Karachi
March 15, 1940
Throughout our contact and our daily actions, we must remain steadfast in concentrating on the self within. This is the best way to live a meaningful life. Everyone has one's own standard of judging others. We estimate the worth of others by that standard and dub them "good" or "bad". One who appears to be "good" to one individual is "bad"in the eyes of another. Such differing view points are common.
We must give up our habit of judging others, for our opinion of anyone is based on the very petty, ill-founded and unreliable ground of our narrow conceptions, on our prejudices, and on our imperfect intellectual perceptions. It is absolutely unjust and improper, therefore, to evaluate the worth of anyone on such faulty bases. Not only it is improper in principle, but it also betrays our own defects. "Judge not that you be not judged" is a sound moral and practical maxim. In judging others, one finds himself automatically judged against the condemned for such a bad practice.
Judging others creates prejudices for and against people. The best thing for us is, therefore, to see that no adverse thought about others arises in our mind, and if it does, we should at once realize the impropriety of such a thought and summarily dismiss it immediately. Our love will then flow freely for one and all, although some person may appear "bad" to someone else, we shall act toward that person only with love. Whether or not others act lovingly towards us should be of no concern at all to us. Harboring the deliberate purpose of elevation of our souls, we must always behave towards everyone lovingly. What we must cultivate is the settled feeling of love ( bhava ) in our hearts for everyone.
As the circle of our love, consciously cherished, grows bigger, our likes and dislikes for others will become less and less pronounced, we shall no longer experience attachment or aversion towards anyone. Mellowness in our attitude is a clear indication of increasing love for every living creature.
As yet, we are not able to know even our own selves. The deeply hidden unhealthy things within us, the wicked impulses of our nature, are disclosed to us only after we have progressed on the spiritual path and have become introspective. Thus when we do not even our own selves, how can we know others? We must, therefore, give up our habit of forming opinions of others.
Pujya Shree Mota
Vision of life eternal
Edition 1; page 86-87
