Judgement day.

Yoga is great for a lot of things. One of my favorite parts about yoga is that it brings you into an environment where all your predilections for competitiveness and judgment come into play, but you can really engage with them, instead of being consumed by them.

This isn't to say that I don't frequently compare myself to other people, or try a little harder to make my shoulder-stand look better than everyone else's (it does). It is though, to say, that you are often aware of the fact that you want to look better than other people, or that the person over there is really trying too hard and hence, doing it wrong (whereas, I would never do it wrong).

My favorite thing to get annoyed with is people's apparent inability to discern that yes, this class sits in a circle, and yes, that's different from the other classes at the studio, but no, that's not a good reason to sit randomly. Perhaps, they should get a picture book, look at a circle, or an ellipse, and use their brain a bit, and sit down correctly.

One particularly enlightened morning in class I was noticing myself being almost absurdly harsh to people around me. More so than just about where they were sitting, but how people were doing yoga -mostly, how hard they were trying (the were trying way too hard). I kept doing it, and doing it. I would notice it, breath through it, and try to let it go, but it would come up again. At some point I started asking about the act of judging itself.

Specifically - why I am doing it? What on earth would possess me to think these things repeatedly, and why are the thoughts so compelling? There is an obvious, easy, Buddhist answer to 'why'. The delusion of a separate self - the ego.

We are all, in our minds, the most special creature that has ever existed. Some people are more in touch with this particular feeling than others. The funny thing about this feeling is that the world is always trying to show us that we are wrong. If I really paid attention in Yoga class, both to myself and others, I would see that when someone is trying too hard (in a probable effort to satisfy their ego), I see myself in them. Because I do the same thing all the time. I even used to judge people for not trying enough, which was also a reflection of my feelings about myself. But why, if I am more or less the same as the other person in this respect, should I react and judge them so harshly? My ego does not want to see that I am flawed and that I am truly no different from other people. In the moment of confronting the self in the other person, the mind is forced to choose between a fork in the road.

On one hand we can confront our own humanity, our own frailty, or, we can simply believe ourself to be better than the other. When we choose to judge, the doubt that our judgment is not fair and that in fact we are just as weak as we perceive the other to be lingers on, though. Soon the discomfort returns, and we are at the fork again. Choose. Death or immortality? Human or unique?

So strong is our conditioning and our desire to be actually independent, actually unique, that no amount of rational understanding will do any good. Yes, I know from experience that confronting our temporary nature brings peace and communion with other people. Yes, I know that judgment drives people apart and creates misery in my life. But, in the moment, the visceral response is to judge, and to keep on judging until we can find solace from reality and temporary comfort in some other fantasy (probably about a cute girl in class).

I would like to never judge, and always allow people to be who they are. It gets sticky when you start thinking about it that way though - we have to make judgments in order to survive. We can call it something else in order to make 'judgment' simply pejorative, but that is merely a semantic exercise. A common theme comes up in all matters of this kind, and perhaps I'll explore that later. But for now, I will just say that judging someone unfairly, inaccurately, and simply for ego gratification and continuing delusion - feels wrong. So you just have to keep looking, learn to see and feel things for what they are, and hopefully start taking the other fork in the road.