We are so often making distinctions and labelling things as, good or bad, true or untrue. It can be exhausting to carry the burden of excessive judgement. If we are able to drop our concepts, labels and discriminating thoughts, we are able to let go of comparisons. Life throws us many challenges, conflicts and struggles which can feel overwhelming. We live in a culture often motivated by winning and losing, presenting ourselves to be right and others to be wrong, being in judgment about the thoughts and actions of others.
This poem by Rumi ‘ The Wagon’, explores the idea of non judgement and oneness. Below the surface of black and white, there is a grey space we fail to see—a space void of conflicts.
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
doesn’t make any sense.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.”
Somewhere within us we know there is a better way. We know there is a place – a field – where we can move beyond our judgements of wrongdoing and rightdoing. Although it’s natural to think of this “field” as a physical place where grass grows – there’s another way to picture this space as an energy of interconnectedness that permeates everything and holds it all together.