Understanding the other, in myself

We always size up any new person we meet. Right before the first encounter ends, we already "catalogue" him or her.  Though we would like to say it is an unconscious process, in reality it is a very conscious and curious enterprise we all engage ourselves in. I really don't think there is nothing wrong or bad about it, in itself.  It is merely having an opinion about someone we just met and interacted with.  However, it would be immature if we convince ourselves that that is who the person wholly and truly is!  Not being open to seeing more of him or her (knowing the person more deeply) is indeed stunting our own growth.

Jesus too was asked for a sign to prove all that he said or claimed who he claimed himself to be.  The only trouble here was that people were trying to "categorize" him into a mould which they had already decided for him. They were not very keen to see him grow in them... not open to let him evolve in their understanding.  They had already fixed who he was and anything short of it, would disqualify him from "their" understanding of who he was.

Honestly speaking we only condemn or accept our image of the person we meet, and not the real person.  We land in error when we condemn or accept the real person solely on our constructed image of the person, that too from a very very limited and conditioned experience.