The Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship
Online Library
How Can We Dispense Justice Within Ourselves?
A short talk given by M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen from Questions of Life, Answers of Wisdom Volume 2.
Abdul Jabbar Toomey: Bawa was just
talking about the judgment and the fact that we have to make this judgment
within ourselves before we die. When God gives a judgment, He dispenses it with
justice, whether it involves punishment or otherwise. How should we dispense
justice within ourselves by punishment or other means?
Bawa Muhaiyaddeen: You do not have to mete out punishment.
When you are bringing up a child, you must decide what is right and what is wrong in the child's actions. Isn't that so? You do have to teach the child about right and wrong. At times, you may have to speak to the child firmly and say, "Don't do that. Be good." Sometimes you may even need to shake a cane, to make the child listen. By one means or another you must teach him what is right. That is judgment.
Within us we have a zoo. There we raise four hundred trillion, ten thousand animal forms, one for each of our qualities. We also have a museum where we keep the fossils of these animals within us and display them outwardly, saying proudly, "This is our ancestry. This is the elephant-man. This is the cat-man. This is the whale. This is the bear. This is the man who was our king. This is the monkey-man, the tiger-man, the buffalo-man, the snake-man. These are our forefathers." They tell the story of our heritage, and we display that story in the museum of our body.
In the zoo within us are battalions of animal qualities that we nurture. But for every animal we are bringing up inside, there is a whip or a stick or something that can control it. By using that whip or stick, we must control each animal, harness its nature, then train it and bring it to a good place. We have to assess the state each one is in, and then take that animal to its respective station the horse to one place, the elephant to another, the cat to yet another, the snake to another. We must keep them apart, so they cannot bite or poison one another or cause pain or suffering to one another or even murder each other.
We must exercise judgment regarding every one of our qualities, giving each one its own place, just as God, in His kingdom, keeps all of them caged in their rightful places. Then there will be no further story to be written. There will be no blame, hence no need for inquiry or for punishment. If the questioning and the judgment have already been attended to here, there will be no further questions to be asked there, and when we reach the place of judgment, we will be told, "No inquiry is required, and there is no judgment. This is your path. You can go directly to your place." Then we will be sent at once to our rightful place, our kingdom.
Therefore, we must bring about the judgment ourselves. The way to do that is to acquire God's qualities and let Him do the judging here and now. It is God's qualities that must judge. It is God's duty that must judge. It is God's state that must make the judgment. You yourself are not qualified to judge. It is He who must do the judging while you are here. When you become He, and He becomes you and gives a judgment, that will be a correct judgment.
If we can do this, it will be good. Whether it is done there or here, judgment is the same.