Non-judgementalism Posted in: Freedom From Judgement
Many religions consider freedom from judgement of others a saintly quality. But how attainable is it for a person of faith? Especially when at the foundation of their existence are a number of huge personal judgements. For example
- What I believe to be truth IS true (I judge it to be true)
- My beliefs are not actually beliefs at all … they are knowns – revealed to me by God
- I know a lot about God … certainly enough to know that others who disagree with me are wrong
- The goal of life is prescribed by God
How is it possible to maintain such convictions, and at the same time whole heartedly celebrate the divinity and perfection of others – and especially when their life paths are opposed to your chiselled in stone truths?
One approach could be to discipline one’s mind to simply not think about what others are doing (especially when you suspect they are misusing their human form of life … oops, that’s a little bit of a judgement already)
Another approach might be tell your self you are simply serving the will of God, so it is God’s judgement rather than your own (this might be a bit risky as historically a lot of killing has gone on on the back of this type of misjudgement of what the will of God is or isn’t)
Another approach … the one I personally recommend … might be to rethink your own personal judgements. For example
- What I believe to be truth IS true. REPLACE WITH: What I believe to be truth IS believable truth to me, but I might be wrong, or my understanding might well be partial/incomplete.
- My beliefs are not actually beliefs at all … they are knowns – revealed to me by God. REPLACE WITH: My beliefs ARE beliefs … to me they feel like personal epiphanies reveal by God.
- I know a lot about God … certainly enough to know that others who disagree with me are wrong. REPLACE WITH: I know very little about God … certainly not enough to know that others who disagree with me are wrong.
- The goal of life is prescribed by God. REPLACE WITH: The goal of life is NOT prescribed by God … every soul has a sacred arrangement with God whom happily facilitates the way they choose to express their divinity.
In other words remove your own personal judgement foundation. It doesn’t mean losing faith, it simply means admitting your faith is faith.