VBT – Week’s Meditation 65
All Judgments Are Unjust
There is no need to stop or drop judging people; you have to understand why you judge and how you judge. You can judge only the behaviour because only the behaviour is available. You cannot judge the person because the person is hiding behind, the person is a mystery. You can judge the act but you cannot judge the being.
And the act is irrelevant. It will not be right to judge a being through the act. Sometimes it happens that a man is smiling. The act is there on the surface and deep inside he may be sad. In fact, he may be smiling because he is sad. He does not want to show his sadness to anybody – why bring one’s wounds to everybody? Why? That seems embarrassing. Maybe he is smiling just because he is crying deep down.
Nietzsche has said, “I go on smiling. People think I am a very jolly person and that is absolutely wrong. I go on laughing because I am afraid that if I don’t laugh, I may start crying. So I have to convert my energy somewhere else, otherwise it will become tears. Before it becomes tears it has to become laughter.”
The insight is perfectly true. Nietzsche is one of the most perceptive men ever born on the earth. Tears and smiles are very close. In Indian villages women say to their children, “Don’t laugh too much otherwise you will start crying.” And that happens. If a child laughs too much he starts crying. Tears and smiles are very close. If you want to hide your tears the best way is to smile – that’s why people are smiling.
Just by seeing a smiling face you cannot judge what is happening inside. The inside is not available to you. The inside is private; it is not available to anybody. So the first thing to understand is that you can look only at the behaviour and the behaviour does not mean much. All that is really significant is the person behind. And you don’t know. Your judgments are going to be wrong. And you know it – because when people judge you by your acts, you always feel that they have judged you wrongly.
You don’t judge yourself by your acts, you judge yourself by your being. So everybody feels that all judgements are unjust. You feel that judgements are unjust because to you your being is available – and the being is such a big phenomenon and the act is so tiny and small. It does not define anything. It may be just a momentary thing.
You said something to somebody and he became angry, but don’t judge him by his anger because it may be just a momentary flash. He may be a very loving person. If you judge him by his anger you misjudge him. And then your behaviour will depend on your judgement. And you will always wait for the man to be angry and you will always think that he is an angry man. You will avoid the person. You have missed an opportunity.
Never judge anybody by their actions – but that is the only thing available to you. So what to do? Judge ye not. By and by becoming more and more aware of the privacy of being. Every being inside his own soul is so private there is no way to penetrate it. Even when you love, something at the deepest core remains private. That is man’s dignity. That is the meaning when we say man has a soul. Soul means that which can never become public.
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