Chapter 23 Don't Judge

A young man went to Danan and told him that Sufi and many other things were wrong. The Egyptian, Danan, took off a ring from his hand and gave it to him: "Take this to the general store in the market and see if you can get a gold coin." None of the general store merchants offered more than a silver coin. The young man then brought the ring back.

"Now, take the ring to a real jeweler and see how much he'll give you," Danan said.

The jeweler gave him a thousand gold coins! The young man was very surprised.

"Do you understand now?" Danan said. "Your understanding of Sophie is about the same as a grocer's understanding of jewelry. If you want to know what's good, you need to be a real jeweler."

How precise his statement is! Sufism is not a system of doctrines; it has no canons. Because no explanation can become experience, it is of no help; on the contrary, explanations often hinder experience, they are merely imitations of experience. Sufism is neither observation nor knowledge. Truth cannot be taught, cannot be learned, only you can give it to yourself. Only you can understand for yourself what Sufism is—not through knowledge, but through understanding. Knowledge is dead, understanding is a living act. Understanding is part of your being, while knowledge is not. Knowledge is merely part of memory, and memory is nothing more than biological computer software.

Sooner or later, people will develop pocket-sized computers that will allow you to carry the knowledge of libraries around the world. You simply press a button, and the computer will provide the knowledge—we spend twenty-five years of our lives in university with incompetent teachers and tedious exams, just to train our memory? That knowledge is easy for a computer. A computer is more efficient than any memory system because it is completely inanimate, and knowledge is inanimate too. It is far more reliable than your mind. Knowledge is merely a part of your memory system; it doesn't belong to your being. To understand means to become what you want to know. If you want to know God, God isn't hidden anywhere else.

It is said that when a Soviet satellite approached the moon, it broadcast a message to Soviet television: "We have not yet seen God or any deity."

God is not a thing! Not a hidden person! God is the flower within you, a potential, a possibility, not a physical entity; your eyes cannot see Him. Your God is a potential, merely a seed. You must give it water and nourishment for it to grow. I cannot place God before you, but you will see your God, and everyone else's God, only your seed and the soil are hard, some even covered in stones. If you can break through that hard soil, you will see your God. If you have enough courage, you can break through immediately. If you can see your God, you can see God everywhere.

"Do you understand now?" Danan said. "Your understanding of Sophie is about the same as a grocer's understanding of jewelry."

Grocery store merchants can't appreciate diamonds. They don't know what diamonds are. They just think they're beautiful and can be given to children to play with, but they don't know their value.

Have you heard the story of the largest diamond, Kohinoor? It's about a farmer in Kolkand, India, who found a diamond by a river in his field and took it home for his children to play with. When the children got tired of it, they put it under the window, and over time, people forgot it existed.

A wandering monk passed by and asked the farmer for lodging for the night. After the meal, the monk told the farmer and his family what had happened outside. He told them that there was a river not far away, and that diamonds were abundant on its banks. He said that if they found even a small diamond, they could become rich, while working on this barren land would only keep them poor for life.

The next day, the monk left, but hope remained in the farmer's heart. He later sold his field, hoping to find the riverbank the monk had described, and asked his wife and children to wait for him for five years.

He worked hard for five years, searching everywhere for the riverbank where diamonds were so easy to find, but he finally learned what diamonds were. When he returned home, he could hardly believe his eyes – huge diamonds were lying right under his window! Then he remembered: the riverbank he had sold was the one where diamonds could be easily found, and that riverbank used to be on his land!

This farmland later became one of the world's largest diamond-producing areas – Golconda. The stone that children had grown tired of playing with became one of the world's largest diamonds.

This symbolizes your inner journey. Don't sell your land! The greatest diamonds await you. Learn to be a jeweler—the only thing you need to learn is how to die, because only by dying can you be reborn and return to your true self. Sophie is right: "I can't give you anything until you die."

Jesus said, "Do not judge." This is one of the greatest proverbs ever spoken on earth. It's very difficult for our reason to do this. Our reason always wants to make judgments immediately, even without reason; reason can make judgments instantly. You've made many inexplicable judgments. If you look deeper, you'll find that Jesus was right.

Every judgment is wrong because the world is deeply interconnected; you can only understand a part if you understand the whole. Everything is connected—the present is linked to the past, the future, and eternity. What has happened in the past and what will happen in the future are intertwined. How can you judge? The world is indivisible; it is a whole. Judgment is always wrong because it sees only a part and mistakes it for the whole.

Jesus is right, do not judge. For the final judgment is near. It contains death. You will lose your senses, but it is through death that you can grow. When you judge, you shrink back and cease to blossom. Not judging is a great and courageous act, because our minds are always eager to judge; to say good or bad, right or wrong, to make judgments constantly. If you want to escape its control—only then can there be inner growth—then do not judge.