The Judge

We all live with an inner Judge. It judges everything: us, others, the weather, and the fact that our soup is cold. It is functional in that it enables us to discern between things that might benefit us and things that might hurt us, as well as keep our behavior within limits that others will accept.

But left unchecked it becomes an insidious monster that creates constant negativity. It tells us that we’re not successful enough, not capable enough, not pretty enough, not strong enough, not thin enough, not interesting enough. It is closely tied with the ego, and is in fact referred to as the superego.

Like the ego, the superego is a thought process. We developed it during our youth as our parents, siblings, teachers, and schoolmates judged us by our actions, words, and appearance. They criticized, rejected, ridiculed, and punished us when they disapproved of us, and we learned that we had to look or act a certain way in order to gain their approval. We became fearful of stepping out of line and being ostracized by the herd. Over time we cultivated a mental judge that told us, “You must fit in this box or else you have no value.”

The concept of “value” is nothing but a mental fabrication. We use our or someone else’s behavior, physical appearance, wealth, etc to judge our/their “worth” as a human being. When two people are different, the Judge assumes that one must be “better” or “more valuable” than the other. This is absurd. We simply are; “value” doesn’t apply.

The assessment of a person’s “value” is a slippery slope that leads to an even stronger form of judgment: attack. The Judge criticizes either ourselves or others for being the way we/they are. Adjectives such as worthless, incompetent, stupid, lazy, fat, and weak are used as the Judge attacks. This is precisely what causes our negative view of ourselves or others.

So, we start out judging, which is good because it enables us to steer our lives in positive directions; but this morphs into attacking as we label ourselves or others as bad, and this creates negativity.

The Judge persists because we continue to believe that we have little self-worth. Every time we fail to say or do something perfectly, it reinforces the notion that we have little worth. Even when we succeed at something, the resulting good feeling doesn’t last long because all we’ve done is temporarily appease the Judge; we still believe that we are inherently flawed so surely we will fail in the future.

If we can focus only on events and not the idea of “value”, we can avoid attack and all the painful emotions that accompany it. For example, if we do something that has an unpleasant result, we should simply acknowledge that such behavior is not conducive to happiness and refrain from doing it in the future. But if we assess that we are “stupid” or “worthless” for behaving that way, we will experience painful feelings.

One reason the Judge is able to torture us is that we don’t realize that it is attacking us. We believe that it is only acting in our “best interests” and that it is always right, so we believe its harsh criticisms. If it tells us that we are inherently flawed, we believe it. We see ourselves as the problem. We then feel contracted, depressed, and sapped of energy, because we believe we are defenseless.

When we realize that the Judge is attacking us, we will see that the Judge is the problem. It is making erroneous assumptions about our “self-worth” (a concept that has no reality) and launching an unwarranted assault on us. Only when we realize that there is an enemy can we defend ourselves. We can then ignore the Judge’s shrill proclamations that we are flawed or worthless, because we know that they are wrong. Sure, we might have done or said something that had an unpleasant result, but it’s not because there is anything wrong with us; we simply didn’t possess the necessary information at the time. If we’d had that information, we would have behaved in accordance with it, because we are intelligent and capable.

Some people try to overcome negative thoughts with positive ones (affirmations). The idea is that if we can replace negative thoughts with better ones we won’t think negatively anymore. The problem with this is that while we might force ourselves to have certain positive thoughts, the negative ones are still there. That is, we haven’t removed them but merely placed artificial ones on top of them – kind of like putting on make-up. The negative feelings will therefore continue.

Thoughts cannot be “beaten” with other thoughts. The only way to eradicate thoughts is to not think them. So, don’t judge yourself (or others). Have no concept of good or bad, worthy or worthless, successful or unsuccessful. Just be. This might sound difficult, but we do it all the time when we are engrossed in an activity such as work, a game, a sport, or even watching television. During these times of involvement, the mind is too occupied to generate judgmental thoughts, so we have no concept of being good, bad, smart, stupid, productive, or useless.

