When you take two fruits, say jackfruit and mango,can you tell the difference between them? You will say, yes, I can! Both are different. Then you will try describing them to me. Making a case for both and feeling triumphant about your knowledge.
Yet, you haven’t understood the truth. 99% of both the fruits have the same characteristics. But what you gave me was the difference between them. Both are fruits. Both come from plant kingdom. Both are yellow in color. Both have sweetness and fruit sugars filled in them. The 1% difference is only in taste and that too you can only tell me the difference if you are actually tasting it.
So when we see people in this world, though everyone is made up of the same stuff, we still see the difference more than anything. We assess all of them with that 1% difference we see in them. Even if that person hasn’t opened his mouth and said something, we have created an opinion about him. Just like someone who looks at the outer covering of the jackfruit and makes a judgement about what is inside. But we can be completely wrong about it.
In the same way, we cannot arrive at the conclusion that the mango will be very sweet by looking at the external covering. What if it contains a lot of creepy crawly worms inside? So looks can never tell us what that person is from inside. We build up on our expectations by looking at the skin. So we need to stop making judgements by looks.
Even though we cannot see the similarity between every human being, yet we are constantly judging everyone. This is done by our mind. It’s no doubt an important tool but the same tool can be misused.
So in the material world, everyone makes judgements based on very sketchy information. So it’s important to first taste the fruit to know its sweetness or sour taste. So stop being judgmental right at the outset. Knowing the person and having a complete idea about the nature and character by first hand experience is a must. External characteristics can only give us some idea but not the truth. Going to the bottom of it all and knowing the person from inside is a must.
Now let’s see how the sage sees it all. He knows that both are fruits. They all are sweet and are Gods creations. So what can be wrong or different? Having killed his palate or sensual organs, he just considers both as edible substance that The Lord has given him. So he never makes judgements at all.
The sage considers everything as God alone. He sees God in everything so he doesn’t see individuals. He has no biases and opinions. Those objects have appeared because of Gods will alone so accepting them and working with them is a part of his job.
So when you too see God in everything around, you will stop being judgmental and see everything as one alone. The differences can only create distaste or likeness for the object. That would destroy the true essence of that object. So see only the good qualities of the person and use them for the betterment of this world. The rest of it can be discarded. Don’t go near the rotten fruits. Leave them alone. Which translates into, stay away from people who put you in harms way. See the rest as God alone and you won’t make any judgement about them.
Image Courtesy by Google Images
