Understanding the “I” of Criticism

it is necessary to be successful in life. If you truly want to be successful, you should begin by being sincere with yourself, recognizing your own errors. When we recognize our errors we are on the path to correcting them. Everyone who corrects his own errors is inevitably successful.

The businessman who daily blames others for his failures and never recognizes his own errors will not be successful. Remember that the greatest criminals consider themselves to be saints. If we visit a penitentiary we will prove to ourselves that no thief or criminal considers himself guilty. Almost all of them say to themselves, “I am innocent.” Don’t make the same mistake; have the courage to recognize your own errors. Thus you will escape greater evils.

Whoever recognizes his own errors can make a happy home. The politician, scientist, philosopher, religious person, etc. who comes to recognize his own mistakes can correct them and be successful in life.

If you want to triumph in life, don’t criticize anyone. Whoever criticizes others is weak, while the one who is critical of himself from moment to moment is a giant. Criticism is useless because it hurts the pride of others and provokes the resistance of the victim who then seeks to justify himself. Criticism provokes an inevitable reaction against its own author. If you truly want to succeed, listen to this advice: do not criticize anyone.

The man or woman who knows how to live without criticizing anyone does not provoke resistance or reactions on the part of his fellowman and, consequently, creates an atmosphere of success and progress. On the other hand, he who criticizes others has many enemies. We have to remember that human beings are full of pride and vanity and this pride and vanity, which is inherent in them, produces a reaction (resentment, hate, etc.) that is directed towards the one who criticizes.

We can conclude, then, that the one who criticizes others inevitably fails. The one who wants to correct others should best begin by correcting himself. This gives better results and is less dangerous.

The world is full of neurasthenic people. The neurasthenic type is a faultfinder, irritable and also intolerable. There are many causes of neurasthenia: impatience, anger, egotism, arrogance, pride, etc.

Samael Aun Weor. Excerpt from the Book: Introduction to Gnosis

The Self Criticism

We should be sincere with our own selves and dissect the ‘I’ with the tremendous scalpel of “self-criticism“. It is absurd to criticize the errors of others; what is fundamental is to discover our own errors and then disintegrate them on the basis of analysis and profound comprehension.

It is only possible to act collectively when each individual is capable of acting individually with full and absolute consciousness of what is being done.

The systems of the Revolution of the Dialectic will seem very lengthy to impatient people. However, another way does not exist. Those who want fast and immediate changes, in the psychological and social order, create rigid norms, dictatorships of the mind, they do not ‘aspire to others knowing how to think but rather dictate what has to be thought.

Every abrupt change defrauds its own objective and man becomes a victim once again of that which he struggled against. Within our own selves are all the causes of the failure of any organization.

Samael Aun Weor. Excerpt from the Book: The Revolution of the Dialectic

Why do we judge others?

There is a general tendency in everybody to mistakenly judge others and that is regrettable. But, why do everybody judge mistakenly everybody? What is the reason?

Simply one, and easy to understand: it happens that everybody projects his psychological defects over the rest, each one sees in the fellow human being his own defects. We have in excess the defects that we see in other, we judge others as we are.

Have you ever heard about the mechanical Antipathy? Suddenly somebody feels dislike for someone, without any reason, and then we say:

"I can't stand this one", a very common phrase that we use. But, why do we feel antipathy if we've never seen him before, if we've just met him? What happen, why can't we stand that person if we don't know him?

As we saw his appearance: is he tall or short, fat or thin, his nose is aquiline or snub, and, that's the reason as to say that we "can't stand him?" What happened?

We've just projected over our victim our very own psychological defects. Possibly we saw, in that person, the worst defect that we have and nobody likes to see oneself like that, let's say, so ridicule. The harsh reality of the facts is that such person has become the mirror where we can see ourselves as we are.

If we remain alert and on guard, if we do not identify ourselves with the event, with that person which we "can't stand", if instead of criticize him we make a self-critic, if we make a self-observation in order to see what's going on, we will discover a defect of our own (born yesterday or the day before yesterday, or who knows the time, maybe another life), has reflected in that person and that's why we "can't stand" him. Here's the mechanical Antipathy: one hundred percent absurd.

We need to learn how to live politically. The human being, before all it's a political being, a political animal, and the men itself it's a "political men". If one doesn't know to live politically, creates problems during the life to oneself. One must learn to live politically, and instead of feeling mechanical antipathies, it's worth investigating oneself.

Yes, we really project our own psychological defects over the others. Why do we judge others mistakenly? Why do we tend to see, over our neighbor any kind of defects? Simply because we project over the neighbor our own defects, we judge them mistakenly; we suppose that so-and-so is like "this" or like "that", and it happens that it is not like "this" or like "that": it's totally different, and our opinion turns to be wrong, false; we see the other lives and we have the intense tendency to misinterpret them, we are never able to see other's events with impartiality, with serenity; we always qualify them mistakenly.

Remember, there are so much virtue in the evil ones and so much evil in the virtuous.

The defects that we have inside make us unfair with the fellow human beings. We make our life a misery with our defects, but even worse, we make the life a misery to others.

Samael Aun Weor. Excerpt from the lecture: Why do we judge others?

For the practice application of this lesson, we also suggest you the practice Blue Time, click here.

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