The next step is to be nonjudgmental even when we are not busy. We can do this by simply relaxing. Don’t try to not think. Just relax. Make no effort. This won’t stop our racing thoughts right away because they are still moving along from the momentum they’ve gained, but over time they will lose momentum because we’re no longer fueling them, and as a result they will diminish.

The Judge has been a thorn in our side for a long time. We won’t get rid of it overnight, but realizing it’s there and how it sabotages us is the first and most important step in breaking out of our enslavement to it.

Unconsciousness

A large part of our reality is unconscious. Our acquired beliefs cause thought patterns that operate on autopilot and compel us to say, do, and feel things. Everything we experience is evaluated by these unconscious thoughts – run through our mind’s filter – before reaching us, so that we don’t fully or purely experience anything. A politician’s words are wrong because he is a member of the “other” political party. The cashier is ugly because she doesn’t look like the photo on the magazine cover. Someone’s religious belief is wrong because it differs from ours. We never see things as they are; we see things as our minds are.

These unconscious thoughts get us into situations that our true selves would never consciously choose. For example, we might get into an intimate relationship with someone who verbally or physically abuses us, or uses us for sex or money. Why would our mind do this? Maybe it believes that this person will help us grow. Maybe it’s attracted to the familiar, even if the familiar is painful. Either way, we get into these unpleasant situations because our conditioned, unconscious mind runs our life. We have no conscious choice.

If we honestly look at and assess our beliefs, we can see that some of them are erroneous. If we let them go, we become conscious because we see things as they really are, without a filter distorting everything. We find our true selves because we no longer carry thought patterns that we mistake for who we are. Everything becomes clear and pure. We live in the present moment, not thoughts about the past or future. We are no longer controlled by unconscious thought patterns and we are aware enough to make actual choices.

Intimate Relationships and the Ego

For the ego, an intimate relationship is a contract from which it hopes to gain worldly things such as security, wealth, sex, and/or social status. The contract is “If you give me one or more of these things, then I will give you one or more of them in return.” The relationship is based on a set of demands, and giving is done only to get. Each partner is expected to perform tasks in order to be “worthy” of the other. As soon as one fails to uphold their end of the contract, the other becomes upset. There is no acceptance – there is only the constant desire to have someone satisfy the ego’s demands. This is a hostile relationship.

An egoic person cannot properly serve his partner because his ego comes first, and he cannot serve two masters. He is too focused on satisfying his ego to fully care about his partner. If his partner is also egoic, then she cannot properly serve him either. Each ego is a sort of paramour that prevents the two partners from truly connecting.

When neither person lives through their ego, then a real relationship is possible because each true self is free to serve the other. There is no third or fourth entity demanding, giving to get, or becoming upset. Only true selves are involved, and the true self is incapable of negativity. As a result, there is nothing but gratitude and love, and if there is any desire, it is only the desire to give.

Who Suffers?

As we well know, the ego's desire causes suffering. It wants something, feels a sense of lack without it, tries to get it, and experiences disappointment when it does not get it.

But who suffers? The true self, or the ego?

What is the ego? A thought process. A thought cannot suffer.

But the true self does not desire the things that the ego desires (wealth, social status, etc). It simply is. Therefore it has no unfulfilled desire. So how can it suffer?

Yet we perceive suffering.

Ah, there's the key word: perceive. We perceive that we suffer. But do we?

When we live through the ego, we are pretending to be it. We fantasize that we are this little action figure that desires things. Since we don't have those things, we pretend that this conceptual self is incomplete, lacking something, in an unpleasant state. So we imagine that it is suffering. Since we are pretending to be this conceptual self, we pretend that we suffer. It's like watching a play or a movie: we temporarily identify with a character and pretend to feel what s/he is feeling. Eventually the play or movie ends, and we no longer imagine that we're feeling those feelings. Similarly, when we wake up to who we really are, we no longer imagine that we are a suffering little ego.

So we don't really suffer; we only pretend to suffer. And this imagined suffering will end as soon as we stop pretending to be an ego.