Judgment Day – my Christian schooling has drilled me this concept at a very young age. I still remember the bunch of pictures of hell that were given to us. My little brain could not answer many questions sitting at school …
• Will God judge only Christians?
• Will He judge me also, a Hindu?
• Where will I be after judgment – heaven or hell?
• When is the Judgment Day?
• Where will I be after my death?
• Should I need to wait till my day of judgment?
• Will God announce His judgment in front of everybody?
• If I am supposed to go to hell, will everybody know about it?
I had taken all these questions to heart very seriously that lingered in my mind as an infinite loop, because of which I had a quiet childhood. You know I wanted to be a good child. Most importantly, I didn’t want God to brand me as a bad child. All along, I was also curious to know what happened to all those who had died so far – would they be in heaven or hell? I was also judgmental about the people around whether they would go to hell or heaven based on their rude behaviour or actions.
In parallel, at home my parents too talked about swarg and narak whenever they wanted to discipline us. I was confused because there were too many gods and goddesses being worshipped at home. Which god or goddess to trust? Who would listen to my prayers patiently and whom not to? Who would be less judgmental and forgive me than the ruthless Christian God? You know….. it was fixed in my mind that as a Hindu, yama doothas only can take me to hell and heaven and not the angels or demons of Christianity. However, secretly, in the heart of hearts, Jesus appealed to my heart more and I didn’t want to disclose this to anyone.
In the bargain, the concept of judgment got rooted in me firmly.
One fine day, all my confusions were dispelled thanks to the sacred texts - Gita and Upanishads. The fear of Judgment Day got diluted and understood that there is only one God for all. But another fear gripped my being. If I am answerable to all my actions, words and thoughts, what is the basic thing that I need to watch. To my rude shock, the answer that came from inside was ‘judgment’.
It was a tough task. We always remember one’s past based on which we judge his or her present. Many times I have failed. But a few times I’ve succeeded too when I consciously refuse to think about them. When my fellow Chetana friends assigned the task of no judgment for a week, I chuckled inside. I started observing my inner being closely. During the course of this week, an opportunity arose…
We were invited for a house warming ceremony recently. There was also a discourse given by one of the spiritual group members. During his discourse, he said, “Some spiritual organisations build schools, colleges and hospitals. Can we call this as service? No, they are ignorant. We have to do seva to Krishna directly.”
I could not stop wondering how can one do service to the Lord directly. Is it only building temples? Is it only doing pujas or parayanas? Are not all beings manifestations of the same divine? Will not the service done to fellow beings reach Krishna? Is not Manava seva Madhava seva?
What appeals to one need not for the other. Then why should he be judgmental about other types of service? Meditation or ceaseless chanting is not for all, isn’t it? In that case, why is he teaching wrongly?
Or...... or is my thinking wrong?
Now the basic question looms large - was or am I judgmental on him? I don’t know really. I don’t know really…
4 comments:
True. Often we stand in the cross road to judge whether someone’s judgment is right or wrong. So, what is the proof that out judgment is right? Not only that many a time our judgments go wrong, after sometime we had to correct our judgment which might even go wrong some time later. However, we have no other choice but to judge the right and wrong based on our own conceptualizations and select the right until we reach a stage of neutrality where we are above any right or wrong. In this regard I used to quote a funny example that in Saudi Arabia if a woman’s body is not fully covered except the eyes is wrong and punishable mistake. On the contrary in some of the nude clubs in western, wearing a piece of cloth is wrong. A serious example is if a person kills another in a cultural society it is wrong and punishable. Suppose, if the same person as a soldier kills someone in a battle, he will be awarded. So, right or wrong is time, place, situation based. So, he might be right - at this moment - from his point of view. You might be right - at this moment - from your point of view.
Dear Padmaja,
Very happy to read this article in your blog also.
I feel this word Judgmental is relative term and keeps on changig.
Thanks a lot for your comments, Solai & Prakashi. Judgment is indeed a relative term.
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