condemning has done anything wrong.
We comfort ourselves from this feeling of insecurity by feeling holier than thou, and protect our own restrictive and limiting ways, by condemning, even when we know that change is all that there is to life and everyone is entitled to do whatever it takes to be happy.
Non judgment and the opportunities hidden inside
So instead of sitting in judgment we could remain in the seat of a neutral observer that is compassionate at all times, happy to experience the coming and going with curiosity and intrigue. For this we need to harness a fearless attitude and one that has learnt some of the details of the different faces of insecurity that have stood inside of us too. This in fact is the only way to become compassionate. We have to pursue inward leadership.
If we could remain in our heart and be open to the new adventures that are arising for another, we too could grow and enjoy new miracles ourselves instead of staying stuck in old ways and remaining crippled by non serving fears and insecurities.
Staying in judgment is always an opportunity missed! An opportunity to become more human. An opportunity to become more authentic. And opportunity to become more whole and complete. An opportunity to be more happy.
What happens when someone is judging you?
I know for me judgment is felt in my heart and I accept the truth that the person judging me doesn’t really truly care about me. Deep down there is nothing loving about judgment. We immediately feel separation.
The wide open heart and innocent presence of a child is so refreshing. This is such a stark contrast to an arrogant and ignorant mind response that is hasty to evaluate and judge before it makes a decision. As the mind carries us into adulthood it begins to evaluate and calculate so naturally as part of its role to protect us. Our innocence is lost!
Calculation and evaluation is simply the nature of the mechanism of how a mind works, and the nature of how we feel more and more separate from one another as we travel in life. These inadvertent responses inside us are simply transitionary pit stops in our journey and not destinations in themselves.
They are all in our life, so that we can overcome and transform the folly hidden inside these transitionary places.
What does it say about the person standing in judgment of you?
We become willing to move from these transitionary places because there is an irony in judgment that is self painful. The ironic thing is that it shows that our heart is closed and the misery arises from our resistance and our inability to accept life as it is unfolding.
The person who judges outwardly is guaranteed to be very harsh inwardly and engaged in self judgment which is even more fierce than their disdain of others!! This is the real sad truth. Their outward judgment is nothing in comparison to their inner turmoil. Their mind is playing the role of master and condemning instead of allowing the idea of separation to be erased.
When separation is erased, the mind cannot function in the old negative way, and its quality completely changes from manipulation and control. The new mind is always loving, and unconditionally graceful, connected to a heart that is driving the responses, and feelings driven from intuition rather than the mind. In this scenario the mind becomes the servant to the heart.
What happens to the heart when judgment stops?
When a person grows in awareness to see the good and bad, light and dark, love and hate, and all other forms of duality inside themselves they begin to accept everything in life outside of them. When we see our own self judgment, we stop judging. When we see our insecurity, we stop judging weak people. When we see our misery, we become compassionate towards others. When we see our anger, we understand others.
Automatically separation falls away and simultaneously their heart expands beyond recognition. They become fully accepting of themselves and totally responsible for their own new state of heightened consciousness. They engage in no gossip and remain heart centered.
Interestingly with this occurrence they ironically become less tolerant of those that choose to judge them going forward. They have the strength to say “get lost”! They know they are doing nothing wrong- They themselves are remaining fully heart centered and open and are totally willing to embrace anyone- so of course why should they accept someone who is not in their heart towards them?
Contemplation
So contemplate on this… If you are engaging in judging others, accept that you are judging yourself too and having to endure its associated misery. Worse still you are willing to be judged by others and have to be ready to embrace that hardship!! That is the simple rule. What you dish out, you have to be willing to take too.
If however you have seen the folly of your mind, transformed its judgment process, you will be both compassionate and loving towards yourself and everyone around you! You will never accept judgment from another because your heart is open, and so you naturally expect the same back. S
uch a person knows it is not a loss of real love if they end up saying ” get lost!!!” to those that choose to keep judgment and separation alive.
