Who wields the Gavel?

“Judge not lest ye be judged”. What does this mean? Who is the judge?

Yesterday I was walking along Lakeshore Avenue in Oakland, my neighborhood shopping area, when I met Robert, a man in his seventies, limping along with a huge, built-up shoe for his club foot and weighted to one side by a heavy bag of groceries. A group of three teenaged boys came running past him, almost knocking him down in their careless exuberance.

Immediately I judged them as uncaring, thoughtless, selfish individuals. “Can’t you see he is handicapped? Why don’t you watch where you are going?” was my instant reaction. Robert did not fall down, but I was angrily judging those boys.

Who was doing the judging? Certainly not the one I like to think of myself as being, who is understanding and compassionate. No, it was that other Me, the bristly one, the one who expects others to mirror the image she has of herself, the one who is always quick to criticize, the one ready to hurl a lightening bolt.

Unfortunately, the Me with the lightening bolt is just as ready to aim it at herself as at someone else. Ready with self-criticism, ready with blame, ready with judgment. This is the “lest ye be judged” part of the quote.

As we judge others, we judge ourselves. When we are children, we are hurt by judgments from our parents and others, and in the same way, as adults we hurt our souls when we blame and criticize ourselves. We hurt our Soul, which is the understanding and compassionate One, always seeking to restore love to our hearts. That wound in the heart may lead us down the road to illness and depression.

Don’t ask who is the judge. The judge is not Beyond, the judge is ourselves. If we can silence that judge, we will be at peace –  and we silence that judge with Love.

Keep looking up and loving!

Dorothy

I invite you to visit the Facebook page of my mentor, Rahul Patel, author, healer, teacher, where I post a quote weekly under “Posts”.  https://www.facebook.com/rahulpatelauthorteacherhealer