“Namaste” – switching off my judgemental mode

I was walking through the airport, on very important business, in clever, snappy businessman mode, and saw a fat, shabbily dressed person in front of me. I straight away turned on my finely-tuned judge-ometer, which came up with the reading "Fat, shabbily dressed person obviously lacking self-respect." Half a second later the judge-ometer swung around, switched to self-judgement mode, and gave the reading "There you go again, judging people and exhibiting one of your worst and most persistent traits."

What I concluded on that occasion was that the best thing that could happen to me was to be transformed into a fat, shabby person for a week, so I could see what it would be like to have other people (like me) judging me all the time. THAT would help cure me of being judgemental, and I could trade the judge-ometer in on a large dose of humility.

Which was, of course, just another symptom of judgementalism. Because I was still drawing conclusions about the inherent undesirableness, and therefore blameworthiness, of being "fat" and "shabby".

It's perhaps likely that I will never reach a sufficient state of enlightenment such that I won't have impulses to judge my fellow men and women. But I have at least been working on strategies which may switch the judge-ometer off before it can spit out a condemnatory reading.

In India, people greet and farewell each other with "Namaste", which means "I see the divine in you." It's been helpful to me, when I'm about to say (or have just said) to myself "He's fat," or "Her clothes are too tight for someone with her figure," or "He's got no idea, he's just a blowhard" to do this: STOP. Look at them. Say to myself "I see the divine in you", and then actually try and spot that divine spark which makes them a special, unjudgeable human being. If I'm being sincere, I can nearly always see some glint of divinity.

The Avatar people have a nice process too – the "Compassion Exercise". Pick out someone in a public place, look at them, and say: "Just like me, this person is seeking some happiness for their life. Just like me, this person is trying to avoid suffering in their life ... Just like me, this person is learning about life."

I still have judgement days, but hopefully they are becoming less frequent. But should I be worried instead that sometimes I have periods when I walk around thinking "Everyone is beautiful", and feeling surrounded on all sides by spots of divinity? Hope not.