Don't Judge
Read John 5:22-30 The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me, has eternal life; he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. John 5:22-24
Right Judgment is essentially about not being swayed, nor swaying others. In Right Judgment our decisions are not overly influenced by the past. Right Judgment also is also balanced by thinking and intention. When we judge someone we place them under the compulsion of our ego. From the perspective of our I AM we usually do not judge for we know that we don’t have all the facts. We also know that karma is the great adjuster. Rather than judge, we simply observe of the behaviour of the other person and seek to understand.
The great example of this is the story of Mary Magdalene caught in adultery. Afterwards Jesus spoke these words: You judge according to the flesh, I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone that judge, but I and he who sent me. John 8:15-16
The Greek word for ‘judgment’ is krisis which speaks of a separating, then a decision. Pulling an issue apart and putting it back together again so that it is understood as fully as possible. Judgment as we experience it today is often hasty and often deadly. If we leave ourselves open to believe, Christ says, we do not come into judgment, but pass from death to life.
Of all things, judgment is our area of greatest difficulty. How can we decide what is true and what is false, what is good and what it bad? Judgment is inflicted on us from every side of life. Do this and don’t do that … songs were written about in the sixties. Who decides what is right and what is wrong? Government? Church? Parents? Friends? Most of the time they ‘say’ what is right and ‘do’ the wrong. Henry Thoreau, the 19th century philosopher said, “The greater part of what my neighbours call good I believe in my soul to be bad …”. Nothing much has changed.
Judgment is not about taking one position or another, judgment is about a continual weighing up; visiting both sides of the scale, not weighting one side. When both sides of the scale are balanced, then judging can occur. But what is this judging really?
In this material, earthly existence everything we face in life can equally be proved as right or it can be contradicted as wrong. We must let the pros AND the cons merge in our soul equally, not one outweighing the other. Compare it to breathing in and breathing out – both must be equal, if we breathe in more than we breathe out it could lead to an explosion.
Our modern understanding of judgment is that it is once and for all. But judgment is a very mobile activity; it is a continual process of discerning. Furthermore, we cannot judge from where we stand, we must actively move forward into a new position and carry out the activity of judging there. This requires a certain amount of strength and courage. We always feel much more stable staying where we are which makes it very difficult to separate out all the facts and put them together differently. Then we do not pass from death to life.
Rudolf Steiner gives these guidelines for judging that lead to good decision making.
Upon examination it is surprising to see how much of our judging stems from the subconscious memories from past lives. If we encounter someone who in a past life decapitated us it is hard not to treat them accordingly. The memory of it is etched into our being; we may still carry the evidence of it in our body. Red welts can appear on the neck of a person who is re-experiencing having their throat slit. This is our karma which we have to balance. The only thing to do is to hear the words of Christ and know that if we do not judge according to the flesh then we will not be judged and we will pass from death to life now.