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Do Not Judge

Sometime ago we came across the following nice article which insists on the importance of not passing comments or judging people.

A 24 year old boy seeing out from the train’s window shouted. "Dad, look the trees are going behind!" Dad smiled and a young couple sitting nearby, looked at the 24 year old's childish behavior with pity. Suddenly he again exclaimed. "Dad, look the clouds are running with us!" The couple couldn't resist. They thought that he is mentally challenged person and said to the old man. "Why don't you take your son to a good doctor?" The old man smiled and said..."I did and we are just coming from the hospital, my son was blind from birth, he just got his eyes today."

Moral: Every single person on the planet has a story. Don't judge people before you truly know them. The truth might surprise you.

In Srimad Bhagavatam 7th Canto 13th Chapter titled, "Behaviour of Perfect Person", there is nice instructive discussion between Prahlad Maharaj and a saintly person who has adopted the mode of life of a python. While describing his way of life the saintly person tells a very important verse about how we should deal with other living entities. In Srimad Bhagavatam verse 7.13.42 the saintly person says,

naaham ninde na ca staumi / sva bhaava vishamam janam
eteshaam shreya aashaase / utaikaatmyam mahaatmani

"Different people are of different mentalities. Therefore it is not my business either to praise them or to blaspheme them. I only desire their welfare, hoping that they will agree to become one with the Supersoul, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna." In his wonderful purport to the above verse Srila Prabhupada very nicely says, "In the material world, good and bad have no meaning because if one is good he may be elevated to a higher planetary system and if one is bad he may be degraded to the lower planetary systems. People of different mentalities are sometimes elevated and sometimes degraded, but this is not the goal of life. Rather, the goal of life is to become free from elevation and degradation and take to Krishna consciousness. Therefore a saintly person does not discriminate between that which is supposedly good and supposedly bad; rather, he desires for everyone to be happy in Krishna consciousness, which is the ultimate goal of life."

There is a proverb in Hindi that five fingers in our hands are not all alike. Likewise each and every living entity in this world has their own unique qualities. So be it family, friends, relatives, or people at work etc, different people will have different nature. Each one of us come from different back-grounds and are subjected to different kinds of circumstances in life. So we cannot expect every one to think or behave like how we want them to be. Everyone of them are part of Krishna's variegated creations. So as the saintly person very nicely says, our business in this world is not to praise or critcise people for what they are. What is the use in pointing out bad qualities in others? By doing so we simply create quarrels, waste our time as well as theirs and add on to unnecessary pain in this already painful existence of material life. So instead of wasting our life in such acts, we should simply pray for the spiritual well-being for ourselves and others.