Question 3
Beloved Osho,
You often tell us that we should not judge ourselves or other people.
I am a teacher and because of my job I have to judge the students.
Now that I am going back to Italy, I am worried about how I shall manage with my job. Can you give me some help?
KaloShreeman, my saying that you should not judge does not mean that you cannot say to a student, because you are a teacher, “The answer you have brought is not right.”
It is not judging the person, it is judging the act. And I am not telling you not to judge the act — that is a totally different thing.
For example, somebody is a thief — you can judge that stealing is not good. But don’t judge the person, because the person is a vast phenomenon and the act is a small thing. The act is so small a piece… that small piece should not become a judgment about the whole person. A thief may have many beautiful values: he may be truthful, he may be sincere, he may be a very loving person.
When I say don’t judge a person, I am not saying that you are not allowed to say that somebody is committing a mistake. Somebody is falling into a well — I am not saying that you should just stand silently without judging. This judgment, “Don’t go that way” — perhaps that man is blind and you have to prevent him; otherwise he will fall into the well. But preventing him, seeing that he is blind, does not mean that you are condemning him. The moment you start thinking in terms of condemnation then judgment enters, and I am against that kind of judgment.
One student is doing something which is not right. You are a teacher, your very function is to put the student on the right path. It is your love, it is not your condemnation; it is your compassion, not your judgment. But most often what happens is just the opposite: people start judging the person rather than the action. Actions have to be corrected — and particularly in a profession like teaching, you have to correct; you cannot allow students to go on doing wrong things. That will be very cruel, uncompassionate.
I have been a teacher myself, but I have never judged a single student as far as his person, his being is concerned. But that does not mean I have not corrected them if they were wrong. For example, I was sitting one day with the vice-chancellor. He loved to talk with me whenever he could get a chance and could find me, because I was very rarely present. And most often I avoided passing by his office because he used to tell his peon that if he saw me, to just bring me in. He loved to talk; he enjoyed a good argument.
I was talking with him, and a girl came crying. So he said to me, “Just a moment,” and he asked the girl, “What is the matter? Why are you crying?” She said a certain boy, a student in her class had been harassing her for almost the whole year. “He throws small pebbles at me in the class, he writes letters to me.” And the vice-chancellor said, “Don’t be worried, I will call him and put him right; such things cannot be allowed. He will be punished, you don’t be worried. And if he does not stop, I will expel him from the university.”
I was listening, and I said, “Just wait a minute. I want to ask the girl a few things.”
He said, “Of course, you can ask. If you can help in the matter, it will be very good.”
I asked the girl, “Are you really hurt by his throwing pebbles at you and writing love letters to you? Be honest! The day he does not write a love letter to you, don’t you wait for it?”
The vice-chancellor said, “What are you talking about?”
I said, “You just keep quiet. When I am talking, you just be a gentleman — keep quiet.” The girl stopped crying. I said, “Do you understand? If no young man harasses you, will you feel good? Don’t you know there are girls who are not harassed by anybody, and they are suffering?”
The vice-chancellor said, “What are you saying?”
I said, “You keep quiet, I am going to solve the matter completely. I will talk to that boy also.”
He said, “You need not talk, because the way you are talking…”
I said, “Now I have taken the matter in my hands.” I asked the girl, “Are his love letters not written well? Then I can teach him how to write love letters! Because every girl wants love letters — I don’t see that there is anything unnatural in it.”
Now the vice-chancellor was boiling! He said to the girl, “You go away.”
I said, “She can go only when you answer a few questions in front of her. When you were a student, just remember those old days — those beautiful days. Have you not written love letters to girls?”
He looked at me, he looked at the girl, and he said, “My God, what…” For a moment he was silent.
I said, “Be honest!”
He said, “Yes I have written…”
I said, “And just a moment before, you were expelling that boy from the university and you had forgotten completely.”
Every young man will write letters, and if somebody does not write, the function of the teacher is to help him: “Are you a dodo or what?”
As far as my classroom is concerned, from the very first day I entered after the long summer vacations, my first thing was… because in India the girls sit on one side, boys sit on another side, and in between there is a big space. My first thing was, “Just get mixed.” They would look very embarrassed….
I said, “Just get up, and you can choose whomsoever you want, but get mixed! I cannot tolerate this stupidity because this is the cause — you have to throw stones, you have to write letters… What is the need? Just sit next to each other, and if you want to say something, whisper. Whisper — I can stop; I can give you time. For fifteen minutes you do whatsoever you want to do. I will keep my eyes closed and meditate, so that after fifteen minutes we can concentrate on the subject matter. This is more primary.”
