> But similarly, if you're constantly being taken advantage of because nobody thinks you care strongly about anything, well, maybe consider becoming more judgemental
Being judgmental will do absolutely nothing to stop those people from taking advantage of you. only if you change your behavior can you change the situation. Looking at your situation fully and completely without fear and reactivity, that will save you. Judging all those people who are "doing this" to you, will do nothing but make you miserable. It is of course our nature to be judgmental but the work of Ramm Dass was to separate out those judgements to arrive at a state where you are truly not judging people. Has nothing to do with seeing what it is they do. an earthquake could level your town, and you see exactly what it is this earthquake did, and it was horrible. but you don't "judge" the earthquake, it just is. that's ultimately the state of all people too.
> Being judgmental will do absolutely nothing to stop those people from taking advantage of you.
You're right if we're talking about people who know you wouldn't like something and do it anyway (sociopaths / assholes). But you might be surprised how un-subtle the effect of knowing "that person will get pissed if I do this" is on changing people's behavior. Most people are reasonable, and they try to take the feelings of other people around them into account when deciding how to act. If your demeanor is always "Everything's cool, I'm taking it all in with no judgement" you can't really be surprised if people don't consider your preferences when making decisions.
> If your demeanor is always "Everything's cool, I'm taking it all in with no judgement"
No, you can walk away, or curse them out, or punch their lights out. These are all actions that do not imply you've "judged" them for what they do. There are multiple levels of perspective at play, but if you want to read Ramm Dass' writings with the assumption that being non-judgmental is a crock, that's pretty much how you'll come out of it. He was totally OK with that so in honor of his passing I will try today to be OK with it also.
I don't necessarily think his writings are a crock. I haven't read much of his work, but I read Paths to God and found it enjoyable. Largely, I guess I'm trying to contextualize judgement vs. non-judgement. If you're saying you can punch someone's lights out without judging them, my interpretation is that you're going through some process like this:
1. Suppress emotional judgement. (Maybe do this by re-framing their actions as something that is the way it is, like a tree or a river)
2. Evaluate the situation with a calm mind
3. Come to the conclusion that their behavior is undesireable in one way or another
4. Decide that in order to dissuade them from behaving that way in the future, you should punch them in the face.
5. Punch them in the face
I think it's probably a reasonable goal to insert a "stop and think" step before doing drastic things like punching someone in the face.
But I also think there's a non-negligible effect from using your emotions (in this case, the emption of judgement), to propel you to actually take action. I think it's very unlikely people are spurred to action by something that doesn't move them personally. There's just a bit of difference between "I'm mad about Trump. I'm definitely judging the hell out of him." and "I've come to the conclusion that Trump is a suboptimal president." I think a person in the former mindset is more likely to actually take action.
And again, I think in the context where people are too judgemental, and spend a bunch of time unproductively stewing about things, Ram Dass's advice to remove judgement is a good corrective.
This is where I feel Reason comes in. While emotions are important, facts are always more important. Judging people is good if it's to further your own self interest otherwise it's a complete waste of mental energy. "Judging others" is a fact of life and has to be done, what shouldn't be done is doing it unnecessarily, especially when other people have no affect on your life. For example judging people over sexual/religious choice reasons is most often a waste of energy and shows your own unfair biases and character failures and just a projection of lack of self-esteem.
Being judgmental will do absolutely nothing to stop those people from taking advantage of you. only if you change your behavior can you change the situation. Looking at your situation fully and completely without fear and reactivity, that will save you. Judging all those people who are "doing this" to you, will do nothing but make you miserable. It is of course our nature to be judgmental but the work of Ramm Dass was to separate out those judgements to arrive at a state where you are truly not judging people. Has nothing to do with seeing what it is they do. an earthquake could level your town, and you see exactly what it is this earthquake did, and it was horrible. but you don't "judge" the earthquake, it just is. that's ultimately the state of all people too.