When we first moved to Brisbane, I was into yoga in a big way and going to yoga classes a couple of times a week at least... and we had this fabulous Ashtanga master teacher visit us from the US. He gave us the kick ass class of all times and we were all in some other realm by the end of his tutelage. He ended the class with instructions for us all to drink a LOT of water, and a quote - which was something along the lines of:
When you judge others, it's not them you define, but yourself.
I loved it!
My friend and I dutifully went to Coles after the class to get kick ass sized bottles of water to replace the sweat we'd dripped out and promptly forgot his quote, only remembering how much we loved whatever it was that this guru teacher had told us! (In truth we'd have loved anything that came out of his mouth, so magnificent was he!!) Neither of us were able to recall anything apart from it being about judging! It was torment trying to guess what it was that he'd left us with and we were playing around with all sorts of possibilities while going through the checkout, when who should we see.......
Our guru in all his glory was lining up at the checkout a couple down from us... buying water of course :) My friend and i exchanged glances and without a word we left our position in the queue and bolted over to him like excited school girls seeing their favourite movie star!
Breathlessly we excused ourselves and asked what his departing words had been and he gave it to us again... and the bold text above is the closest i came to remembering it word for word!
So in the years gone by, it's been something that has really guided me when i'm tempted to judge another for their beliefs, actions, thoughts, whatever.
However, in all the years it's been in my mind, i've been thinking of it with a limited approach.
I've viewed it as meaning that when I judge someone, I am defining myself as being judgmental, and nothing more.
Last night in the midst of a blissful meditative state i got something else out of it.
The quote popped into my mind for some reason, and i suddenly had a new view of the meaning of the quote.
Instead of it being about me being judgmental, i got that it meant that when i judge someone as being for example, angry, what i'm really doing is finding my own internal anger mirrored in them. So I'm defining myself in terms of what i notice in them. I am noticing some part of me that is also in them. Therein lies an opportunity for peace through further self awareness.
This notion of an opportunity for self awareness through noticing my projections onto others isn't something that's new to me, but it was a revelation in terms of finding it within the quote that that sexy yoga master gave us all those years back. :)
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