Students were very much afraid of me. With hesitation they would mix up; still they would sit so that they would not touch each other. I said, “What nonsense — do you think each other untouchable? Sit relaxed. And if you want to nudge the girl, or the girl wants to nudge you, it is perfectly okay; nature demands it. And because you are prevented, then you start ugly behavior. Now, taking the air out of the girls’ bicycles — that I don’t think is natural! That is sheer stupidity. Harassing them on the road, saying ugly dirty words — I don’t think that is right, nor is it worthy of you.
“If you want to say something, write a beautiful love letter. If you don’t know how to write, I am here — I am available. Anybody, male or female, can come to the common room where I sit. I will teach you how to write love letters.”
My class was the most silent class, and I told the vice-chancellor, “Sometime you can come and you can see — nobody is doing anything to anybody because they are allowed; I accept it as my responsibility that they should be allowed to be as natural as possible. Every girl should feel that she is loved, desired, that there are people who look at her with loving eyes. Every boy wants to be loved. And this is the time when they should pass through these experiences.”
I said to the girl, “What do you want? Tell me exactly. Do you want the boy to be expelled?”
She said, “No.”
“Do you want him not to write letters to you?”
She said, “No.” The vice-chancellor said, “Then why have you come here?”
I said, “It is very simple — she simply wants your attention. She wants to say to the world that she is being loved, somebody is writing love letters, and without telling others there is no joy in the thing. The whole world should know that she is no ordinary girl — exceptionally beautiful — people are throwing stones.”
The vice-chancellor said to the girl, “Now you go, because listening to such things… he can even spoil me. You just leave the room, and if you don’t want to do anything against that boy, never come again.” And when the girl had gone, he said, “You should not do such a thing, because if people come to know…”
I said, “In fact, you are afraid of your wife, it is not about people. And I am going to tell your wife that this old man is teaching… in front of me, he has been teaching that love letters are natural.”
He said, “You were saying natural!”
I said, “You were listening silently! Do you agree with me or not?”
He said, “I agree, but don’t go to my wife — that is the only woman I am afraid of.”
I said, “Then you have to behave.”
Just don’t judge so quickly, and don’t judge the person. Judge actions, and correct them, and But don’t correct them according to tradition, convention, according to so-called morality, according to your prejudices. Whenever you are correcting somebody, be very meditative, be very silent; look at the whole thing from all perspectives. Perhaps they are doing the right thing, and your prevention will not be right at all.
So when I say, “Don’t judge,” I simply mean that no action gives you the right to condemn the person. If the action is not right, help the person — find out why the action is not right, but there is no question of judgment. Don’t take the person’s dignity, don’t humiliate him, don’t make him feel guilty — that’s what I mean when I say, “Don’t judge.”
But as far as correcting is concerned: unprejudiced, silently, in your awareness, if you see that something is wrong and will destroy that person’s intelligence, will take him on the wrong paths in his life, help him.
The job of the teacher is not just to teach futile things — geography, and history, and all kinds of nonsense. His basic function is to bring the students to a better consciousness, to a higher consciousness. This should be your love and your compassion, and this should be the only value on which you judge any action as right or wrong.
But never for a single moment let the person feel that he has been condemned. On the contrary, let him feel that he has been loved — it is out of love that you have tried to correct him.
Conrad was six years old. Although he was six, he had never spoken a word. His parents took him to the psychiatrist, but it didn’t help. But one evening at the dinner table, Conrad looked down at his plate of food and said, “Take away this muck, it tastes terrible!”
His parents were elated and wept with joy. “You can talk!” cried his mother. “How come you’ve never spoken before this?”
“Up to now,” said Conrad, “everything has been fine!”
Don’t judge people — try to understand them. Now he is saying such a beautiful thing: “What is the need to speak when everything is going fine? Only for the first time something is terrible!”
A guy lying in a hospital bed, coming around from an anesthetic, wakes up to find the doctor sitting beside him. “I have got bad news and good news for you,” says the doctor. “Would you like the bad or good first?”
“Aaagh,” groans the guy, “tell me the bad.”
“Well,” says the doctor, “we had to amputate both your legs above the knee.”
“Aaagh,” groans the guy, “that’s really bad.”
After recovering from the shock, he asks the doctor for the good news.
“Well,” said the doctor, “the man in the next bed would like to buy your slippers!”
Just don’t be serious! Don’t think that you are a teacher so you are in a very serious job. Look at life with more playful eyes… it is really hilarious! There is nothing to judge — everybody is doing his best. If you feel disturbed by somebody, it is your problem, not his. First correct yourself.
-Osho, "The Invitation, #25, Q3"