Judging others is judging ourselves..?

Greetings once again.

Apologies for not being too familiar with the rest of the forums, resulting in me posting here everytime. But nevertheless, I feel them fit to be in this compartment of the site.

This is just something I have been pondering about lately due to interactions with the various personalities in my surroundings.

The underlying question to this thread is: What causes us to judge people or inversely be judged? In correlation to indivual perspectives of thought, words and actions.

Look forward to your responses and thank you in advance.

We judge for many reasons. Perhaps we should get more specific... are we talking about judging a beauty pageant, or moral judgment? You know?

I think that we should avoid negative judgments, and avoid acting in harmful ways towards others based solely on those negative judgments.

I am viewing this more along the lines of making judgments about people, not necessarily for hiring or in a court.

An example would be when we see something in someone we don't like and we judge them for it. Or we judge someone based on their past or we simply judge them as condemned or going to hell for their ways. Mainly negative judgments towards another.

There's a hidden element in this because those who judge others, as the title would indicated, are also judging themselves. But how is this?

In the greater scheme of things, we're all connected with the life giving energy of this universe. Energy that comes from within and radiates outward adds that energy to the universe. We become that which we think most often. And if we judge others, we not only vibrate negative energy towards them but we also reflect and attract that same energy within us. So the feeling of superiority because we judge someone is often times showing us a lack within ourselves and most often, we judge others based upon our own thoughts. Unless of course we are influenced by others to judge.

How we judge others can change the course of human life. I remember in school, there was a kid who was not physically attractive and he came into our school from another town and nobody liked him. They judged this boy before even getting to know him. That judgment by his peers withdrew him from society and this type of energy coming from classmates is tough to handle. As an observer of people, I watched through the years in school as he found a few friends but overall the judgment of the peers never changed. Interestingly enough, it was the 'popular' crowd or the 'IN' crowd that judged him the most... of course, making this boy feel inferior and not accepted.

After several years of being judged by his physical appearance, he began to accept it and believe the things that people would say to him and pick on him. In early high school he became aggressive and got into fights and there was yet another set of judgments placed on this boy. This aggression eventually lead to a multiple murder case and life in prison.

Looking back on this, I never seen this guy as a bad person and he probably wasn't a bad person but in the end, he did something terribly wrong which ruined his life and the life of a couple others. The peer pressure and judgment eventually was accepted and then likewise reflected in his life.

The interesting thing about this, and after going back to this town as an adult and bumping into some of the old 'IN' crowd, is that those who I remember that needed that feeling of superiority by judging those who were less fortunate in physical appearance or money... Well they became drunks, drug addicts, gas station attendants, divorcees, and simply riddled with problems. Those I met in school that did not judge others and were considered the nice kids, they grew and flourished with good jobs, family, etc. etc. (LOL, and no, I don't have issue with gas station attendants as I've been one before - I was simply making a point using a low paying job.)

So looking back, all those who were voted 'Most likely to succeed' because they were popular, are not necessarily living happy lifestyles. The ones who were class presidents due to popularity, acted the same way in college and ended up worse off then those who they used to judge. It's sort of funny how it all worked out and of course I'm just using this as an example because I remember it clearly.

So, observing life for what it is, I've seen time and time again where ill-will, burning bread, and judgment of others has a ripple effect on oneself. Condemning your brother is likewise condemning yourself. Those thoughts become things and no matter who it is, it almost always comes back where it started.

The scriptures teach us about judgment as well and I'll paraphrase' 'Judge not lest ye be judged', the casting of the first stone, the sliver in the eye of another when there's a log in our own. There's probably a ton of examples which would support the title of this thread.

People who are happy or content within themselves, usually aren't the ones to judge. Judgment usually comes from those who suffer from discontent and they recognize their own inferiority in others, building that desire to feel superior by hurting or judging others. It's a false sense of superiority that doesn't last. It's no different than snorting a line of coke... It may make you feel superior for a moment but the after effects of what you are doing to your body will show themselves later on in life and superiority becomes inferiority.

As adults, I think we judge more often because of our own inadequacies and not because of anything else. I also think that we cannot escape the wrath of our own judgments on our fellow human beings. As we judge others, the same sword will be used to judge us.

Judgment, whether it be based on religion or whatever else is something we should all work hard on getting over and past. Making a decision on whether or not to hire someone as an employee is not a judgment. If you are the employer and you don't like the how the person carries themselves and you say to yourself, "this guy is useless", even though you didn't speak those words directly to the individual, there's an energy that comes from you that has a lasting effect. It's also interesting that the judge is usually effected more by the judgment then the person who is being judged.

We can change the world if we change our perception of it and change our perception of our fellow human beings. Judge not. The ego, the super-self, the self who we are not is doing the judging and gradually, with practice, we inadvertently become our ego and likewise the judgment we so carelessly gave to others.

So to break this bad habit, I believe it takes being able to separate oneself from one's ego-self and possibly letting ego go altogether and just be yourself not judging others. It's tough. We've evolved and held high the ego of humans for so long and it's not really been all that positive for humanity or for the universe. Eliminate ego and we eliminate the need to judge others and ourselves.

Greetings once again.

Apologies for not being too familiar with the rest of the forums, resulting in me posting here everytime. But nevertheless, I feel them fit to be in this compartment of the site.

This is just something I have been pondering about lately due to interactions with the various personalities in my surroundings.

The underlying question to this thread is: What causes us to judge people or inversely be judged? In correlation to indivual perspectives of thought, words and actions.

Look forward to your responses and thank you in advance.

Well, Justin hit the nail to the head. After I became aware of the stupidity of this habit(however my start point was aggression and individual freedom) I realized people I know waste a lot of time and energy to do that. My personal conclusion was, such judgement is enslaving and destroying.

if I say that stabbing that girl in the eye for liking AC/DC was a wrong thing to do, then I am stupid, acting out of habit, wasting time and energy, and trying to enslave and destroy somebody (presumably the girl who stabbed the other girl in the eye).

Well said. By making negative judgments of others, we attempt to elevate our own self esteem, but it's a house built on sand. And it is a hard habit to break, too.

One "trick" I practice (not always with success) is that when I feel the inclination to negatively judge another person, I try to make myself find something sincerely "good" about the person. For some folks, the "ability to see goodness" or "the divine spark" in others seems to be a strong, natural ability. Some really have a gift of seeing others "through the Loving Eyes of God".

I don't think we can all reach that level, but we could all improve a bit, don't you think?

rebecca

yes, your "judgement" is doing nothing good in fact. Or nothing at all.

another thing is , you are "judging" without any basic knowledge what really happened. Press news is something closer to rumour, as far as there are commercials in newspapers and there is a mob that is paying for blockbuster.

(Do you not understand the useful role that can be played by hypothetical cases or "thought experiments" in a philosophical discussion? I would not have thought that it needed explaining.)

but you tried to authenticate your story

what for, then? wanted cheat us? Or rather you're doing this typical abuse of "judgement" we are speaking about?

Your statement makes nothing, don't you see? One case is (this one if consider the situation as hypothetical) when judgement is obvious, another one, if it's not obvious. In the second case only those, who know very closely and in very detail all circumstances, are eligible to judge.