Judging a Book by its Cover

Aum Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

Haribol.

So, during the week I saw a few articles where they were commemorating, in the USA, Dr Martin Luther King; and he had a very famous speech that many people refer to as the “I have a dream” speech. In part of what he spoke he had this quote (hopefully we’ll be able to put it up there). He said,

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

And of course, any sane and good person would be terribly moved. This is an appeal to the better side of humanity, to not engage in what is being referred to by an old adage, which you’ve all probably heard, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” And of course, modern advertising has made that increasingly difficult. The effort that goes into designing book covers is pretty extraordinary and highly manipulative, and so you don’t know what the content—And it was more in reference, in older times book covers were pretty much standard and pretty blah, and a little bit of gold trim on it, maybe, and a title. And because it was the cover, and people didn’t have these little devices, people actually read books, and they got passed around and handled, and the cover gets beat up. And if somebody erroneously draws a conclusion that a well-read book with a beat-up cover is not going to be worth reading; because the cover’s beat up maybe the contents are no good. I mean that’s just unintelligent. But we very much are living in a world where this has become very standard.

It’s like the old movie sets. People shoot movies—I don’t know if any of you have ever been on an actual complex movie set. It’s really mind-boggling. You have all these incredible facades. I saw one down the South Island—I’ve seen in different places, but down the South Island I saw one that they were doing, a Biblical thing, and they had these old stone buildings and fortresses and stuff. It’s just made of Styrofoam, and it’s just, it’s really junk, but then they do a really good paint job on it, and so it looks like, from a distance and through the lens of a camera, wow, it looks like a really ancient place. But all it is, is this thing sticking up in front, and behind it you’ve just got wooden frame and some supports and everything. There’s no real content. It’s all very superficial.

And we see in the world nowadays this tendency to move towards this superficiality. The selfie has been so incredibly detrimental to people’s well-being, their spiritual well-being, and of course, their mental well-being and their overall health. It’s been like absolutely dis—utterly disastrous. We’ve slipped into this time.

So when I was reading some commentaries on Martin Luther King, and some person had made this comment that,  Martin Luther King, he was pointing to a higher spiritual principle, to recognize the commonality of all beings and judge people by the content of their character, what they’re actually like, how they speak, how they deal with others, rather than just looking at the external things.” And then I was absolutely shocked that somebody that wrote that was attacked, I mean like this crushing attack, where because of the fact that the person’s body was Caucasian therefore they had no right to speak about the experience of a black person, and for them to be quoting Martin Luther King was racist.

And it’s just like, oh my gods, what’s happened to our world, where we’ve moved from this idea of not judging a book by its cover to now you must, forcefully, must judge a book by its cover, by looking at the external you can know everything that there is to know about that person? And that’s just like so ignorant. And yet it’s being put forward, this type of thinking, as being somehow enlightened.

My compass, my North Star, are the spiritual texts I read and the instructions of my spiritual teachers. This principle that Martin Luther King spoke of is a transcendent principle. It rises above time and place, circumstance. It rises above bodily identity. I mean that’s exactly what it’s about. Hey, get off the trip of making the judgments just on the basis of a body type, and look a bit deeper. And of course, that points to the reality of the fact that we are all eternal spiritual beings. The body does not indicate who we truly are. The body is a temporary home, a temporary house that will age and will die. We will be kicked out. We will be forced to move on.

And if I spend my entire life absorbed in the idea that this body is me, from a spiritual perspective that’s considered incredibly ignorant; ignorant meaning that it is the source of all unhappiness and pain. And the more a person becomes absorbed in that type of thinking, then the more they are going to experience unhappiness and pain, the less likely it is that they will experience peacefulness in their life, and true happiness.

The need for us to be cultivating a spiritual perspective is paramount. We live in a time where there are so many ideas and voices trying to push us the other way, into the bodily conception of life. We have to resist that, and we have to work on our own self and cultivate a deeper spiritual perspective, a deeper idea, a deeper understanding of who we truly are; and as I grow in that understanding simultaneously that will also apply to others.

If we become steeped in bodily identities—and it’s just like the world’s gone nuts, pushing all kinds of—the idea that if you adopt a bodily identity, you can find your true self, and you can be happy! I’m sorry! I don’t want to be argumentative, but I am forced to say, that is not only not true, that is a lie, and it will just lead to more unhappiness.

So I’m going to quote a few spiritual texts, from two great spiritual works, that should be a guide for us in our life in how we try to look at ourself, and how we look at others. So, this first one is from the Bhagavad Gita, and it states:

“He is a perfect yogi who, by comparison with his own self, sees the true equality of all beings, in both their happiness and their distress, O Arjuna!”

I mean, this is an extraordinary idea. Number one, it speaks to all living beings, not even human beings, but all living beings, the appreciation that life is a symptom of the presence of a spiritual being. The material elements do not produce life. They can’t produce life. There is no biochemical theory that even demonstrates theoretically that you can produce life from chemicals. It has never been done in the lab, and it will never be done, only because life indicates spiritual existence not material existence.

