It can be difficult not to judge others.
It can take a lot of restraint to keep ourselves from making someone else wrong for what they did.
Or what they think.
Yet what is really going on is that we are separating ourselves from them.
Our judgments create barriers.
They protect us from getting too close.
They even keep us from ever having to get close to the other person.
They are a bigot so we don’t have to feel their pain.
They stole from us so we don’t have to see their need.
They hurt us so we don’t have to recognize their own humanity.
We declare that others are bad, different, and just not as good as we are.
We hold ourselves apart from them and can wash over what is right in front of our eyes.
Having compassion for those we feel judgment towards is not easy.
It is a discipline that takes effort to develop.
It also means having to recognize that people are merely people, and we all have faults.
It means having to admit our own flaws.
Our own character defects.
Our transgressions.
We all have them.
No one is above being human.
We’ve all made mistakes and errors in our lives.
Perhaps we have learned from them while others have not yet.
We are still more the same than we are different.
So how can we continue to separate ourselves from our fellow human being, when we have done just as bad or worse?
Are we really so pure?
So great?
So special?
We are all tainted in some way, and that is beautiful.
Because that is what can bring us together.
Without judgment or blame.
Even for ourselves.
We are all human, one race, one people, one planet.
~ Sam Liebowitz, The Conscious Consultant
