This was said during a recent conversation I was a part of.

I’ll paraphrase in order to protect the innocent, regardless of how they judge themselves.

“Judging people makes me a horrible person.”

Reread that if you can.

“Judging people makes me a horrible person.”

Now reread it again, and see if it makes you laugh the third time.

“Judging people makes me a horrible person.”

When you are finished with your laugh, continue.

If you didn’t laugh, repeat the three then continue until you do.

I’ve decided it high time someone defends the judgments of human beings. I’ve decided, I think somewhat single-highhandedly it seems, to stop a bit of what I see as spiritual insanity.

We humans Being cannot experience this life without judgment. We create what is “good” and “bad” based on a bunch of conditioned comparisons, all created to allow us to enjoy this life as an experience. Some judgments allow for the best chance of survival, some allow for the drama we need as an impetus for change, some allow for happy experiences, like that of enjoying a morning sunrise.

Even the act of judging judgment has a purpose.

It helps us expose a state of mind, while fairly impossible to achieve consistently, that is pure joy. Ever notice that when we are experiencing a high frequency (when we are “happy”) we are usually unable to judge beyond “this is awesome” yet while operating at a lower frequency (when we are “unhappy”) we are full of negative judgments? These are like day and night, yin and yang, exposing nothing more than where we are in any particular moment, the beauty of opposition, the necessary devil advocating one to expose the other.

We consider “happy” good and “unhappy” bad. But are they, really?

I’d say no, they are simply different manifestations of the same energy having an experience necessary. They are perfect outside of the human egoic mind, and always lead to not only a necessary experience, but a perfect one.

“I need to stop judging.”

You do? Says who exactly? A person who has judged judgment as bad? A person who is teaching you that you are imperfect, that you are not good enough when you judge?

Good luck with that.

When you realize your love of self, you realize your own beautiful perfection. You realize your own beautiful ugliness as perfection manifested, you realize that the first great lie you are told is that you imperfect, that you need to be something else, and that establishing yourself as perfect is somehow a bad thing.

It’s a matter of control, a matter of establishing dominance as guru over the student, a master over a servant, a teacher over a student. A more prefect person over someone who needs to become more perfect.

Utter bullshit.

When you realize you don’t need a guru, you become your own.

When you realize you are prefect you don’t need a teacher, you become one. When you realize you are perfect the only change you make is in your own perspective.

The “I need more blog views” becomes “I need the right blog views.” The “I need to make others happy” becomes “I need to be happy.” The “I’m afraid to offend others” becomes “I love being myself.”

You realize you have no control, no authority, over the reactions others have. You let them impale themselves on their own reactions, and you let them choose to be unaware of why they have them, or to be completely aware of their own behavior. You understand that when they ask you “why” it is because they are generally afraid to ask themselves the question, or are completely unaware that they alone have the answers they ask you for.

And no, I’m not here to change anyone, just remind you of your own perfection. Not in the traditional “feel good” way, but in a way that expresses a truth I observed. Most of you hate yourselves despite your protestations of self-love.

You look for vindication outside of yourself. Maybe it’s because you’ve been taught self-love is an evil form of selfishness, and that those who love themselves are conceited assholes unable to love others. We confuse vanity with self love, and we confuse our perfection with the act of eating an apple.

We may not yet realize that the apple isn’t the focus of that story, it is the fact we eat what others give us, what others provide, without ever realizing our own unique ability to harvest the fruits of our own experience.

It’s not the apple, stupid. It’s the fact I’ve been convinced by someone else to eat it. It’s the fact I’ve decided to ingest what others give me. It’s the fact that I’ve listened to others about what is right for me. I’ve decided I’m not perfect based on what someone else has said and, as a result, have given my own power over to them.

Yet without that judgment of self I would not know who I am. Without that experience I would not be able to experience who I am. Without that judgment this life experience would be nothing more than a boring realm of enlightened souls happily skipping about gently nodding in unrealized superiority at one another.

Get it?

Hope so.

Because without that judgment you’d never would have achieved that inverted one-legged staff pose, and your’d never feel that feeling of egoic joy when everyone tells you how wonderful you are for achieving it.

So, embrace that bitch…and defend it as if it is your birthright. Because, in essence, it is.

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Editor: Renée Picard

Image: Brian Turner at Flickr