Be not judgmental but be not judgmentophobic either

Be not judgmental, but be not judgmental phobic either.
We live in a culture where judgmentality is strongly critiqued, where people who are judgmental are considered to be begotten, narrow-minded, irrational. Now, irrespective of whatever truth there might be in such a statement, the fact remains that we all have to deal with issues wherein we have to make decisions. And decisions involve making some kind of judgment.
So, judges are important and an indispensable profession in our life, in today’s world. How will they do that profession is a different question which can be discussed appropriately. But the questions of practical efficiency, practical of efficiency is different from the question of necessity.
In practice, some judges may give some wrong decisions, but no matter what they do, the fact is that we do need judges. So, similarly, in real life, we do need some kind of capacity to discern things, some kind of ability by which we can understand what is what and move forward. Without that basic capacity, if we consider say life to be a journey, then on a journey, if we come to a fork, if we come to crossroads, then we need to know which direction we should be going and which direction we should not be going.
And on what basis will we decide that this is the direction I am going to go and this is the direction I am not going to go. Is there any objective criteria based on which we can decide this? We do need some criteria. And the only criteria that we can have is where do we exactly want to go.
Now, it is not necessarily that this road is bad and this road is good. We have more important is whether this road takes me to my destination or this road does not take me to my destination. So, sometimes the road that takes us to our destination may be narrow, may be damaged, being filled with potholes, may even be accident prone.
But still, we cannot determine the quality of the destination by the quality of the road alone. Sometimes there may be a forest footpath is filled with thorns and that may lead us to a point where there might be a gold mine deep in the forest or there might be a hidden treasure over there. Of course, to some extent, we may say that if there is a house, it is supposed to belong to somebody wealthy, but if the road to that house is run down, then you may get a question, what is this person using their wealth for? If they are wealthy, then why is the road to their house so run down? And we may have to find out appropriate answers to that.
Maybe that person uses some other road to come there frequently and that is why this road is not used or whatever. The point is that when we are driving, we do make decisions about which way to go and which way to not go. And when we make this decision based on not the, we decide that based on where we want to go that is the objective criteria.
It is not just some subjective notion, I do not like this road. So, if we consider that life itself is like a journey and along this journey, we have to take, we have to go towards certain destinations. Then we will have to make some judgments about which is the path we should be going and which is the path we should not be going.
Of course, it is important that we have a clear understanding of why we should be doing certain things and why we should not be doing certain things. But the fact is that we will have to make those decisions and we will choose to engage in certain activities and we may choose to abstain from certain activities. We may decide that if I want to evolve in spiritual consciousness, then material consciousness is a problem.
If I want to evolve in towards understanding my spiritual side, then the things which increase materialistic desires within me, I need to guard against them, I need to avoid them as much as possible. That is just common sense. So, that way, if we consider that we are meant to move towards Krishna and if that is the purpose of our life, then we will have to make, okay, this activity is going to take me away from Krishna, therefore, I will not do this.
This activity is going to take me towards Krishna, therefore, I will do it. This kind of discernment is important. So, now, when we become judgmental, then we take a holier than thou position where we treat others condescendingly and we become judgmental towards others in the sense that we put ourselves in the position of judges.
Now, even people who say that we should be non-judgmental, but they very strongly condemn those who are judgmental. Say, for example, people who are liberals, they say that we should be tolerant towards all towards different views, but then they themselves are not very tolerant towards those who do not agree with them. That means, liberals are often intolerant of conservatives.
So, there is, we could say even the illiberality of liberalism, where they deem the non-judgmental, they deem the judgmental as, they judge the judgmental. So, nobody can be entirely non-judgmental, it is extremely difficult. And so, we need to offer basic human respect and dignity to everyone, when those whose views differ from ours.
And, but at the same time, we cannot go to the other extreme and become judgmentophobic. Krishna, at one level in the Bhagavad Gita states that, oh Arjuna, be focused. He, in the 18th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, refers to respectfully even those with whom he differs.
So, for example, he states that, in 18.3 he says this that, that some people who consider it is faulty, that actually dealing with difficult situations is that those who say that actually, we should give up karma, he calls them as Manishina, although he disagrees with them, he calls them as Manishinaha, and he refers to them as people who are wise, who are thoughtful, who control their mind, because at least they are thinking about transcendence. So, here we see that Krishna is respecting even those with whom he does not agree. At the same time, Momita also uses words like mudha.
Mudha means deluded or foolish, and it uses this to refer to people who are people who are given to judgmentality, people who are given to, sorry, people who are given to materialism, or totally sold themselves off to materialism, Krishna refers to them as mudha. So, now from the spiritual perspective, if somebody is completely called materialism, that is then highly counterproductive, and Krishna is unabashed in acknowledging that, in declaring that, in proclaiming that. So, we can focus on explaining the destination that we are going towards, and based on that, we can tell, okay, this path is favorable, this path will take me there, this path won’t take me there, this is why the destination is important, this is why this path is going to take me there.
That way, we can be objective in our decision making without being, coming off as holier than thou. So, like that, if we understand our, explain our, instead of explaining moral, instead of being, you know, explaining, instead of passing our moral judgments on others, we focus first on sharing our spiritual perspective, sharing our spiritual worldview. So, and that worldview is centered on love.
Then, from that perspective, once that loving vision is incorporated, is understood, then everything else becomes much, much easier to digest. So, we need to, in our dealings, in our, especially in our presentation of spiritual truths, learn to put first things first, by presenting the spiritual philosophy before we present the religious worldview. By presenting first the, the destination we are going and the rationale why we are going there, thereafter, when we present the, the moral decisions, the moral imperatives that come from that spiritual perspective, they become more acceptable, they become more reasonable.
Even if people may not accept it still, they learn to harmonize themselves with it. They need to at least understand where we are coming from, and they won’t see us as, as arrogant or judgmental. Okay, this is what is where you’re coming from.
At least we will become intelligible to them. Thank you.