Excerpts - Judger

Excerpt from Salt Lake City Tape 6 side one 4/71

[If we find ourselves judging, this excerpt from the Salt Lake City workshop can be a quick reminder of what's going on and give us a tool to drop the judging.]

In the picture of man, the first thing that a child decided is what the purpose of living is. It decides that the whole purpose is to regain that non-disturbed state of the womb by gaining pleasure and escaping pain, getting attention and escape being ignored and rejected, to gain approval and to escape all disapproval and to gain a sense of importance or usefulness and avoid the sense of inferiority. Somewhere along the way we all develop that.

Now from that we learn to judge. We see everything in that light-if it's pleasurable to me, we decide it's good. If it is unpleasant, it is bad. If somebody gives me attention, it's good. If they ignore or reject me, that's bad. If they disapprove of me, that's terrible. And if they give me approval, that's real fine. And so on down the line.

We look at everything with this prospective. So if I see chaotic conditions around me, of course, that bothers me, that's bad. And so I judge it-immediately. Now I haven't looked at it-I've immediately reacted mechanically.

Now if we possibly could see this a different way. See from a different viewpoint, we may not be able to judge.

Now as one judges, (something we are incapable of doing) you always get a shock from it. The minute you judge something as bad, you will find that you have a reaction in a very few minutes. It's like taking a hold of a 240-volt wire, you'll get a jolt. This is something you'll have to experiment with; but as you observe it, if you will see something as good, bad, right, wrong, etc., and you'll also see you have a jolt.

A little while ago I was across the street, and a young man over there had called the police for a man who had imbibed too freely and too abundantly (his inhibitions were off), and was thinking he could whip his weight in wildcats and various and sundry other ideas; and so immediately this young man had called the police. Then he judged his decision, and felt very miserable and wished he hadn't done that.

So he came to me to ask this question so he could be relieved of his misery; but I got the question twisted around a little bit for him and he began to see that every time that he judged, he got a jolt. Now he's a young man and not too set in his ways like some of us; and he could see this. And in 30 minutes, he probably gained more than many of us have in 20 months. So the young man saw that judging was impossible for him to do because he didn't know the outcome, a week from now, a month from now, a year from now or any other time. He didn't know anything about the future-not knowing the future, it was impossible to judge because he has to know all the sequence of events from now on. Seeing that he had done this, he also recognized that when he judged, he immediately had set up an ideal, and that from the ideal, he was then disappointed because he didn't feel like the ideal was right; and when he felt disappointed, he felt hurt; and when he felt hurt he looked to see what to blame it on-and then of course, he either blamed himself and felt guilty, blamed another and felt angry, or couldn't find what to blame it on and felt fearful. And after he he'd been around this a number of times, he continually felt very insecure.

So in seeing that he was incapable of judging, he received considerable enlightenment; and the young man felt like an electric light was turned on because he had discovered something. Now he could see a little differently.

Now let's see if we can see the world we live in possibly with a different light on it. Maybe we can change our perception of the world. We said that all of our lives, everything we have observed, we judged it as to whether it gave me pleasure, gave me attention, gave me approval, or gave me a sense of importance or the escape side of the four dual basic urges. So everything we look at, we judge it immediately.

If we ask for enlightenment, we recognize:

1. that I don't know.
2. we recognize that I don't even see exactly what the problem is. So then I can begin to look rather freely.

Now all that we work on is the things that are worthwhile to change the way we see--change in perception--or we might even say a transformation.