Mystic Messages

“I don’t judge people!  Of course, I accept everyone just as they are!”

I know I used to believe that until I really sat myself down and examined the ways in which I really DID do the judging.  A lot of people who think of themselves as ‘spiritual’ find it very easy to decide that they know enough to judge others.  Maybe ‘judge’ seems like too harsh a word, but they do seem to strike the gavel and pronounce others to be good or bad, right or wrong.

I’ve written before about my mantra – Everyone is doing the best they can with the resources they have at any given moment.  I truly believe that now.  But the hardest person to apply that to – is me.  It was easier to adopt this concept when I was focused on everyone else.  I worked with the idea for years to make sure I was applying it in all cases.  I pondered those times when I really struggled with a particular situation or person to apply this, but it is true for everybody if you look at the grander scheme of things.

In life, there is always a big picture but we are so often focused on the microcosm of our own vision that we forget to step up above the situation and look from the eagle’s perspective.  What else can the eagle see from on high that we, with our limited scope, are missing?  This made it easier to see even those people who were doing heinous acts as the carriers of lessons for others.  And I had to separate the person from the acts.  It doesn’t mean that we ever approve of or even accept one individual hurting another.  But the person who chooses to hurt another is usually making that choice because they see no other choice before them.  We can be unhappy about that choice and do everything in our power to help someone who has been hurt, but are we right to judge other people?  Or is the extent of our purview to examine only the acts, the behaviors, and not the person?

I think this is where we get stuck because it feels so difficult to separate the two.  But if we look at the person as a baby, somehow we can understand that little babies are not born to commit heinous acts against another human being.  Every single infant is lovable because they are breathing the same air that we breathe.  They are embracing life on Planet Earth.  But a lot of things happen to that baby along the way and sometimes their thinking gets twisted.  Somewhere along the way they believe something or are taught something or they respond to some stimulus that sets them on a path that takes them where they might not want to go.  And then they get stuck and see no other way to go.

This is where the concept of compassion steps in.  It is easy to have compassion for a friend who is going through a serious illness or a breakup or a loss.  But how can we have compassion for someone who has chosen to do something we think is wrong?  That is where compassion is most needed, not to coddle someone or to excuse their act, but to look beyond the little scene in front of us and to take the eagle’s view of the situation.  When you begin to understand the Laws of Karma you can see that a person brings a judgment onto himself or herself when they make the decision to act a certain way.  Karma will take care of the consequences.  Karma is merely cause-effect in action.  When I hear people worrying because someone is getting away with something, I think about how no one can escape the Laws of Karma even if it appears that they have.  We might not see the consequence but we can be assured that there are consequences.

And so can we be compassionate about ourselves, too, when we slip up?  Everyone is doing the best they can with the resources they have at any given moment, even me.  When I learn to look around at my choices as stepping stones along the path of lessons we call ‘Life’ then I can be compassionate with myself as I hope others will be with me.  And I can look upon others with compassion, too!