On Judging

….contd……

It was one hour before our cleaning up work got finished. It was then that I noticed Aziz being tea for all along with some cookies that he managed to get for all. I noticed Priya, Rahul and Sandhya had brought lunch for all. Aziz had brought morning and evening snacks for all. Someone had brought few fruits too! And here, I was as usual who had come empty handed.

Our Guru sat on her favourite rock under the neem tree and we sat all around her. Everyone was sharing his experience with her and with one another. She was drinking her tea as she listened to us talk and discuss. Not a word from her for more than ½ an hour now.

‘Oh God! I too did that mistake!’

‘I did not compare my kids and ….’

‘…….not comparing friends is so difficult and …………’

Each one was justifying arguing or explaining what they did!

‘Guruji, who among us fared better? ’ asked someone suddenly.

‘Judge not for ye shall be judged!’ her voice answered.

‘But we are not judging, we are asking you to tell us who fared better’

‘If I judge you, I shall be judged’ she replied with a smile.

‘Because of your journey why should I bring upon karma of ‘judging others’? It’s your journey. Wherever you are today, it certainly is not the last stop and you all know that. There’s miles to go before you sleep and even this you know. Some covered more distance than others. So what? Did not tortoise though slow but steady won the race? One who’s travelled more may lose enthusiasm after sometime and drop out of this practice but the slow may continue and finally win the race. So why bother? Where you are now is as irrelevant as where you started from. Only thing that should matter to you should be ‘am I regular in my sadhan? If not, why not? And if yes, then what do I do to keep doing it regularly…….’

‘you mean to say that I if judge someone, then I accrue karma? What type of karma do I accrue?’ Priya asked worried.

…contd…………..