I cannot know a person by their actions.

I cannot know a person by their actions.

I only know them through what I’m thinking and believing.

No one is the thing they just did. Or the thing they did ten, twenty, seventy years ago. Or certainly anything they have not yet done. Because what is “what they’ve done” but what I think and believe they’ve done? When I get quiet and really look into that question, I have to acknowledge that no one has ever done anything I didn’t think and believe they were doing. That, in the end, my understanding of what they were doing is my doing. 100% of the time.

Before my limited story about people’s actions, people are whole and they are connected to all other people and all other things, which means they are everyone and everything. Most of all, it means they are me (who is also everyone and everything).

For me, no person even exists before I separate them out of the whole. And every person continues to be whole even as I look at a particular action and judge it good or bad. Where is the “good” or “bad?”

In my judgment.

In my thoughts and beliefs.

There is nowhere else a “person” or a “good” or a “bad” can exist.  

So what do I do with the “bad” actions I witness or experience? Does this mean I just ignore them?

No. 

It means I recognize that, in a very important way, their actions are my actions. The closest I’ll ever get to “what someone did” is “what I think someone did.” 

And what someone’s actions “mean” can only ever be the result of me assigning meaning to what I think they did. 

There is no other way to arrive at meaning. 

What I perceive as “the action of another person” is just a reflection of my state of mind, a manifestation of what I am thinking and believing. So I would be wise to pay attention to it, not ignore it. It’s important information about my state of mind. 

And if I’m bothered by anything anyone has done and I want peace, I can meet it with love and question the thought that leaves me bothered, question any thought that doesn’t fill me with love. In fact, I can clear up my whole world by questioning what I am thinking and believing. 

And when what I’m thinking and believing about someone fills me with peace and love, that’s when I’ll know I know them.