Be A Witness, Not A Judge

Be A Witness, Not A Judge

The negative emotion of judgment is how false personality indicts ourselves and others for its own weakness. We see someone who’s different from us in some way, or experience an unfamiliar or even an unpleasant impression, and immediately an opinion is formed. One way or another, the negative emotion is then expressed openly or silently. When experiencing the unknown, unfamiliar and possibly unpleasant, we fail to recognize our attitudes or actively dismiss the possibility of the same in ourselves.

Who has not accidentally done or said something that has had negative consequences or has been the recipient of such? Reactions range from complete denial - ‘I’m not the type of person who….’ to ‘How stupid of me/how stupid of you.…!’

In Rembrandt’s masterpiece, The Return of the Prodigal Son, he shows us these different reactions and opinions. There’s the father who naturally is only too happy to allow his son back into his bosom. An act of natural parental forgiveness. The gentleman sitting down, seems to understand the father’s attitude, but is somewhat ambivalent towards both the father and the returning boy. The man standing over the whole scene has no such ambivalence. Rembrandt has depicted this unforgiving individual silently looking down on the scene. And isn’t that what judgment does? Looks condescendingly and unforgivingly down. Nothing of the sort could or would ever happen to him - or us - right?

There’s another individual in the center of the painting, not so visible, looking out at us looking in, completely unaffected by the forgiving father or the indecisiveness of the seated man, or the cold sternness of the courtier. He looks at us through the action in the painting dispassionately, simply observing. Rembrandt captured the silent observer. He must have observed the same negative emotions and expressions in himself, because how else could he have so accurately and sensitively created such a psychological masterpiece?

In imagery, the mystic artist Rembrandt echoes the 13th century Sufi mystic Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī’s penetrating advice: “Be a witness, not a judge.”

Post by Charles R

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Image: Return of the Prodigal Son, Rembrandt Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg