Where then is the danger in "judging" or in persecuting others with evil criticism? The danger in annoying one's neighbour with vindictive judgement and criticism lies exclusively in that this neighbour is exactly as he should be at the given moment and as he can only be, namely a representative of his step in evolution. For who can be otherwise? Must not the world redeemer himself, the master or the high-intellectual being, be that? Does one not believe that it is just as impossible for a "bandit" to be a "Christ" as it is impossible for a "Christ" to be a "bandit"? Why then insist that a "bandit" should be more or less a "Christ"? Is this not precisely the essence of every persecuting or evil terrestrial human criticism of one's neighbour? Is this criticism not precisely a reference to the fact that the neighbour in question does not fulfil the ideals that the critic thinks he should fulfil? But since the neighbour at any given moment cannot possibly represent anything other than his own step in evolution (in precisely the same way as the tiger at any given moment must manifest his step in evolution, and the lamb his), there is nothing wrong with this "neighbour". On the contrary, there is something very wrong with the critic. The more evil and brutal his criticism or judgement of his neighbour, the more he has revealed his own ignorance and imperfection. He has judged not his neighbour, but himself.
      And it is this belief that the neighbour or the surroundings are wrong, and ought to be otherwise, that blocks him from a true view of his neighbour and his surroundings. His belief or superstition has become the prison of his life or his consciousness. He does not understand that he is thus mentally in a prison and therefore does not understand that what he sees from this prison and his ensuing criticism and behaviour towards his neighbour are against Nature and bring him into permanent conflict with the very law of life or the law of neighbourly love. He will all the time be more or less taken up with waging war on his neighbour and his surroundings. He desires or insists that they should be as he, from his consciousness or thought-world, thinks right. He is in principle actually taken up with insisting that the tiger should be as gentle as a lamb and the bandit as perfect as a Christ. In the mental prison of ignorance and superstition in which he finds himself, he cannot see that the animal living beings actually constitute a carpet of flowers in a meadow, flowers that have evolved to a higher form. The meadow is daily life. Just as the flowers in the meadow display a great variety of colours and species, terrestrial human beings also display a great variety of mental colours and species. Just as it would be foolish to curse a flower for its particular colour and species, it would be equally foolish to curse or condemn a terrestrial human being for his mental colour and species. Just as the flower cannot help belonging to a particular species or having a particular colour, the terrestrial human being equally cannot help having this or that mental colour or character. Punishing and condemning a terrestrial human being because he is not an angel or a moral genius would be the same as punishing a dog because it is a dog and not another being. It would be the same as punishing an "animal" because it is not a "human being". Such behaviour can be manifested only by a being who, in his ignorance, rushes in where angels fear to tread.