THE CORROSIVENESS OF JUDGEMENTS

Judgements (and therefore Judging activities) are products of human mind.

In our very young lives we are beset almost every waking moment of every day with experiences that are raw and new, and we struggle to make “sense” of them. Mind, which was unconsciously created by us and for us in the womb for just this purpose of “making sense”, is set to work at joining the dots between things that seem to be related, and forming ideas, shaping opinions and finally making judgements as to “what that means”. The result is a primitive Understanding of this sequence of events that has taken place. The early purpose of this process is to create some order out of the chaos of new experiences befalling us from moment to moment, and give us some ground to stand on as we start to build a life to come.

It is important to realise that, for the first months of life, this process of “making sense” is unconscious, primitive, based almost entirely on sensation and emotion, and totally lacking in any kind of wider perspective, because we do not yet have Language with which to reason, not the life experience to see the wider picture. That puts the conclusions we un-consciously form completely at the mercy of chance. For instance it may be that as I am being born and coming down the birth canal the young and inexperienced country obstetrician notices that I'm coming “too fast” and he starts to worry. That makes my mother worried because this is her first child and she is anxious that everything be “just right”. Then, instead of “crowning”, as it says I should do in the doctor's textbooks, I present face-first. The next things I know, I feel this crushing force at either side of my head, and feel myself being pushed back into the pulsing counterforce that is still trying to evict me. This is my experience of being born, and I put it together (without the benefit of language) that “I'm being stopped”. I judge it as a dire threat to my survival because my lungs are now working and I can't breathe because my face is being squashed with a wet chamois, and I start to struggle. Finally I'm allowed “out”, I can breathe. Then my unbilicus is cut, so there's no going back, even if I wanted to, and I come to the end of a No.1. Royal experience of “being born”. Except the whole bloody thing felt like I was dying, and I only survived by the skin of teeth I don't yet have. I form a bunch of possible judgements, right there and then.....

“Life is hard.”

“I have to struggle to survive”

“When I want to move, something pushes me back”..... There were others, but you get what I mean.

But it doesn't end there. Shortly afterwards I meet my father. Now he's as new to this as I am, but he has had the advantage of being able to read a book and take some hints from his family. He “knows” that newborn babes should be swaddled very tightly for some time after birth – something about lessening the shock of being suddenly in a much larger womb than recently. He “knows” that because he was told it by someone who purportedly “know better” than he. So he bought that as “truth”. True to that belief, he wraps me tight. But I didn't read his books, hear his experts or have his experiences, and I want to savour the freedom of being able to wave my arms and legs around and explore this new thing called “space”. So I bust out of the swaddling – every time!. Now my Dad has been well versed in a form of misbehaviour called “disobedience”, so he “Judges” me to be “disobedient” and enforces what he believes to be right – for my own good, of course! And what ensues is a clash of his will against my Won't (remember, I'm only a few hours old). You can guess who won that argument for the next 17 years!

But what's just as important here is that, in light of my recent experience with the dickhead MD with the forceps, I have formed a judgment that “Life is out to push me back. Life is out to stop me”. And Bill Barkla shows up to prove how right I am! My prior judgements and conclusions are already shaping my perceptions of “how life is”. Aren't you fascinated by the perfection of all this? Out of pure chance we fit together like pieces of a well-crafted jigsaw.

I'm right. And so is Dad. Each “right” in our own judgements. And there's nothing surprising about this because, in order for the mind to be able to do its job of making”sense” and telling us what to do and how to do it in order to survive, Mind, and all of its machinations have to be right!

And that's the way it is with the human Mind. The Judgements of the mind are a series of conclusions formed after we experienced things and came to an Understanding of what we thought was happening. “Sense” was made, at least a far as we were prepared to go with it. No further correspondence questioning those conclusions will be entertained; it's common sense! That Mind (whose existence we're not even aware of yet, and won't be for quite a long time) insists on being right about every one of its conclusions. Its conclusions, regardless of how solid or shaky they might be, are self-proving, and every experience that follows will be tucked neatly into a drawer along with all the other “proofs” of Mind's rightness. Which means that subsequent judgements, like British case law, will be made in the light of precedent judgements. Anything that doesn't “fit” will be ejected, like everything else your mind will ever consider to be “foreign” and a threat to its supremacy.

Judgements, as I've said above, were and are created at a time and in a climate that lacks information, experience and perspective. The purpose of a judgment was to help us get a starter perspective that we could use as a kickoff point for further exploration and experience. But we didn't do that. Mind jumped in, claimed ownership of the conclusion we'd reached, and said “That's it.” Thanks to our premature conclusions, the last word has been heard. Subject closed. Ever since then, when anything like that subject is raised, our prior judgements are produced by Mind, and applied to the current situation without further consideration. When I audition for a role in a play of film and don't get it, my mind says “See? I told you so. Life holds you back.”

The purpose of judgements once was to help us make sense of our world. Now the purpose of our judgements is to protect those judgements – to be right about our ideas, formulations, beliefs, concepts and opinions, and to sell all that stuff on to, and impose it upon others.

Here's my bottom line on Judgements, and their corrosiveness to those who hold them – Every judgement is a Conclusion that we once arrived at.  Each of our judgements is a result, a foregone conclusion, an outcome of an experience that is no longer relevant. Your Judgement is the deduction or inference you've already made from dead-past experience. It is the end, the final part, the final settlement or arrangement, the last main division of a discourse, containing a summing up of the points. Your judgements (and mine) are the last word on everything.

It follows, then, that a judgment resists and blocks any urge to see more clearly, dig deeper, or explore farther in the interests of change, growth or further possibility. The eyes harden, the jaw sets, and that steel trap of a mind shuts with a resounding clang.

So what can be done about that? What I chose to do was ignore my mind's protestations that there is no choice, and give myself the power to Choose. That was very hard to do because my Inner Judge has the strident, thundering, armour piercing voice of my father – impossible to ignore. Putting that voice to one side can still be difficult at times – providing me with an opportunity to sharpen my abilities to carry out Intention and Commitment to a higher level of Self. That gradually opened a level of awareness that had long since lain low under the baleful stare of my unkind, judging mind – my Inner Judge & Critic.

I was once asked, “Does criticism hurt you?”. My reply, “Yes, of course. But mostly when the critic is Me.” Question:”Does your inner judge ever go away?” I don't know; but for me – not so far. But I have found a few uses for him that make him a powerful ally. One use is that, because he knows all my secrets, he doesn't let me get away with bullshit when I'm examining areas like my motives, or the true state of my being right now.

Another area where I find the judge useful is when he jacks up and judges me for something I'm either about to do, am doing, or have done a while ago – that shows me exactly where I'm stuck, and limiting my own possibilities. He's like a canary in my coalmine; the watchdog disturbed by a lurking predator. Wherever and whenever the dog starts barking, that's where and when I call up the light of Awareness, and start opening up the scar tissue of the past to reveal a living present inside.

An Inner Judge. We all have one. Rather than be a victim to the damage he does, or try in vain to deport him, how about re-writing his job description?

Have you tried that?