Reading Minds and Judging People

People think that by knowing other people, or reading their minds, we can be effective in the world. This is not true. If you know yourself, you can become very effective. If you do not make any attempt to read, perceive or judge something, but simply learn to look at everything the way it is, you will see things the way they are. But if you make an effort to read people's minds-maybe sometimes you will, because after all you do have a mind-you can read certain things, you have perception, you can judge, but these judgments, what will you do with them?

So, this is not a judgment, this is not a reading. This is a deeper understanding of life, that first when you meet a person, you bow down to the source of life within her, with that you have no conflict or have no judgment. First address that dimension. Once you have adressed the source of life, body, mind, all these things are minor aspects. You have no great struggle with all those things. If you go about trying to read people, invariably it is a judgment, isn't it?

No human being is constant. Today she may be something that you don't like. Tomorrow morning she may be in a wonderful mood. But if you think you have read and made an impression of that person in the past, then you will miss that person the way she is right now, isn't it?

Once you get into that, it's a trap. Even if your mind makes judgments about other people, don't attach any importance to it. Because once you start making judgments, invariably, there are only two basic judgments; this is good, this is bad. Everything that you consider as good, naturally you are drawn to it and get attached to it. Everything that you consider as bad, you get repelled from it, and negative emotions will flow. So there is no need to judge. You just have to judge situations. You don't have to judge people.

Posted by: JRP