And one is encouraged to embrace this idea that we are all equal. There is no higher, there is no lower. You may occupy—we may occupy different types of bodies, but I need to have this view that we are all equal, spiritual beings.

This principle that is stated here also speaks to the principle of empathy, to be able to identify what somebody else is going through on the basis of my own personal experience, my own existence.

The next verse, also from the Bhagavad Gita states:

“He by whom no one is put into difficulty and who is not disturbed by anyone, who is equipoised in happiness and distress, fear and anxiety, is very dear to Me.”

This is a statement by Lord Krishna. And we have this extraordinary idea that I should not be creating difficulty for anyone. This is the foundation of this idea of not even feeling anger or hate towards an enemy, but actual love. It’s only possible when we see them as being eternal spiritual beings having a temporary material experience, which may be a bit of a bummer, but that’s what’s going on.

And the idea that I cannot be happy, that I cannot be pleasing to the Supreme Soul if I am causing anxiety and pain or difficulty to others is a really, this is massive. This is like—you know these ideas that, “Oh, I’m responsible for my own happiness,”—well actually that is true, but you have to understand the context, the broader context of that. If I am creating havoc in the life of others, if I am causing pain and suffering, I cannot know happiness. I will not be pleasing to others, nor will I be pleasing to the Supreme Soul.

The next verse is from the Bhagavat Purana, this extraordinary ancient text that was written over 5,000 years ago, and it says:

“The Supreme Soul is very satisfied with the transcendentalist when they greet other people with tolerance, mercy, friendship and equality.”

This is the standard. Our standard shouldn’t be some influencer. It just blows my mind that people aspire to be an influencer. That just like—well, that would be a wonderful thing if you were influencing people towards that which is spiritual, that which is transcendental, that which is healthy and holy and sacred, then, by all means, please influence as much as you can. But when your influence is promoting ignorance, when it’s promoting dissension, when it’s promoting division, when it’s promoting envy, it’s just like, it is unfortunate.

And one of the things I really dislike about the modern methods of communication and stuff, where the social media companies sort of develop this idea, really quick, “We need to get people engaged, because if we can keep them engaged we can exploit them and make money off them. And one of the best ways to keep people engaged is getting people arguing with each other, getting a hate on for each other.” And so they promote it. They will send you things and put things in your feed that will agitate you and make you, “Oh shit! Whoa!” [mimes aggressive messaging] like your pressing these little buttons is actually doing anything to anyone.

But it’s kind of like when I saw news readers—it’s not so common here in New Zealand; in America, in Europe it’s kind of like, “What do you think of the story? We’d really like to hear from you.” It’s just like BS. They don’t want to hear from you, but they say they do, and then people think, “Oh, I’m so important, they want to hear from me; let me send them a tweet,” or whatever. And it’s just like—and the way people can attack each other, just on the basis of ideas or beliefs. It’s just so animalistic, and it’s so low.

This is a standard that that we come to greet people with tolerance, meaning they may be doing things that you don’t like, they may be doing things that even are upsetting, but you must be tolerant of others, to greet people with tolerance, with mercy, with friendship, and with equality. We should aspire to cultivate these standards in our life. And I absolutely promise you, if you do this your life will become wonderful. You will become so relieved of anxiousness, anxieties and depressions. You will actually become happy.

But in order to do this, there has to be a spiritual foundation. You can’t just pretend. It can’t be the cover of the book, or the facade in the movie set. It can’t be a pretence. There has to be something there. It has to be real. It has to be the content of your character. And a big part of that is the cultivation also of the capacity to forgive, which is a huge subject we’ve spoken about in the past.

The final verse that I’ll read, also from the Bhagavat Purana, states that,

“The duty of one seeking enlightenment is to culture the quality of forgiveness, which is illuminating like the sun. The Supreme Lord, Hari, is pleased with those who are forgiving.”

This is a massive subject, and we’ve talked at some length about it before, but this idea that to cultivate forgiveness will be Illuminating, it will shine light on my life, it will give me understanding, it will help me to grow in spiritual knowledge and experience, it is illuminating, it lights things up; and the opposite is true, hatefulness breeds ignorance and darkness and pain. You can’t say, “Well, that person deserves to be hated.” Well, maybe they do, maybe they don’t. That’s not the point. If you are engaged in the hatefulness, you will be pulled into a river of misery, and you will be controlled by that.

So, big topics. Fundamental principle, not judging a book by its cover, learning to look at things more deeply, and to become inwardly focused, not to be shallow, not to be just occupied, preoccupied, with the cover, how you look, what you have, how you can impress others. These are the shallow things. We need to cultivate the content of our own character, we need to become good people, and we need to share goodness. Okay? Approve or not? Hope so.

Thank you very much. We’ll chant Aum Hari Aum.