Something I hear quite often from yogis in various contexts is: don’t be so judgmental. This is something that has some level of truth, but is used inappropriately most times. Our ability to make judgments is a human gift. We are always making judgments, probably due to an evolutionary impulse to evaluate whether something in your environment is going to eat you, or it is something you’d like to eat. If you look closely, we are always scanning the environment and making flash judgments about safety and threat. This expands to judgement of good and bad, the value of things, and ultimately aids us in making decisions.

So from this perspective, judgment is useful for us, we need it to function in our world. We need to judge whether the skillet is too hot to handle, some food is spoiled, or a workshop will be of benefit. And broadening the concept, viveka, or discernment, is highly valued in the yoga tradition. Our increased ability to be discerning is one hallmark of our progress on the path of yoga.

We use our judgment to discern what is problematic, bad, or unacceptable in our surface world. Often I’m told I shouldn’t judge other people, but shouldn’t we use our judgment to evaluate whether their words or actions are uplifting, true, useful and good, or false or detrimental, and therefore bad? In general, we need to set boundaries around words and actions that are harmful, untruthful, and mostly damaging.

However, we can still hold equanimity and non-judgment toward the essence of a person. This is one of the great paradoxes of yoga: to be able to clearly discern and draw boundaries around bad behavior, yet continue to remain even-minded toward the person. The teachings around upeksha/equanimity remind us to keep a bigger view, a larger perspective.

This is by no means easy! It is our human tendency to quickly judge something as good, and attach to it, as well as judge things as bad and push them away. These are in fact two of the kleshas/hinderances outlined by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutra. Working with the subtleties of this paradox requires practice. And as we move along the path of yoga, our ability to be discerning is increased as we connect and align with the highest and refine our awareness.