Knowing and judging

Have you ever heard somebody say, "Oh, I'm just a simple soul, easy to understand".... or, "You don't understand me, you don't understand what I am trying to say"? Well, a dear friend of mine got me thinking about this the other day, about whether we can ever fully understand anyone. And, following on from that, do we ever have a right to judge others?

This is where my thinking took me, rightly or wrongly:

'Can I ever really 'know' somebody else's character. I really don't think so... and herein lies the illusion that shatters so many relationships and friendships as we only ever 'know' the other person from our own limited perspective. Are not our characters formed by the accumulation of our experiences with an overlay of genetic influence and karmic inheritance from previous lifetimes as well? Very complex. And the eternal question has always been: who am I? or, what am I? And we use our lifetime of spiritual practice in trying to find an answer to these questions, at least, a few of us do. Yet, if we cannot truly know who we are ourselves, then how can we possibly fathom out even how our nearest and dearest tick along in their lives? How can we truly 'know' anybody else if we cannot 'know' ourselves? After all, every day we are accumulating new experiences which enfold us in another layer of conditioning, and so our characters, too, are in a constant state of change... except what lies at the very core of us which I believe is the divine, which makes us one with the universal consciousness. Is that not at the heart of each one of us? If I can accept this premise, I still feel I can 'know' your character. And, as for a certain other person in my life, well, it's an enigma. Maybe that's what makes relationships exciting. Just when we feel we know someone and we feel comfortable in our 'knowing', they do something that shatters our illusion. At least, it seems like that to me.

And, following on from the not 'knowing', if we are going to be truly honest with ourselves, how can we ever judge the actions of others when we cannot fully 'know' what is prompting those actions. Of course, we can observe what other people do, and we may or may not like it, but we cannot truly judge why they are doing it because we are unable to fathom the deepest recesses of their mind to understand the processes of their thinking. Each one of us is coming from a different place and all we can do is observe. We all have an unfathomable soul that rests in the ocean of eternity and that is understood sometimes not even by us. Life is a glorious mystery.