Judgement and yoga – Do they work together or not?
I believe we all judge to a certain degree. Even those people that claim they don’t, I believe, they still judge. We create a certain idea about how we want to be and at a certain point, we start to believe it.
However this doesn’t forbid us from trying to stop those poisonous thoughts whenever they arise. One thing regular yoga practice does (not just you bending your body on the mat) is making you a more conscious and aware human being. Through bending your body and other yoga techniques, you get the chance to observe yourself how you really are,not how you would like to be. And therefore accept and work with it.
If you are doing one arm handstand, but judge things you don’t understand and treat people miserably, no – you are not a yoga practitioner. You remain just someone that does one arm handstand. That’s it!
We human beings, we have a tendency to judge whenever we are put into a situation outside our ordinary world. For me personally, one of the greatest teachers of patience and tolerance is living abroad in a very different cultural environment from what is “normal” to me. There you get the chance to test and see who you really are. Are you judging things based on what you see on the surface and think you understand? Are you adapting and respecting the place where you are right now? Do you live in the past? Do you live in the future? Are you easily criticizing and think you know best?
Judgement – makes us become poisonous and terribly unhappy. Nobody wants to be around us when all we think and our actions reflect is about harming others and thinking we are better and therefore superior.
One thing yoga teaches is tolerance, compassion and non-judgement. So if you are practicing yoga, you should as well practice all these things. If you are not practicing them, then you should find a different name for what you are practicing when you bend your body in different shapes. For many people, non-judgement and compassion starts on the mat. One should practice with non-judgement towards himself and others equally. If you are pushing yourself into postures you are not yet ready for, just to prove yourself, but you are in pain, then you are not treating yourself respectfully and with compassion.
For many people, these words seem like common sense and we might think we already practice them, but every day life situations prove something different. If we would just stop for a moment and try to put ourselves into the other person’s shoes, we might wanna stop judging things we don’t understand. We might see the other person’s pains and aches and feel compassion even for the toxic people that we might not want to have around. Frustration, unkind words and judgement are born out of ignorance, fear and pain. As we might tend to judge first, we might as well try to feel empathy and compassion even for the most horrible people that we meet along our path.
Open your heart! Open your eyes! Feel more, judge less!
© Unfold Your Mat 2016