According to Osho, dropping judgment means abandoning both negative condemnation and positive approval; the entire habit of evaluating others is a subtle will to dominate. Real help comes not from labeling but from awakening consciousness. Practice total acceptance and allow each person’s unique being to unfold, recognizing existence needs their irreplaceable expression. Because moral labels shift with time and culture, judging is misguided; awareness and acceptance liberate.
Yes—stop calling people good or bad; just be aware, accept them as they are, and help by encouraging awareness, not by handing out verdicts.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, when we drop the attitude of judging people negatively, it follows that acknowledging the positive in people has to be dropped too -- the whole package has to go, does it not?
You never think that Rama obeying his father -- a dying man, under the influence of a young wife.... In the first place, to have four wives was wrong. Then, even at the point of death the man has not the courage to say no to his young wife. Such a henpecked husband! For no reason at all he orders Rama to go to the forest for fourteen years. And this was a value in those days, obedience. Rama is respected for centuries because he obeyed his father without even asking, "Why? What have I done? For what is this punishment being given to me?" Fourteen years he passes, on foot, in the forest. Today, nobody who has any intelligence can say that obedience can be of such a high value. He should have disobeyed. And this is my feeling, that if Rama had disobeyed Dasharatha, his father, this country…
I heard you say existence is non-judgmental, but our minds are full of judgments. Where do they come from? Are they also related to the idea of god?
Existence is non-judgmental. That is one of the greatest contributions of Zen to humanity: that you need not be a saint to be awakened. You can be awakened from any angle, from any dimension of life. It is almost like somebody is dreaming that he is murdering someone, and somebody else is dreaming a very sweet dream that he is serving the poor people. Somebody is dreaming that he is very virtuous, a saint, and somebody is dreaming that he is a murderer, the worst kind of criminal. Do you think the saintly dreamer will wake up sooner, and the sinner and the criminal will take a little longer time to wake up? They will both wake up exactly at the same time, by the same method. Just throw one bucket full of ice-cold water on both and they will jump out of their beds. It does not matter whether…
How to drop judging people?
From the outside that's what we can judge. From the outside it is always wrong. Seeing it again and again, understanding it again and again, penetrating it again and again, you will not need to drop judgements, they drop of their own accord. Just watch. Whenever you judge, you are doing something foolish. It does not apply to the person at all, it can apply only to the act. And that act too is taken out of context because you don't know his whole life. It is as if you tear a page from a novel and you read it and you judge the novel by it. It is not right; it is out of context. The whole novel may be a totally different thing. You may have taken a negative part, an ugly part. But you don't know anybody's life in its totality. A man has lived for forty…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHY DO I JUDGE SO MUCH? I said, "Yes! That's why I am keeping out of it, because then you will call me and ask. It is better -- include me out. Don't put me in this game. There are many who are mad, who want to compose question papers because that brings money, who want to examine answer copies because that brings money. I am simply refusing money -- anybody else will be happy to have it. Make somebody happy." He looked at me and he said, "I have always thought that in your eccentricities, there is always something of truth. Yes, I agree. It hurts to give a zero to somebody, if you are not just mechanically judging but seeing the person behind the answer. With great hope he has given this answer -- it may be wrong but his hope... what about his hope?
Question: HASAN OF BASRA RELATES: 'I HAD CONVINCED MYSELF THAT I WAS A MAN OF HUMILITY AND LESS THAN HUMBLE IN MY THOUGHTS AND CONDUCT TO OTHERS. 'THEN ONE DAY I WAS STANDING ON THE BANK OF THE RIVER WHEN I SAW A MAN SITTING THERE. BESIDE HIM WAS A WOMAN AND BEFORE THEM WAS A WINE-FLASK. 'I THOUGHT, "IF ONLY I COULD REFORM THIS MAN AND MAKE HIM LIKE I AM INSTEAD OF THE DEGENERATE CREATURE WHICH HE IS."' 'AT THAT MOMENT I SAW A BOAT IN THE RIVER BEGINNING TO SINK. THE OTHER MAN AT ONCE THREW HIMSELF INTO THE WATER WHERE SEVEN PEOPLE WERE STRUGGLING, AND BROUGHT SIX OF THEM SAFELY TO THE BANK. 'THEN THE MAN CAME UP TO ME AND SAID, "HASAN, IF YOU ARE A BETTER MAN THAN ME, IN THE NAME OF GOD SAVE THAT OTHER MAN, THE LAST REMAINING ONE.