Judge Ye Not
A young man came to Dhun-Nun and said that the Sufis were wrong, and many other thing besides.
The Egyptian removed a ring from his finger and handed it to him. “Take this to the market stallholders over there and see whether you can get a gold piece for it,” he said.
Nobody among the market people offered more than a single silver piece for the ring.
The young man brought the ring back.
“Now,” said Dhun-Nun, “take the ring to a real jeweler and see what he will pay.”
The jeweler offered a thousand gold pieces for the gem.
The youth was amazed.
“Now,” said Dhun-Nun, “your knowledge of the Sufis is as great as the knowledge of the stallholders is of jewelry. If you wish to value gems, become a jeweler.”
Jesus says: “Judge ye not,” and this is one of the greatest sayings ever uttered by any man on the earth. It is one of the most impossible things for the mind. The mind judges immediately; without any grounds the mind makes a judgment. You have made many judgments without ever looking whether grounds existed for them or not. And if you look deep, you will find Jesus is right.
Every judgment is wrong, because the whole world is so deeply interconnected that unless you know the whole you cannot know the part. One thing leads to another because it is interlinked. The present moment is interlinked with all the past; the present moment is interlinked with all the future. In this moment culminates all eternity. All that has happened is there; all that is happening is there; all that will ever happen is there. How can you judge? The world is not divided. If it was divided then a fragment could be known, but the world is a totality. All judgments are false because they will be partial – and they will claim as if they are the whole.
Yes, Jesus is absolutely right: “Judge ye not,” because the very judgment will close you; it will be a deadness within. Your sensitivity will be lost, and with it your possibility for growth. The moment you judge, you shrink; the moment you judge, you stop; the moment you judge, you are no longer flowering. So the greatest thing is to be courageous enough not to judge. In fact, to suspend judgment is the greatest courage, because the mind is so eager to judge, to say good or bad, right or wrong. The mind is juvenile, it jumps from one judgment to another. If you ever want to get out of the mind – and without it there is no possibility of your inner growth – then, “Judge ye not.”
Excerpted From Journey To The Heart CH: 2
