If we are to not make judgments, why is Krishna making judgments and taking sides in the war?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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If we are not supposed to make judgments, why is Krishna judging and taking sides in this battle? Answer? We cannot live without making judgments. If we are driving, say we decide, is there enough space, time between the next vehicle coming and me coming, me driving, so that I can make a turn over here? That’s a judgment. When we are dealing with people, sometimes we are trying to explain them something and they are not understanding.
So we have to make a judgment whether to persist in that point, or just drop it, considering that they are not open enough to understand, or we are not expert enough to explain. But we make these judgments all the time. Anything that we, any thinking that we do when we decide how to, what course of action to follow among multiple options, we are making judgments.
So making judgments is essential for survival and functioning. It is being judgmental that is undesirable. Being judgmental means that usually it is fixing permanent labels on people and then seeing all their behavior through that filter, through the filter of that label, rather than giving people a chance to prove themselves or even to improve themselves.
So being judgmental is undesirable. Being judgmental, having judgments is required. As far as Krishna’s taking sides on the Kurukshetra war is concerned, Krishna comes for a purpose to this world, that is to establish dharma.
So he, rather than saying that he is taking sides, rather one side has chosen to stick to dharma, the other side has chosen adharma. So God has his positions which are eternally clear and some people align with those positions and some don’t. Some align with his purpose, some don’t.
So rather than asking why is God taking sides, we need to ask why is anyone choosing to go against God? Isn’t that folly? But that is the nature of illusion, that is the nature of our attachments where we think that we know better than God. So if you look at the history of the Mahabharata, we see that the Pandavas were subjected to repeated atrocities and they tolerated it, but the other person didn’t even leave alone reform, there was not even remorse, simply wanted to continue with his devious ways more and more. That’s why he had to be punished.
In our society, those who are miscreants, those who are anti-social elements, and if you look at the Mahabharata, the kind of devious activities that Duryodhana does is evident. He tries to dishonor a respectable lady, tries to defraud the Pandavas of all their hard-earned wealth through a gambling match, tries to burn them alive, tries to poison them after inviting them for a food event. So such a person, if they have untrammeled power, they will destroy everything in society and that’s why they need to be punished.
That’s what is being done over here. Krishna is not taking sides, rather those who have chosen to act against Dharma and against him and they need to be disciplined for the welfare of society and that’s how the battle