Judging people V/s Judging situations

Judge situations and deal with them effectively. Don't judge people. People are a lot deeper than situations. There is a lot more to people than how you relate to them. Labeling people is the hallmark of the ego. Don't fall prey to the ego. Act in the present according the situation. Don't let your past impressions colour your actions in the present.

There are no 'difficult people' for those who are nonjudgemental. One is better off with an open mind than a judgemental one. Only an open mind sees the other person for what he/she really is and not just one of the 'types' of difficult people.

If one falls victim to the ego game of categorizing others into different categories of 'difficult people', it will have a direct impact on one's personal spiritual growth. This categorizing game is created by the ego to preserve itself and to protect it from attack by others. As the ego becomes better at this categorizing game, it strengthens itself at the cost of the true self. It becomes less compassionate towards others who it treats as outsiders and 'difficult people'. It sees them as 'difficult people' and not fellow human beings who have their strengths and weaknesses. The objective of spirituality is to transcend the ego, not to protect, preserve and strengthen it.


'Difficult people' who challenge our narrow world views help us learn about ourselves and grow spiritually. 'Easy people' or 'Easy going people' who agree with whatever we say and do irrespective of its merit, praise and flatter us, and strengthen our egos create barriers to our spiritual growth.

E.g., to Duryodhana or Dhritarashtra, Vidura would be a 'difficult person', perhaps even a controlling or competitive type of person, and Karna would be an 'easy going person' who always agrees and never argues with him. But Vidura advised Duryodhana to avoid doing things that would lead to his destruction and destruction of the entire Kuru clan and Karna encouraged him on the path to his destruction by supporting all his activities (including insulting draupadi, surrounding and killing Abhimanyu etc) and and gave him the confidence that whatever he was doing was right and he should thus continue along the same path.