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At this point, I can confidently say that the practice of brahmavihara meditation has made me less judgmental of other people. But it would be wrong to say that I’m completely free of this mental habit (it is part of the human condition, after all).
On rare occasions when I do judge someone, I do so for their actions, not for how they look, where they’re from, or what they believe.
So imagine my surprise when I found out that Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803–April 27, 1882) expressed a similar sentiment while being quoted by a character in one of the episodes of my favorite TV show, “Good Behavior”:
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Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing.
As a lover of quotes, I immediately tracked down the source, “Self-Reliance,” and found the full passage, which reads:
Fear never but you shall be consistent in whatever variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in their hour. For of one will, the actions will be harmonious, however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost sight of when seen at a little distance, at a little height of thought. One tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. This is only microscopic criticism. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly, will justify you now.
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