DO NOT JUDGE

I don't know about you, but I seem hardwired to be judgmental. Have I made any progress? Uhhhhh, who knows? I'm aware of it. I guess that’s moving in the right direction. Richard Rohr has written another amazing book called "The Naked Now" in which he addresses this problem and encourages us all, with God's help, to become "non-dualistic” thinkers. In other words stop thinking about who’s in and who’s out, who’s got it right and who’s got it wrong. Here's an excerpt from one of his talks...

“All spiritual teachers tell us “DO NOT JUDGE.” For those of us raised in a religious setting, this is very difficult. In a strange way, religion gave us all a Ph.D. in judgmentalism. It trained us very early in life to categorize, label, and critique. It told us all about worthiness and unworthiness. This judgmental mind told us what is right and wrong, who is gay or straight, and who is good or bad. This sort of mind never creates great people, because everybody has to fit into our way of thinking. At an early age our grid was complete. We had decided who fit in and who did not fit in. We fashioned our own little world.

“Christianity that divides the world in this manner and eliminates all troublesome people and all ideas different from our way of thinking cannot be mature religion. It cannot see the multiple gifts of each moment, nor the dark side that coexists with it. This mind does not lead us to awareness, and above all, this mind will find it impossible to contemplate. To practice awareness means you live in a spirit of communion; your world becomes alive and very spacious, and not divided by mere mental labels.”